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  • By Admin
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  • Sep 10, 2022

What is an After builders clean ?

One common question we get from our clients outside of the construction industry (homeowners and owner builders) is – what is a builders clean and what does it include?

The first thing I’d like to mention before getting into the details, is that a builders clean is NOT a standard house clean. There are a lot of construction companies that are misrepresenting their services when they say "we will complete a builders cleaning" when they are just doing regular domestic cleaning.

In general, there are two stages of a builders clean –

Initial / Rough Clean

This is the first stage of a builders clean and  involves removal of rubbish, dust and debris from all surfaces of the building. It is usually done part way through the construction process (e.g. cleaning up all the gyprock dust so floors or tiles can be installed). A lot of builders or construction companies also use this service before a client walk through so any trade defects can be easily spotted.

Final Detail Clean

This is the final stage and is what sets a REAL builders clean apart from a regular house clean. It involves removal of trade defects such as render splatter on windows, straightening grout lines and removing grout haze on tiles, detailing of tiles, paint marks from floorboards and much more.

The final detail clean is what will give your home that showroom quality finish. You can easily tell when a new home has had a final detail clean because the difference is like night and day.

This stage also takes the longest due to the amount of detail that is required. Unfortunately, there are a lot of construction companies who leave this part out of their quote to make their prices seem cheaper or because they have no idea how to quote what a REAL builders clean is supposed to include. Worse yet, there have been cases of some cleaners causing permanent damage to the home by using harsh chemicals unnecessarily and without the necessary experience. 

So what does a Buiders clean cost?

The cost and requirements can vary depending on a number of factors including:

Skill and care of tradesman – The workmanship of your tradesman make a huge difference to the final price.

For example, it will only take 10 minutes or so to clean a large window with frames if you have a good renderer that uses due care and tapes up the windows before starting their work. It can take more than triple the time if they don't bother to do it.

Building materials used to build the home – Another contributing factor is the materials used.

For example, a bathroom that has glazed ceramic tiles will take two hours to detail but will take twice as long if it has porous tiles.

Whether tradesman and builder cleaned up after themselves

Time is money for builders / tradesman and they usually run on a tight schedule. Some reputable builders will get their laborers to do a rough clean on the property before finishing up but expect a higher cleaning bill if they don’t.