Renovation Cleans

There will be occasions when you will be asked to do either a Renovation Clean or a Builders Clean, so you will need to be prepared for how to do the work. Renovation Cleans are relatively simple to do – they just require a lot more time than the usual Spring-Clean. Builders Cleans are much harder and require specialized knowledge for you to successfully tackle them without creating damage due to your inexperience and lack of knowledge.

Renovation Cleans will be just like a normal clean except that in every corner of the house you will find a thick layer of Builder’s dust ie: the kind of dust that results from sanding the floor or walls, cutting gyp rock and sawing wood. The main use of your time at one of these cleans will be to dust. And dust you will! You’ll spend absolutely hours cleaning up the dust! Not only that, but the dust will be the kind that you have to clean up again and again because it leaves a white smear behind after you have wiped the area clean. You’ll look and say to yourself  ‘But I just cleaned that area. Why is it so dirty still?’  The truth is that the tiny specks of dust are made of sanded down floors and walls, concrete and grout. By wetting them you are actually coagulating the mixture so that it blends together like a paste, and this is why it is so difficult to get rid of. The trick here is NOT TO WET THE DUST!!!  Let me say it again and highlight it:

Do not wet Builders dust – dry dust only!

You will use your time more efficiently at a Renovation Clean if you use your vacuum cleaner rather than using the ‘wet and dry’ dusting technique that would normally be used at a Regular Maintenance clean. Take your vacuum and use the brushes and crevice tools in every possible area of the house that you can reach. Give the house a really good, thorough vacuum before you dust, and then you will have much better results when you do clean. Use dry cloths to gather the dust and sweep it into a corner so that you can vacuum it up, but be careful because this kind of dust is very gritty and will scratch the surfaces of furniture and glass.

Builders Cleans at homes that have just finished being built are a totally specialized area, and I would need to devote a whole book to this type of clean alone, so I won’t go into it here. The only thing I will say is don’t attempt to do a Builders Clean without having the training that you need first. Call and ask me for more info if you need it and I will happily advise you on what you need to know, and if there is enough call for it I will run a training workshop especially dedicated to Builders Cleans.