After builders cleaning in London

After builders cleaning in London with Cleaning Services London starts at £212, two cleaners for three hours plus equipment, best booked once every trade has finished, because fine dust keeps settling for days.

The rate is £30 per cleaner-hour plus £32 for equipment and detergents. The time goes on what building work leaves: plaster dust on every ledge and inside every cupboard, paint spots on the glass and the floor, a film of grout and adhesive on new tiles and grit packed into window frames and door tracks.

Fine dust keeps settling for days

Sanding filler, cutting tiles and chasing walls for cables puts dust into the air that is fine enough to hang there for hours and to keep coming down for days. It lands on every flat surface, works into door tops and the runners of drawers and drops again out of light fittings and air vents after the first wipe.

So the order of the clean matters. The cleaners start high, with the door tops, the tops of the units and the ledges, and work down through the walls and surfaces to the floor. Dust is hoovered off before anything wet goes near it, because wet plaster dust smears into a film that takes longer to lift than the dust did.

On a big job, such as a loft conversion or a full refurbishment, some dust will still come down in the week after the clean. A shorter second visit picks it up; ask about one when we ring back.

Book once the trades have finished

The clean should be the last job on the list. If the electrician still has sockets to fit, the decorator has a second coat to do or the floor fitter has not been, each of them brings new dust and offcuts in, and parts of the clean have to be done again. Book the date for after the last trade finishes, and leave a day of margin if you can, since building work runs late more often than early.

Before the cleaners arrive, have the rubble, offcuts, packaging and tools taken away; building waste goes with the builders or in the skip. The water and electricity have to be on. On a rewire the power can be off for days, so check it is back before the date.

An after builders clean removes the dust and residue left by the work

An after builders clean is an hour-priced clean of a home after building or decorating work, aimed at the dust, paint and residue the work leaves, so the rooms are ready to live in again.

Paint spots

Splashes of emulsion and gloss come off the glass, the tiles, the sockets and switches and the hard floors. On glass a scraper is held flat to the pane; on wood, stone and vinyl the cleaners work with the finish and keep blades away. Paint that has soaked into unsealed stone or open grout may not come out completely.

Adhesive and grout film

New tiling is often left with a haze of grout across the faces of the tiles and smears of adhesive in the corners. The cleaners take the haze off, work it out of textured tiles and remove the sticky residue of protective film and labels from new windows, doors and appliances.

Window frames and tracks

Sliding door tracks, the drainage channels in uPVC frames and the gaps round the handles fill with grit. They are hoovered out and wiped, and the frames, the sills and the inside of the glass are cleaned.

Cupboards, radiators and fittings

Dust gets inside new kitchen units, wardrobes and drawers even with the doors shut, so they are cleaned inside and out. Radiators, skirting boards, door frames, switches, sockets and the outside of the extractor hood are wiped, and the floor is hoovered and then mopped as the last job.

After builders cleaning compared with a deep clean

A deep clean is £26 per cleaner-hour plus £30 and is meant for a lived-in home: grease in the kitchen, limescale in the bathroom, dust in the places a weekly clean skips. An after builders clean costs more an hour and is meant for the mess the work made, with plaster dust on everything at once, paint on the glass and grout haze on new tiles. If the only work was one room repainted with the floor covered, a deep clean may be enough; tell us what was done and we suggest which to book.

Carpets that sat under dust sheets for weeks hold fine dust deep in the pile, which a hoover only partly lifts. Hot water extraction on the carpet cleaning page is priced by the room, £36 a bedroom, and is best booked after this clean.

Booking an after builders clean

Use the form or ring 020 3734 1438 and tell us what was done, the size of the home and the day the last trade finishes. We ring back to agree the hours, the team and the date, and to confirm the price. A 50% deposit secures the date and the rest is paid once the clean is done. Ring any time; we confirm bookings between 8am and 7pm on any day of the week.

The cleaners are vetted and trained and arrive with their own equipment and products. If the builders are still on site that morning, let them know a team is coming so the rooms are clear.