Industry Tips

The Defect Walk: What We Check Before You Sign Off a Handover Clean

Builders Clean supervisor working through the handover checklist on site

Every Builders Clean job ends the same way: a supervisor and your site manager, walking the site against the scope, before anyone calls it done. It is the single mechanism that separates a clean that survives the client walkthrough from one that generates a defects list. Here is what actually gets checked, and why.

Glass, in raking light

Glazing gets inspected the way your client will accidentally inspect it: standing where the sun rakes across the pane. Streaks, smears and scraper misses that are invisible face on jump out in raking light. Every pane gets the angle check, inside and out, including the shower screens, because glass is where handover cleans are won and lost.

Wet areas, at touch height and tap distance

Bathrooms are checked from where a person actually stands. Tapware and mirrors get the fingerprint check. Grout lines get looked at low, where haze hides. Shower channels and floor wastes get opened, because a spotless bathroom with a dusty waste grate reads as unfinished to a buyer. Silicone lines get run with a finger: a clean bead should feel smooth, not gritty.

Joinery, inside and on top

Every drawer and cupboard gets opened. Sawdust in a kitchen drawer is the most common thing a client finds after a cheap clean, because closed joinery is where rushed crews stop looking. Tops of overhead cupboards get the hand test even though nobody can see up there, because the first thing a new owner does is put something on top.

Floors, edges first

The middle of a floor is never the problem. The walk checks edges, corners, under kickboards and behind door swings, where mop passes end and dust collects. Hard floors get checked against light for haze from cleaning products themselves, which is its own defect.

Switches, frames and the touch points

Light switches, power points, door handles, door frames at hand height and balustrade rails. These are the surfaces a walkthrough touches without thinking, and paint flecks or plaster dust on any of them undoes the impression the rest of the clean built.

Outside the front door

Entry glazing, letterboxes, external light fittings and the path to the door. The client's impression of the clean starts before the key turns. On multi residential, lobby and lift interiors get walked on every floor visit because they are shared and re soiled constantly.

What happens with what we find

Anything raised on the walk gets fixed on the spot, while the crew is still on site. Nothing goes on a list to be argued about later. Then the before and after photo report gets delivered with the sign off, so what was agreed and what was delivered are the same document.

And the guarantee that makes the walk honest: if your client finds something we missed after sign off, we come back and fix it at no cost. The walk exists so that almost never happens.

If your current cleaning contractor's handover process is a text message saying "all done", send us the next program. Itemised quote inside 24 hours.

The Builders Clean team

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