Who to hire for a house to clean after building work

Short answer

A cleaning business that does builders cleans specifically. Fine construction dust — plaster, silica, sawdust — settles into every surface and gets pushed around by ordinary vacuuming, so the work is done in stages with proper filtration, usually a rough clean and then a detail clean once the dust has finished falling.

Plan itThere is time to get more than one quote, which is where the money is.

What to do before anyone arrives

  1. Wait until the trades are genuinely finished. A detail clean before the last bit of cutting is money spent twice.
  2. Ask the builder what was cut on site. Concrete, masonry and engineered stone all produce respirable crystalline silica and that changes how the cleanup should be handled.
  3. Check who is responsible for the clean under your building contract — many include a final clean and the standard is often lower than you expect.
  4. Note the delicate surfaces: new tapware, stone benchtops, timber floors and paint that has not fully cured.

What to ask when you book

  • Is this one visit or a rough and a detail clean?
  • What vacuum filtration are you using?
  • Are windows, tracks, paint spots and stickers included?
  • What are you using on new stone, timber and tapware?

What changes the price

No dollar figures here: this directory holds no price data and an invented range is worse than none. What follows is what makes one of these jobs cost more than the same job next door, which is the part you can actually use when comparing quotes.

  • Size and how much construction work was done.
  • Whether it is one pass or two.
  • Windows, and removing paint and adhesive residue.
  • Whether the site still has rubbish to remove.

What you can do yourself

Is this licensed work?

Not licensed. Silica dust from cutting concrete, masonry and engineered stone is a serious respiratory hazard and is the subject of specific work health and safety regulation, which is a reason to care about the equipment being used.

There is no national register. Search the licence number with the regulator for the state the work is happening in.

Licensing thresholds and certificate requirements differ by state and change with amending regulation, so this page describes the mechanism rather than quoting a figure. The regulator’s own page is the current answer.

Common questions

Who should I hire for a house to clean after building work
A cleaning business that does builders cleans specifically. Fine construction dust — plaster, silica, sawdust — settles into every surface and gets pushed around by ordinary vacuuming, so the work is done in stages with proper filtration, usually a rough clean and then a detail clean once the dust has finished falling.
Why does the dust keep coming back?
Because construction dust is extremely fine, it lodges in every cavity, ledge and track, and it continues to fall out of the air and off high surfaces for days. That is the reason a builders clean is normally staged: a first pass to remove the bulk, then a detail clean once everything that is going to settle has settled.

Find a Cleaner near you

3,843 cleaners in this directory, ranked on published evidence rather than on advertising.

Who to hire for

General information about who does what, not advice about your specific job. Licensing, consumer law and council rules differ by state and change; the regulator for your state is the current source. More guides to hiring a tradesperson.