Cleaning a new house for the first time?

Joe Nonety

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Any recommendations for what's the best way of cleaning a newly built house to give the best finish?
Place is covered in dust. The main surfaces are...
- semi-solid wooden floors
- ceramic wall and floor tiles
- painted walls
- kitchen units
I want to have it sparkling for the mother's first visit!
 
Start at the top and work way down i.e. walls, kitchen cupboards, hoover floors and then wash.

Don't worry the dust will re-appear magically for a few months (even years - thats my excuse)
 
i have heard that it can take over a month for all the dust to settle after building work so you will be cleaning for a while.

you will need a strong vacum cleaner!
 
The dust is probably plaster and / or concrete dust, and as such will be heavy, fine, and annoyingly hard to shift.

(1) Wipe down vertical surfaces initially with a dry cloth, and sweep up as much as possible.

(2) Wipe down vertical surfaces with a slightly damp cloth (I've seen suggestions for dampening with white spirit for units and tiles which may remove any other grease / residue traces as well. Don't use white spirits on painted walls, though - don't even wipe those down with a damp cloth unless you know the paint is water-resistant), brush floors etc with a sweeping brush covered with damp cloth.

Be very careful of the walls - if you haven't had them painted yourself / to your specifications, chances are it's just at builder's finish first painting, and the paint generally isn't great. Usual recommendation is to have them re-painted in a year to 18 months, by which time the house should be fully dried out and any emerging surface imperfections can be dealt with.

(3) Bulk of dust should be gone by then (though other posters are right - some more may continue to settle for a few weeks, depending on when the builders left), walls should be ok, clean as normal - use whatever floor cleaner you're recommended for the floors, sponge down units, tiles etc with a mild detergent solution (couple of squirts of washing up liquid in a basin of warm water) and dry.

And congratulations on the new house!
 
Good advice there- brushing and dusting only move the dust around so you're best bet is to use a vacuum cleaner for floors and horizontal surfaces; wipe down all other surfaces with damp cloths to trap the dirt. Probably the most important area (that is often overlooked) is to throroughly clean the windows, especially taking care to remove dust and mortar droppings from moving parts and mechanisms. Contract cleaners will not do as good a job as you will on your own house- this is fact. I've often seen contract cleaners do more harm than good by innappropriate use of scapers etc. to remove paint from glass and tile! Do it yourself and you'll get to know your property in the process.
 
Get contract cleaners in to do it for you

Still prefer bamhan's suggestion. Phone a company, on the day when they arrive; leave the house and when you get back it will all be done:)
 
Remember lots of hoovers can't cope with concrete ( do I mean cement? Can never tell the difference between the two) dust without blowing the engine.
 
I know this sounds so pedantic, but here goes: concrete is a product formed by mixing cement, fines, aggregate and water together; cement is only one constituent of concrete, mortar and render mixes...
 
Ok, thanks Carpenter, So bit of cement in concrete, got that. So which is it in new homes, or is it both?
 
Ok thanks for the guidelines. I've heard some people mention sugar soap to clean paint. It's the builders paint which doesn't look great quality.
 
It's generally cement. It's certainly the cement dust which causes the problems because it's so fine. We overheated our vacuum cleaner when we tried vacuuming all the cement dust, fortunately with no lasting damage. The filter was completely blocked after just a couple of rooms.

It's generally a good idea to seal all the cement floors with polybond or something similar to keep the dust down when you first move in. We found it made a huge difference to the amount of dust. I don't know if you did this, but if not it's a bit late to do it now that you have flooring down.
 
Remember lots of hoovers can't cope with concrete ( do I mean cement? Can never tell the difference between the two) dust without blowing the engine.

I assume its any fine heavy dense dust and not specifically cement. Soot is probably another.
 
I wrecked a brand new vacuum cleaner in my attempts to clean a new house, gave in and go the professionals.
I mean you have paid for all the other professionals and their services, why stop at the last hurdle.

From experience it is very very difficult to clean a new house of dust.
 
wrecked a brand new vacuum cleaner in my attempts to clean a new house, gave in and go the professionals.
I mean you have paid for all the other professionals and their services, why stop at the last hurdle.

From experience it is very very difficult to clean a new house of dust.
Bamhan - once again wisdom - I'm hearing you... forget about the vacume cleaner - it's veeeeeeerrry hard work cleaning up in a new build .....
 
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