Our warranty at a glance
Warranty call goes to Michael Bass personally. (385) 247-9359.
2020
Pre-1978 homes requiring lead-safe renovation work are referred to an EPA RRP-certified subcontractor for the lead-affected scope; True Day performs the water damage restoration portion.
Locally owned. One location. South Jordan, Utah.
True Day Water Damage Restoration operates from a single storefront at 11268 S 2865 W in South Jordan — no franchise, no national network, no affiliate program, no branch offices. When you call (385) 247-9359, you are calling one location that is answered live and staffed by owner Michael Bass and a small team of W-2 employees. Every project is dispatched from this address; every technician who arrives at your home works here.
Background
Michael Bass came to water damage restoration from residential construction and property maintenance. He spent years working hands-on with leak cleanup, demolition, drying equipment, and coordinating repairs alongside homeowners and other contractors. That combination of trades experience gives him a working understanding of how homes are built, where water hides, and what has to happen to restore a structure properly — not just to make the visible damage go away.Why He Started True Day in 2020
During his years responding to water emergencies for other companies, Michael watched homeowners struggle to get clear answers during the most stressful moments of a restoration project. Nobody explained what was actually happening inside their walls. Nobody told them what the drying process would look like or how long it would take. Nobody kept them informed between the first visit and the final walkthrough. Michael founded True Day Water Damage Restoration in 2020 with a specific commitment: build a local company that answers the phone when it rings, explains the drying process in plain language, and keeps customers informed from the first inspection through the final walkthrough. That commitment is why the business is called True Day — honest work, done properly, every day.His Role at True Day Today
Michael is not a distant owner sitting in an office. Day-to-day, he:- Handles incoming emergency calls personally when he can
- Visits job sites — often as the first True Day representative homeowners meet
- Plans the scope of work for each project alongside the on-site technician
- Checks moisture readings personally on active drying projects
- Coordinates the crew and equipment across concurrent projects
- Speaks directly with homeowners about progress, decisions, and next steps
Projects He Personally Leads
Michael takes personal lead on the projects that most need experienced judgment — including burst pipe losses, water heater failures, flooded basements, and projects requiring several days of structural drying with continuous monitoring. These are the projects where getting the assessment right on day one determines whether the restoration finishes in three days or three weeks. Getting the drying right prevents mold from becoming a follow-up call two months later.Community
Michael lives in the South Jordan area with his family. He supports local school and neighborhood events when his schedule allows. Outside of work, he enjoys hiking in the Wasatch Mountains, working on home projects, and spending time with his family. Being local matters — when he responds to a water emergency in South Jordan, he is often responding in neighborhoods where he shops for groceries and where his neighbors live.What This Means for Homeowners Who Call True Day
When you call (385) 247-9359, you are calling a business where:- The owner is actively involved in every project
- Every technician who arrives at your home is a True Day W-2 employee — not a subcontractor, not a franchise crew, not someone from a company that bought your call
- The written 45-minute arrival guarantee, written Limited Workmanship Warranty, and free no-obligation inspection policy are all standing commitments — signed and published, not verbal promises
- If something ever goes wrong on a True Day project, the owner is directly reachable and is expected to make it right
Credentials and Company Information
True Day Water Damage Restoration 11268 S 2865 W, South Jordan, UT 84095 Phone: (385) 247-9359 — live-answered 24/7/365 Email: info@truedaywaterdamagerestoration.xyz- Utah Contractor License #960332-3505
- IICRC Certified Firm #927354-5258
- General Liability Insurance: $1M / $2M through Liberty Mutual
- Workers’ Compensation: The Hartford $1M / $1M / $1M
- BBB Accredited (Letter Grade A)
- Founded 2020 in South Jordan, Utah
Related
- About True Day Water Damage Restoration
- Written Limited Workmanship Warranty
- 45-Minute Arrival Guarantee
- Free Inspection Policy
- Water Damage Restoration Services
- The True Day 45 Protocol — 6-Step Response Methodology
Certified
Firm
Named South Jordan customers who left reviews
Five of our 41 Google reviews are from named neighbors in four South Jordan neighborhoods. Click through to read what they actually wrote.
5.0 ★ average across all 41 reviews. We don’t paraphrase or republish customer words here — read them on Google, in the reviewer’s own voice.
Read all 41 reviews on Google →A note from Michael
If you have read this far down my page, you probably have a water-damage question you want a straight answer to. Call me and I will give you one.
Here is what I commit to, personally, on every True Day job:
I see every job myself. Not through a dashboard, not through a report. On Cat 2 or Cat 3 water, biohazard, or fire, I am on site at the first visit. On Cat 1 jobs I am on the morning check-in call with my tech, and I review the moisture log at closeout before you get the final file.
I take the warranty call. If something fails inside your 2-year workmanship window (or 90 days on mold), you call this number and I answer. The crew that dried your house takes the warranty visit — we don’t rotate.
I’ll tell you when it is not our job. If you call me with a situation that belongs with a plumber, a roofer, the city, or the water utility, I’ll say so and tell you who to call first. The jobs I take are the ones I can actually do well.
I don’t buy reviews. I don’t delete them. The 5.0 rating from 41 Google reviews is what it says it is — and if you call me after an unhappy job, we talk about what to fix, not how to delete your review.
Michael Bass FAQ
The questions people ask about True Day’s owner.
Who is Michael Bass?
Does Michael personally handle every job?
Can I reach Michael directly?
Does Michael personally respond to Google reviews?
Who signs the warranty, and who do I call under it?
Owner-operator vs. franchise or national chain
Both models can do a decent water-damage job. The difference is who decides, who shows up, and who answers if something goes wrong.
| What matters to you | True Day — owner-operated | A typical franchise or national chain |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers the phone | Michael Bass or a True Day dispatcher during business hours; a live answering service after hours. | A regional call center or franchise HQ that routes to whichever franchisee covers your ZIP that week. |
| Who shows up | Marcus, Sofia, Daniel, or Alex — four W-2 employees, named on this site. | Whichever subcontractor crew the franchise has available; names and training may vary job to job. |
| Who makes scope decisions | The on-site technician and Michael, within the IICRC S500 standard and your insurer’s scope. | A regional operations manager working from a corporate SOP binder, often remotely. |
| Who owns the warranty | True Day — one legal entity, one Utah contractor license, one COI. Transferable for two years. | The individual franchisee. If they close or lose their franchise, the warranty may not transfer with the brand. |
| Who answers a complaint | Michael Bass directly, same business day. See our written complaint-handling policy. | A franchise relations line or corporate ombudsman, often with longer resolution timelines. |
| Pricing model | Written estimate before any work; no royalty markup; same crew bills the mitigation and the rebuild. | Franchise royalty (commonly 7–10%) built into billing; mitigation and rebuild may be separate contracts. |
Who does what on your job — True Day vs typical franchise structure
A franchise or national brand has an operating structure that distributes a single job across five different parties. On a True Day job, two names cover all five columns. Here is the honest side-by-side.
| Stage of your job | On a True Day job | On a typical franchise/national job |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers your call | A True Day team member or our live answering service — call rings in Utah. | A regional or national call center that routes to the nearest available local franchisee. |
| Who arrives on-site | Marcus, Sofia, Daniel, or Alex — the W-2 technicians named on this site, with their IICRC Registrant numbers on the public registry. | A local franchisee’s crew (may include day-labor or independent contractors depending on volume). |
| Who holds the license and warranty | Michael Bass, DBA True Day — Utah license #960332-3505, 2-year workmanship warranty in his name. | The local franchisee’s license; warranty terms vary by franchisee. |
| Who performs the reconstruction | True Day under the same license and warranty — we do not sublet the rebuild to a separate contractor. | Often a different contractor than the mitigation crew — the franchise handles mitigation and refers rebuild out. |
| Who talks to your adjuster | Michael Bass directly for scope decisions and supplements — one point of contact from first visit through close-out. | A franchise claims coordinator who may route between the mitigation crew, the rebuild contractor, and the national brand’s TPA relationships. |
Operating principles I run the business by
A straightforward list of how I run True Day. Not aspirational mission-statement language — just what actually drives day-to-day decisions.
1. One phone number, one owner, one accountable name
When you call (385) 247-9359, you reach a dispatcher who connects you to me or to the right crew. There’s no franchise call-center, no account-management layer, no “someone will get back to you.” If you have a question or a complaint, I’m the person who answers it.
2. Documentation protects everyone
Every job generates more documentation than a cheap operator would produce. The reason is simple: documentation protects you if a dispute arises, protects us if a dispute arises, and protects both of us from mistakes neither side would catch without it. We over-document on principle.
3. Pick the right crew, keep them long-term
Marcus, Sofia, Daniel, and Alex are W-2 employees. They’ve been with us long enough that we know how each one approaches work. On a hard job, I know which tech to send and why. Sub-contracted crews rotate; relationships with homeowners don’t develop. The W-2 model costs us more in overhead and pays back in consistency.
4. Honesty costs less than fraud over time
Insurance fraud, scope inflation, and gated reviews all look like short-term wins. They aren’t. The restoration industry’s reputation is bad for exactly these reasons, and the firms doing them end up with regulatory problems, class-action lawsuits, and license issues eventually. We’d rather lose a specific job than cut ethical corners.
5. Say no when we can’t do something well
There’s a long list of things we don’t do — lead-paint abatement, meth-lab remediation, foundation repair, encapsulation, large catastrophic losses outside our capacity. For each one, we refer rather than attempt. The reputation for “we’ll say no when it’s not our strength” is worth more than the revenue from jobs we’d do poorly.
6. Small shop beats big promises
True Day is one location, four W-2 technicians, one owner. We’re not trying to grow into a regional chain or add franchise units. The size cap is deliberate — it’s the size where I can personally be on every initial scope and every close-out walk, which is the model that works for our customers.
What “owner-operator” means in day-to-day terms
“Owner-operator” is a phrase a lot of restoration companies use. For some, it means the owner has a stake and shows up for marketing photos. For us it means Michael Bass is the person on job sites, on larger-scale commercial work, and on the back-up line overnight. If you call us at 2 AM on a sewage call, Michael is one of two people who may be dispatched to you. Here’s what that structure actually looks like:
Michael’s day-to-day role
- Lead tech on large-loss and commercial jobs
- Back-up on-call for after-hours emergencies (primary + Michael + answering service — see our 24/7 page)
- Final sign-off on every job’s completion documentation
- Direct point of contact for insurance adjusters on complex claims
- Writes every scope of work and every change order personally — so there’s no “someone else quoted it” miscommunication
What Michael does NOT do
- Pass your call to a sales department — we don’t have one
- Hand your job to a franchisee or a 1099 contractor — our four W-2 techs are the whole restoration team
- Delegate the warranty call — if you call us a year later about something that came up, Michael is the one on the phone
True Day Water Damage Restoration is a sole proprietorship DBA under Michael Bass — not an LLC behind a brand name. That has implications for liability (Michael is personally accountable) and for responsiveness (there’s no corporate layer between you and the owner).
What a typical workday actually looks like for the owner
“Owner-operator” is a label, but what it means day-to-day shapes how the business runs. Here’s a reasonably representative weekday for Michael — the structure that makes same-day owner-level responsiveness possible:
Weekend structure
- Saturday: active job coverage (same-day dispatch continues); scheduled estimate visits in blocks
- Sunday: emergency-only dispatch; no scheduled work unless customer specifically requests it
- Rotating on-call across the week; weekends are busier for emergency volume (people home, more likely to notice losses, more likely to call vs wait to Monday)
Why this schedule works for a 4-tech company
- Owner on the ground means scope decisions don’t wait for office hours
- Smaller crew means direct accountability — if a job isn’t going right, the owner knows the same day
- Direct customer access — you can reach the owner on day 1 and still reach the same person for a warranty claim 18 months later
Why it wouldn’t work at larger scale
- Beyond 4-6 techs and 2-3 simultaneous active jobs, the owner can’t physically cover the ground this way
- At that scale the role shifts to project management rather than lead tech, which is a different business
- We’ve stayed deliberately at this scale — it’s the shape of operation we think serves customers best for this type of work
Our size is a choice, not a limit. If you need a larger operation for a larger scope, we’ll tell you honestly.
How the owner stays current (continuing education + professional development)
Restoration isn’t static. IICRC standards update periodically; equipment technology improves; Utah licensing requirements shift; insurance industry practices evolve. Michael’s continuing-education habits are what keep True Day’s practice current.
- Utah GC license: continuing education hours required for 2-year renewal
- IICRC Firm status: annual compliance with ethics code + maintained technician cert counts
- Each individual IICRC cert the owner holds: continuing-education credits per 4-year cycle
Beyond required (what the owner does proactively)
- IICRC convention / regional training — annual attendance when the schedule and location permits; multi-day workshops on specific scopes (large-loss commercial, specialty remediation, etc.)
- Equipment manufacturer training — new equipment classes offered by Dri-Eaz, Phoenix, Legend when we adopt new generations; teaches us the engineering changes, not just the operation
- Insurance-industry sessions — occasionally attends adjuster-focused training to understand how carriers evaluate claims; useful for scope writing
- Local chapter meetings — IICRC regional chapter and Utah restoration association meetings for peer-learning and industry updates
What the owner reads regularly
- IICRC bulletins (standards updates, interpretation guidance)
- C&R Magazine, Restoration & Remediation Magazine (industry trade publications)
- Utah DOPL licensing notifications
- EPA bulletins when they’re relevant to our scope (lead-safe, mold, biocide)
- Specific technical references — psychrometric chart literature, materials-science references for restoration
What the owner teaches
- Our in-house tech development — direct training on specific scopes, scope-writing, insurance interaction
- Occasional presentation at local chapter meetings on topics he’s worked on
- Informal mentorship with newer techs in the industry who ask — both inside the firm and sometimes at other firms
Why this matters for your job
- Standards used on your job reflect current IICRC guidance, not practices from a decade ago
- Equipment and techniques used are current-industry; we don’t hold onto obsolete methods out of inertia
- Insurance interactions reflect current carrier practice; we’re not applying 5-year-old assumptions to today’s carriers
What hasn’t changed in Michael’s approach
- Honest scope writing
- Direct customer involvement at the lead-tech or owner level
- Documentation discipline
- Treating customers like adults who can handle real information about their own property
CE isn’t glamorous and most of it doesn’t show in day-to-day interactions, but it’s what makes a 2026 True Day job better than a 2021 True Day job.
How to reach the owner directly (and when it’s appropriate)
Many customers appreciate knowing they can reach the owner of the company. Here’s how to actually do that + which situations warrant it:
- Phone: (385) 247-9359 and ask for Michael — usually in the field during the day but reachable
- Email: general email routes to the owner by default; no screening layer
- In-person: office visit by appointment at 11268 S 2865 W, South Jordan
Situations where reaching Michael directly is appropriate
- Complaint or dispute about work quality or process — always goes to the owner
- Warranty claim — owner handles warranty follow-up personally
- Commercial or large-loss scope — owner typically leads these jobs
- Insurance scope dispute with your adjuster — owner handles the carrier interaction
- Specific technical question that your lead tech couldn’t resolve
- Follow-up on past job that didn’t resolve through standard channels
- Prospective large-scope or recurring commercial relationship
Situations where lead tech or office is faster
- Daily moisture-check timing or scheduling
- Equipment-related operational questions during an active job
- Standard FAQ-type questions covered elsewhere on the site
- Document-copy requests (routine; office handles)
- Appointment scheduling for routine inspections
When Michael is reachable fastest
- Early morning (6-7:30 AM) — before field dispatch for the day
- Lunch hour (12-1 PM) — office administrative time
- End of day (5-7 PM) — wrap-up window
- Overnight/weekend emergencies — direct via (385) 247-9359
What NOT to use the direct line for
- Marketing or vendor pitches — office general email handles these; owner usually doesn’t
- Non-restoration-industry solicitations — redirected politely
- Information from past-job disputes 7+ years ago — archive retrieval may not be immediate
What Michael is honest about with every direct customer contact
- “I don’t have the answer to that right now — let me check and get back to you” is a legitimate response and you’ll hear it when applicable
- If a question is outside restoration scope (legal, medical, insurance interpretation of your specific policy), he redirects to the right expert
- If a dispute is being discussed, he listens before offering a response or resolution
Response time for direct owner contact
- Phone during business hours: usually callback within 2-4 hours if he’s in the field
- Email during business hours: same business day typically
- Overnight emergency: direct dispatch; same-call interaction
- Weekend non-emergency: next business day
If you’ve worked with us before and want to reach Michael
- Reference the approximate date of your previous work in the first message — helps locate your file quickly
- Reference the crew member you worked with if you remember
- Mention what you’re following up on (warranty, documentation request, question about current situation)
- Direct owner response within business hours is standard for past-customer follow-ups
What direct access means operationally
- You’re not routed through customer service or a dispatcher
- Michael’s answers are specific to your situation, not generic
- Decisions about your job can be made at owner-level without delegation
- If you need to escalate anything, there’s no further escalation needed — owner is the top
Direct owner contact is a feature of our 4-tech operation that larger restoration companies can’t offer. It’s reasonable to use when the situation warrants it — and it’s one of the operational trade-offs that comes with hiring a small independent instead of a franchise.
From technician to IICRC Certified Firm owner
True Day started as a one-person operation in 2020. Getting from there to IICRC Certified Firm status — Firm #927354-5258 — took several years of specific professional development that the firm status now reflects. Here is the sequence:
The credential matters because it means the firm — not just the individual — commits to the IICRC standards framework. Hiring a single IICRC-certified technician from any firm is one thing; hiring an IICRC Certified Firm means the whole operation is accountable to that standard, not just the person who shows up.