Post-Construction Cleaning in Abbotsford, Langley and Surrey
Fine drywall dust is a mechanical problem, not a chemical one. It comes out with HEPA filtration, damp microfibre and enough passes to catch what settles after the first one, which is the part most quotes leave out.
Post-construction cleaning removes fine drywall dust, sticker residue, grout haze and paint flecks from a finished build, in staged passes from ceiling to floor. It is a mechanical job: HEPA vacuuming and damp microfibre, not chemistry. New builds and renovations across the Fraser Valley, quoted by square footage.
What is included in a post-construction clean?
Ceiling to floor, in that order, twice. Cleaning a new build bottom up means cleaning it twice anyway, just badly the first time.
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Pass one: everything above the floor
HEPA vacuum the ceiling corners, the light fittings and the tops of every door, cupboard and trim run. Then wall faces, which hold a film of drywall dust nobody expects. Window frames, sashes, sills, stops and the tracks, vacuumed then washed out. Door frames, doors and the top edge. Baseboards, casings and the shoe mould. Stair stringers, treads, risers and spindles. Electrical plates, vent registers and the visible duct boot inside. Closet shelving, rods and brackets.
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Stickers, residue, haze and flecks
Manufacturer labels and protective film off windows, appliances, sinks, tubs, fixtures and glass shower panels, plus the adhesive residue underneath them rather than just the sticker. Grout haze off new tile. Drywall compound flecks and paint specks off glass, hardware, hinges and switch plates, taken off carefully and stopped when the risk of scratching starts. Caulk smears. Concrete or thinset spots on tile edges. Pencil marks and layout lines on trim.
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Kitchen, bathrooms and built-ins
Inside every cabinet and drawer, including the runners, the shelf undersides and the toe kick void where dust collects and stays. Appliance interiors, the protective film peeled from every panel, and the sides and back where they slide in. Range hood. Sinks, taps, drains and the aerator screens, which arrive full of grit from the line flush. Tubs, showers, glass and the tile. Toilets inside and out. Mirrors and vanity interiors. Countertops, the sealed edge, and the seam line.
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Floors, and the second pass
HEPA vacuum everything, including the perimeter and the closet floors, then damp mop, then mop a second time with clean water, because the first pass turns residual drywall dust into a slurry that dries back as a white haze. Between the passes we let the room sit, which is what allows the airborne dust to land before we clean it rather than after you have moved in. Final walk with the lights on and off, which is when the film on glass shows.
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Rough clean, if the site needs one
A first-stage clean once the drywall sanding is done, so the finishing trades are not working in dust and tracking it into the paint. Debris swept and bagged, surfaces vacuumed, floors cleared. It is a separate visit and a separate line on the quote, and on larger builds it saves more than it costs.
What is not included?
Post-construction is where scope creep lives. This is the boundary, in writing, before anyone starts.
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Construction waste and disposal
No offcuts, no packaging, no pallets, no drywall scrap, no paint tins and no bins. Disposal has its own transfer station rules, especially for paint, solvent and treated wood, and it needs a truck rather than a van.
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Duct and HVAC cleaning
A separate trade with separate equipment, and one that should happen before our final pass rather than after it. If the furnace ran during drywall sanding, assume the system holds dust.
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Damage that arrived with the trades
Scratched glass, scuffed hardwood, chipped tile, paint on carpet that has dried, overspray on a coated window, and gouges in drywall. We document these with photographs so they get to the right trade while the trade is still on the job. We do not repair them and no cleaning removes them.
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Exteriors, the site and the ladder work
No site tidy, no exterior windows above the ground floor, no gutter clearing, no pressure washing of driveways or walkways, no ladder work above the second step. Common asks on a new build, all of them a different trade with a different insurance policy. Everything we decline, and who to call instead.
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Working alongside active trades
We schedule after the last trade leaves. If we arrive to a site with painters still cutting in, we will call you rather than clean a room that is about to be dusty again. That call is not us being difficult, it is us refusing to bill you twice for the same room.
Dust is a mechanical problem. Chemistry does not touch it.
This is the one service where our approach needs no defending, because it is simply the correct method. Fine drywall dust is inert particulate. No cleaning product dissolves it. A strong all-purpose spray on a dusty surface makes paste, and a solvent on a new finish is a risk to the finish. What removes construction dust is HEPA filtration that keeps the dust in the machine instead of returning it to the room, damp microfibre that traps particles rather than pushing them around, and enough passes to catch what settles overnight.
There is a second reason it matters on a new build. The first people to occupy a finished house are breathing everything the building itself is off-gassing: new paint, adhesives, sealants, engineered flooring and cabinetry. Adding a full round of solvent cleaners on handover day layers more volatile compounds on top of a load that is already at its peak. Household VOC exposure is associated with roughly 1.6 times the asthma risk in adults and 1.5 to 2.5 times in children (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), and this is a region where the FVRD's own air quality plan reports asthma and COPD rates above the BC average (FVRD Air Quality Management Plan, 2021).
For a builder there is a commercial edge in it too. A handover clean with no chemical smell reads as finished rather than as covered up, and a buyer walking into a new Willoughby townhouse notices the absence of smell more than they would notice a scent. If you want it on the sales sheet, we will give you the product list to put there. Read about our low-VOC method.
What does post-construction cleaning cost?
Quoted per site. GST on top, and staged builds are quoted per stage.
Post-Construction & Renovation Cleaning is quoted by square footage.
What drives it: finished square footage first, then how many windows and whether they still carry film and stickers, how many bathrooms and cabinets there are to clean inside, whether the flooring is already down, how much dust the site is carrying, whether you want a rough clean as well as a final, and whether there is working power and water on site. A finished basement suite and a four thousand square foot house are different orders of work, and neither of them belongs on a rate card.
We do not publish a per-square-foot number for construction work. The published Canadian commercial figures disagree with each other by roughly three times, most likely because some are per visit and some per month, and a construction clean varies more by condition than by area anyway. We will walk the site, or work from your drawings and photographs if it is not safe to walk yet, and give you a real number. Our published residential prices are on the pricing page.
New builds across the Valley.
The work follows the build pipeline rather than the population, which right now means Willoughby, Clayton, Grandview and central Abbotsford.
- Cleaning in Abbotsford
- Cleaning in Langley
- Cleaning in Surrey
- Cleaning in Chilliwack
- Cleaning in Mission
- Cleaning in Maple Ridge
There is a real pipeline here: federal funding of $179 million was announced for new rental homes across Abbotsford, Langley and Surrey, with roughly 250 rental homes underway in the Township of Langley and nearly 600 proposed across three Surrey sites. We also take single-unit renovation cleans and basement suite conversions. All service areas.
What builders and homeowners ask.
Why does it take more than one pass?
Because drywall dust is light enough to stay airborne for hours and then settle on everything you just cleaned. A single pass looks perfect at five in the afternoon and looks dusty at nine the next morning, which is exactly when the handover happens. We work top down, then let the room rest, then do a second pass on the horizontal surfaces and the floor. Anyone quoting a single pass on a fresh build is quoting a callback.
When should we book it?
After the last trade leaves, not before. If painters, flooring or trim carpenters are still working, we will be cleaning the same surfaces twice and you will be paying for it twice. Where a build genuinely needs it we split the job: a rough clean once the drywall dust settles so the finishing trades can work, then a final clean before handover or first occupancy.
Do you take away the construction waste?
No. Offcuts, packaging, pallets, paint tins and site debris are a disposal job with its own transfer station rules and its own truck. We bag and remove the fine rubbish that comes with cleaning: sticker backing, dust bags, wrapping we peel off fixtures. If the site is still full of material when we arrive, we cannot clean the floor under it.
Will you get the paint specks and stickers off the windows?
Most of them, carefully, and we will tell you when we stop. Compound flecks and paint come off glass with a soaked pad and, where necessary, a blade held flat. What we will not do is scrape a coated or tempered pane hard enough to risk scratching it, and a spec that is under the coating rather than on it cannot come off at all. That is a glazing issue, and the sooner it is flagged the better your chances with the supplier.
Do we need the ducts cleaned too?
Often, and it is not us. Drywall sanding puts fine dust into an open system, and if the furnace ran during construction the ducts hold it. A duct cleaning firm should come before our final pass, not after, because their work puts dust back into the rooms. We will say when we think it is needed and we do not take a referral fee for saying it.
Is a renovation clean the same job as a new build?
Same method, more care. In an occupied home there is furniture to protect, a family living in the other half of the house, and dust that has already travelled through the whole place. We seal what we can, work outward from the work zone, and HEPA vacuum the rooms the dust reached, which is always more rooms than anyone expects.
Tell us about the site.
Square footage, stage, and the handover date. Same working day reply, and we will tell you honestly if the site is not ready for us yet.
Quote a site
We reply the same working day. Or call (819) 743-5953.