Post-build cleaning in Clapham, Battersea and Balham.

Post-build cleaning is the clean that happens after the trades have gone: after a side return, a loft conversion, a kitchen, a bathroom, a whole-house refurbishment or a new-build handover. Dust from cutting plasterboard, sanding timber and drilling brick is far finer than household dust and it holds onto surfaces electrostatically. Domestic equipment moves it around the room. Specialist equipment takes it out.

The scope is every reachable surface rather than the ones people look at: walls, ceilings, floors, fittings, glass, tiles, sockets, vents, rails, tracks and the tops of the doors. Plaster splashes on tile, paint flecks on glass, silicone smears on a worktop and mortar on a new floor are all part of it.

This is normally the last job before somebody moves in, whether that is the family coming back, an incoming tenant or a buyer at handover. It is the difference between a build that is finished and a build that has stopped.

It runs top down, room by room, in an order that does not put dust back onto something already finished. Anyone who starts with the floors is doing them twice.

Vacuuming is done with HEPA-filtered machines rather than domestic vacuums, which pass the finest dust straight back out into the air. Walls, ceilings, light fittings, the tops of frames, rails and every ledge get vacuumed, not just the floors. Dust left on a ceiling drops as soon as the heating goes on, which is why a build cleaned cheaply needs cleaning again a fortnight later.

Hand wiping follows the vacuum, with the product matched to the surface: damp microfibre on most things, glass product on glass, and the right treatment on stone, quartz or stainless steel. Sockets, switch plates, vent grilles and window tracks are done individually, because a cloth passed over them only redistributes what is in them.

Builder marks come off with the appropriate chemistry, and on glass a blade is used where paint or silicone has set hard. New chrome, glass and stone pick up water marks quickly in this supply, which is hard across the whole Thames Water region, so surfaces are dried off rather than left to air dry with scale drying onto them.

Glass is done inside and out where access allows, with tracks and trickle vents vacuumed and wiped, and extract grilles taken off, cleaned and refitted. On a converted house or a mansion block the team also cleans back the communal stairs and hallway the trades walked through, which is usually what the other residents and the managing agent are actually annoyed about.

Floors go last: full vacuum, then the right mop, polish or seal for the material, and steam on carpet where it needs it. Then a walk-through with you or with the builder before sign-off.

Some builders include the handover clean. Plenty do not, and the customer finds out in the last week of the build, which is the week everything else is happening as well.

We put the clean into your handover date instead of onto your list. The team is briefed on the scope before they ring you, so the price you get is against the actual property rather than a guess made on the phone.

The match matters when the date is fixed. A domestic refurbishment, a mansion-block bathroom with lift protection and a booking sheet, and a commercial unit that has to open on a Monday morning are three different crews on three different shift patterns.

It costs you nothing. The team quotes you, or the builder if they are paying, and we are paid by them for the introduction. We name the firm and tell you what we checked before they attend.

We do not carry out post-build cleaning ourselves, and we will not pretend otherwise. We refer it to vetted specialist teams who cover South West London and travel. Which team gets the job depends on what the case actually needs, who can be at the property in the window you have, and whether anyone is living there.

Lead specialist for post-build cleaning: a vetted specialist team that covers South West London. Post-build work goes to a team we have checked for HEPA-filtered equipment, a crew big enough to hold a fixed handover date, and a registered route for the waste that leaves at the end of it. We check insurance, waste licensing and, where the property is occupied, DBS status, and we tell you the firm and what we checked before anyone attends.

Also available: a second vetted team on the same checks and a travelling specialist team. Used when the first team is committed elsewhere, or when the job needs a bigger crew or a longer run of days. Used where a job needs certification, equipment or capacity that the South West London teams do not hold.

You don't pick the team yourself. On our call after you submit the form we match your case to the right one, tell you who it is and what we checked, and hand over the brief. You pay them directly. We never add a markup.