After the builders leave: a room-by-room cleaning checklist for Samui villas

A post-construction clean is not simply a bigger regular clean. Building dust is much finer than household dust. It settles on every surface, including the inside of cabinets and the tops of door frames, and it is mixed with cement, grout and paint residue that ordinary wiping only smears around.

We clean the whole property from top to bottom, room by room, against a written checklist. The price is 50 ฿ per m² of floor area, with a minimum of 4,000 ฿. A 120 m² house costs 6,000 ฿, and a 250 m² villa 12,500 ฿. Products and equipment are included, and you pay once you have accepted the work.

Prices, booking and the full scope are on our page about post-construction cleaning in Koh Samui. This guide is the checklist: what to expect and how to plan for it.

Book the clean once every trade has finished: electricians, plumbers, tilers, painters, carpenters and anyone fitting lights, doors or glass. If a painter comes back to redo one wall after we have finished, the dust and drips come back with him.

The best time is after the builders have left and before the furniture, curtains and rugs arrive. Empty rooms can be cleaned faster and more thoroughly, there are no soft furnishings to soak up the dust, and you move into a clean shell. If your furniture is already in place, that is fine too. Just mention it when you send photos, so we can allow the right amount of time.

If you can, leave a day or two between the last trade and our visit. That gives the heaviest dust time to settle, so we can remove it rather than chase it through the air.

Some jobs that look like "cleaning" after a build are really construction work. They need different tools, skills or permits, and they are your builder's responsibility.

Ask your builder to take away offcuts and leftover materials before our visit. If they cannot, we can also arrange removal of construction waste on request: tell us the volume and send photos, and we will confirm the price. If your photos show that something falls outside cleaning, we tell you before the visit, not on the day.

Post-construction cleaning is priced by floor area rather than by the number of bedrooms, because the amount of dust depends on the surface area to be cleaned.

• 50 ฿ per m² of floor area.
• A minimum of 4,000 ฿ per job, so a small 60 m² apartment costs 4,000 ฿.
• A 120 m² house costs 6,000 ฿.
• A 250 m² villa costs 12,500 ฿.

The rate is the same anywhere on Koh Samui, with no travel fee and no surcharge for a hillside or unpaved access road. Large or heavy jobs we confirm from photos before the visit. Same-day jobs cost 20% more, because we rearrange the day's schedule for them. You can see every rate on the prices page and the districts we cover on the areas page.

You pay in cash or by bank transfer once you have accepted the work. There is no prepayment.

This often takes people by surprise: the day after a post-construction clean, a thin layer of dust appears on flat surfaces again.

The reason is simple. Building dust is so fine that some of it stays in the air, inside light fittings, behind cupboards and in the gaps around doors and windows. Over the next one to three days it settles, and fans and air conditioning switched on for the first time stir it up again.

What helps:

• Open the windows and run the fans for a day or two after the clean, so the air clears.
• If you can, hold off bringing in soft furnishings and bedding until then.
• Book a follow-up regular clean a few days later. It quickly removes the last of the settled dust, at the normal regular price.

Dust that settles a day or two later is not a missed checklist item; it is simply what building dust does. Planning a second visit from the start saves you the frustration.

Island properties have their own materials and conditions, and these change the way a post-construction clean is done.

• Stone and terrazzo floors. Natural stone and terrazzo are common in villas. Cement haze shows up clearly on them, and strong acidic cleaners can etch the surface. We use products and methods that suit the material.
• Cement haze on tiles. After tiling and grouting, a white film often remains on the tiles. It takes patient work to remove, not aggressive scrubbing that scratches glazed surfaces.
• Teak and other hardwoods. Sanding dust gets deep into the grain of teak doors, frames and built-in furniture. It is removed with soft cloths and a vacuum, not with water.
• Sea salt. Near the beach, salt film on glass and metal fittings mixes with building dust and makes it stick. Glass and stainless steel need extra passes.
• Red dust from access roads. Many building sites sit on unpaved roads, and lorries and workers carry red dust onto floors, terraces and steps. Book the clean once the deliveries have stopped.
• Humidity and rain. In the wet season, roughly October to December, dust mixed with moisture turns into a paste on terraces and floors. It still comes off, but it takes longer, so let us know if the property has been left open.

Every post-construction job starts with photos. Send us the following on WhatsApp:

• photos of each room, including the floors, bathrooms and kitchen;
• the approximate floor area;
• the location and how to get to the property;
• whether the furniture is already in.

From the photos we confirm the price and the date, and we tell you if anything shown is not part of cleaning. The price does not change on site as long as the property matches the photos.

A property usually needs one more visit before it feels lived in. A regular clean a few days after you move in deals with the settled dust. If the property will stand empty for weeks before you arrive, a deep clean just beforehand takes care of dust, humidity and anything the rainy season has left behind.

If the property is going to be rented out, the next clean is usually the first turnover between guests. Property managers with several new builds can have all visits on one monthly invoice on request through our property manager service. Every visit follows the same checklist and photo report described on our quality control page.