Case Study - General Contractors - Austin
Handing a Restaurant Back to the Builder Looking Brand New
A building is finished when it looks finished. This was the second restaurant we handed over for John King Construction, and the work was the difference between a new build and a new build that photographs like one.
- Client
- John King Construction
- Project
- Restaurant handover
- Scope
- Building, sidewalks and lot
- Track record
- Second handover for this builder
The short version
John King Construction brought us in to clean a new restaurant build ahead of handover, the second we have done for them. The scope was the white limestone building soft washed to clear black organic growth, plus surface cleaning across the sidewalks and parking lot. The hard part was not the cleaning. It was arriving early enough to get it done without other trades in the way, and finishing quickly enough to hand the space back to them.
The project
On a construction project the exterior clean is one of the last things that happens and one of the first things anybody notices. A building can be structurally finished, signed off and ready, and still read as unfinished because the stone is carrying organic growth and the flatwork is carrying the marks of everything that drove across it.
This was a restaurant build for John King Construction, and the second restaurant handover we have done for them. The building is white limestone, which shows black organic growth more plainly than almost any other facade material, and a new slab of sidewalk and parking lot that had taken months of site traffic.
The limestone, before and after
The same corner of the building. Black organic growth cleared from the stone at low pressure and the concrete apron surface cleaned, which is the whole difference between a finished building and a new one.
What makes a handover clean different
-
You are not the only trade on site
A punch-list building has several crews in it at once. Cleaning around them is slow and gets in their way, so the answer is to arrive before they do rather than work alongside them.
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Finishing fast is part of the job
The space we are working in is space somebody else needs. Getting off the sidewalk and out of the lot quickly is as much of the deliverable as the cleaning, because the builder's schedule does not pause for us.
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White limestone shows everything
Pale stone makes black organic growth obvious from the street, and it is porous enough that high pressure damages it. Soft washing clears the growth at a pressure the facade can take.
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New concrete is not clean concrete
Months of site traffic leaves a new slab marked. Surface cleaning the sidewalks and lot is what makes the flatwork read as new rather than merely recently poured.
How we approached it
- 01
Arrived ahead of the other trades
Scheduled early enough that the building and the lot were ours to work in, rather than negotiating space with crews who also had a handover date.
- 02
Soft washed the limestone
Low pressure and the right solution to clear black organic growth off porous white stone without driving water into it or damaging the face.
- 03
Surface cleaned the flatwork
Sidewalks and parking lot run with a surface cleaner for an even result across the whole slab, rather than the striping a wand leaves on a large area.
- 04
Handed the space straight back
Off site quickly so the next trade could get in. On a handover, the cleaning sub who finishes early is the one who does not become part of the builder's problem.
The outcome
A new build that reads as new
The limestone came back to an even, pale color with the organic growth gone, and the sidewalks and lot came up clean enough to match it. The building handed over looking the way a brand new building is supposed to look, which is the entire reason a builder brings in an exterior cleaner at the end rather than leaving it to the tenant.
It was the second restaurant we have handed over for John King Construction. The first one is why there was a second.
Building something that has to be handed over clean?
We work as the exterior cleaning subcontractor on new builds and remodels across Austin and Central Texas: insured, documented, scheduled around the other trades, and off site as soon as the work is done. Commercial inquiries go to Jared directly.
Related
More commercial work
Need a building handed over clean?
Send us the scope and your handover date. We will walk the site and get you a written proposal.
Rather talk it through? 512-883-5420