A handover is a date, not a window. Everything on a site runs towards it, and the clean is the last thing between the finished building and the person who signs it off. That person, the certifier or the client, does not walk the site looking at the floors. They open things. A cabinet, a drawer, a window track. What they find there decides whether the building is handed back or whether a crew is going around again with the date already gone.
This post is for the site manager or contract administrator writing the programme, and it answers two questions: what the walk-through actually looks at, and where the cleans belong so the date holds.
What the walk-through opens first
Floors get noticed, but they are not what fails a handover. What fails it is the detail. Internal glass on both faces. Window tracks, frames and sills. Joinery interiors, drawers and cabinets. Skirtings, edges and door furniture. Those are the things a walk-through opens first, and they are hand work: a cloth, a scraper, a vacuum with the right head, and somebody who knows to look inside rather than at.
The slab is a different job. By handover it is wearing the whole build: the plaster dust, the slurry from the wet trades, and a film that no mop shifts. Getting that off is machine work, ride-on and walk-behind scrubbers, rotary machines on hard floors, squeegee and extraction where the slab is wet, and a ride-on sweeper on decks and car parks. That is why the floors and the detail are two different bookings, below.
Where the cleans sit in a build
Cleaning is not one line at the end of the programme. On the jobs we have run it is three different moments, and booking them as one is the mistake that costs the date.
During the build: the sheds and amenities
While the build runs, the site sheds and amenities need servicing, and the consumables need someone restocking them. It is a standing job rather than a one-off, and the same crew that will do the handover can carry it, which means they already know the site when the handover date arrives. It is on our site sheds page.
After the trades: the floors
Once the wet trades and the fit-out are out, the slab can be done by machine. This is the clean that needs the site clear, because a scrubber cannot work around a plasterer. Book it for the day after the last trade leaves the floor, not that day, and give it the run of the building.
Before the walk-through: the detail
The detail clean is the last thing, and it is the one the walk-through sees. Glass, tracks, joinery, hardware, done by hand, with the builder walking it alongside where that is wanted. On one hospital job the cabinet interiors were checked with the builder before the crew left the floor, which is the best time to find the one that was missed.
Legal on site, no paperwork chase. Our cleaners hold White Cards and are trained in asbestos and silica awareness. They arrive inducted, so nobody chases certificates on the morning of the clean, and they come onto the site with the scrubbers, extractors and lifts the job needs.
The buildings this comes from
We have handed buildings back to ten builders on twelve jobs across Canberra and southern New South Wales: a hospital, a council building, a federal department building, a national hardware store, a hotel, a community centre, and apartment and townhouse stages. They are listed, with the builder beside each one, on our projects page. Two of those builders came back with a second job.
Booking it so the date holds
Tell us the handover date, not the week. We have the crew depth to make a date, but a date is what we are making. Book the floors for the day after the floor is clear, book the detail for the day before the walk-through, and put the sheds on a standing interval from the day the site opens. Then the clean is a line in the programme like any other, rather than the thing everyone remembers on the morning of.
What a handover clean covers, and the machines it takes, is on the handover page. For a programme with a date on it, request a site visit and we will walk it with you.