What's Included in an After Builders Clean (Full Specification)

Almost every argument about an after builders clean comes from the same place: the builder, the cleaner and the homeowner each had a different job in mind, and nobody wrote it down. "Builders clean" is not one thing. It is a family of three related jobs at three different points in a project, reaching three different standards, and the price gap between them is enormous. This is the full specification — what each stage covers, what a finished clean should include room by room, what is excluded, and which of it is the builder's responsibility rather than the cleaner's.

The three stages — and which one you are actually buying

Getting this right before you compare quotes solves most of the problem. The three stages are standard vocabulary on UK sites, and a contractor's "builders clean" line item usually means the middle one.

On a small domestic project the first two often merge. On a new build, a fit-out or a phased commercial job they are separate visits with separate prices. The mistake to avoid is booking one main clean and expecting sparkle standard on the day the last trade leaves — fine construction dust keeps settling for days, which is why our after builders cleaning cost guide treats the settle-back visit as part of the job rather than an extra.

What's included as standard

This is the specification a completed after builders clean should meet. Work runs top down and the whole sequence happens more than once, because anything disturbed at high level lands on what has already been done.

Everywhere — the dust pass

• Ceilings, coving, cornice and picture rails de-dusted
• Light fittings, pendants, spotlight bezels, smoke and heat detectors
• Extract vents, grilles, trickle vents and air bricks
• High-level ledges, beams, boxing and the tops of doors and door frames
• Doors, frames, architrave, handles and hinges
• Skirting, dado rails and the join where they meet the floor
• Radiators, radiator backs, valves and exposed pipework
• Sockets, switches, thermostats, consumer units and media plates
• Stair spindles, handrails, newel posts and the underside of open treads
• Fitted wardrobes and storage — inside, on top and behind the doors

Glass, frames and joinery

• Internal glass cleaned both sides where reachable, including French and bi-fold doors
• Frames, reveals, sills and cills de-dusted and washed
• Runners, tracks, trickle vents and hinges cleared of grit — the part most often missed
• Protective film, manufacturer labels, barcode stickers and adhesive residue removed
• Plaster and paint speckle, silicone smears and adhesive spots taken off glass carefully rather than scraped
• Rooflights and internal glazed screens where they can be reached safely

Kitchens and utility rooms

• Inside every unit, drawer and carcass — construction dust settles inside closed doors during fitting
• Cupboard fronts, handles, plinths, end panels and the tops of wall units
• Worktops, upstands and splashbacks; grout haze removed from tiling
• Appliance housings, and the interiors of integrated appliances that have been fitted
• Extractor hood, filter housing and the wall behind it
• Sink, taps, waste and the seal around the sink cut-out
• Boiler casing, meter cupboards and service voids where accessible

Bathrooms, en-suites and cloakrooms

• All sanitaryware cleaned and polished; protective film and labels removed
• Shower screens, enclosures, trays and drains — including grout haze and silicone residue
• Tiling washed down and buffed; grout haze is the single biggest job in a newly tiled bathroom
• Chrome, brassware, towel rails and shower fittings polished and streak-free
• Extract fan grille, ceiling around it and any inspection hatch
• Vanity units inside and out, mirrors, cabinets and shaver points

Floors — always last

• Filtered vacuum extraction throughout, including edges, corners and behind doors
• Plaster, paint, adhesive and grout spots lifted from hard floors using damp methods, not scraping
• Grout haze removed from tiled and stone floors
• Hard floors washed and finished appropriate to the material — new timber, resin, stone and large-format tile each get different treatment
• Carpets and soft flooring vacuumed; hot-water extraction if specified as an add-on

Common add-ons (usually priced separately)

• External windows, and anything above ground-floor reach needing a tower or access equipment
• Carpet and upholstery extraction after the trades — see our carpet cleaning cost guide for per-room pricing
• Sealing or polishing of new stone, concrete or timber floors
• External areas — patios, paths, drives and the frontage
• Garages, lofts, outbuildings and garden rooms
• Adjoining lived-in rooms that were not part of the works but caught the dust
• Additional return visits beyond the settle-back visit, for example after a long snagging list

What's not included

• Waste removal. Construction waste is business waste, and GOV.UK's duty of care requires you to "check if your waste carrier is registered to dispose of waste" and to "complete a waste transfer note for each load of waste that leaves your premises" (GOV.UK). Cleaning contractors are not registered waste carriers, so rubble, offcuts and packaging leave with the builder.
• Snagging and remedial finishing. Chipped paint, poor caulking, gaps in grout, misaligned doors and damaged finishes are the contractor's to put right. A clean makes them visible — it does not fix them.
• Anything asbestos-related. This is a hard boundary, not a preference; our cost guide explains why, including HSE's position that asbestos can be present in any building built or refurbished before the year 2000.
• Removing cured or bonded materials where removal would damage the finish — set adhesive, cured paint on carpet, scratched glass. We will say so before trying rather than after.
• Work at height beyond safe reach without the right access equipment.
• Cleaning around live trades. If joiners are still second-fixing, the clean is not the last job — it is a job that will need repeating.

How it differs from a deep clean or an end of tenancy clean

If the work was a refresh rather than a build, a deep clean is usually the right job and the deep clean cost guide has the numbers. If the property is a rental going straight back on the market, an end of tenancy clean is a different specification again — our guide to what's included in an end of tenancy clean sets that one out.

Who is responsible for what

Worth knowing before you find yourself refereeing between a builder and a cleaner. On domestic building work the legal duties do not sit where most homeowners assume. HSE defines a domestic client as "any individual who has construction work carried out on their home, or the home of a family member, that is not done as part of any business" — and on a single-contractor project "the contractor… must take on the legal duties of the client in addition to their own as contractor", or on a multi-contractor project "the principal contractor… must take on the legal duties of the client" (HSE, CDM 2015).

In practice that means site tidiness, waste, safe access and handing over a property that is finished and clear of tools sit with your builder. The cleaning contractor's job starts when that is true. A clean booked before it is true is the most common way a fixed price becomes a conversation about extras.

How to check the scope matches your project

1. Establish which stage you are buying — rough, main or sparkle — and get it named in writing.
2. Confirm how many visits are included, and specifically whether the settle-back visit is one of them.
3. List the exclusions explicitly: waste, external glass, carpets, high-level access, external areas.
4. Check whether your builder's quote already includes a builders clean. Many do, at rough-clean standard, and it is worth knowing before you pay twice for the same stage.
5. Agree that the property will be empty of tools and trades on the day, and hold the contractor to it.
6. Ask what happens if a snagging visit later re-dusts a finished room, and get that answer before you book rather than after.

After builders cleaning across Berkshire & Surrey

We quote after builders cleaning as a fixed job after a site assessment, with the stage, the scope and the number of visits written down — including the settle-back visit rather than adding it to the invoice later. The same team handles extensions, loft and kitchen refits, new-build handovers and phased commercial fit-outs. Plant-based products and reusable colour-coded microfibre are standard, which matters on a handover where somebody is about to move in.

We cover Reading, Slough, Bracknell, Maidenhead, Windsor, Ascot and the surrounding Surrey villages — see every area we cover. Request a fixed quote or book online.

Written by the Berkshire EcoClean team from hands-on operational experience across Berkshire & Surrey. Pricing figures cite published UK sources and are reviewed every six months.