After builders cleaning in Littleborough, OL15

The middle of the ward lies inside the Littleborough Town Centre conservation area, designated in 1977 and extended in 2011, and the Town House conservation area of 2009 is within 800 m. The council's list also includes the Wardle and Whittaker (Hollingworth Lake) conservation areas. Seventeen listed buildings stand within 800 m of the ward's middle, among them the Grade II* Windy Bank.

On a street covered by an Article 4 direction, Rochdale wants planning permission for changes as small as a new door, window or gutter, so ask the council whether one applies before the joiner orders replacement windows. For the crew, an old house means original glass, tiles and stair timber cleaned by hand, paint flecks tested before scraping and a plain word on the walk-round about anything that will not come off.

The borough's two recycling centres are on Chichester Street in Rochdale and at Spring Vale in Middleton. A householder can take their own DIY rubble, up to five sacks a visit, and plasterboard they took down themselves; whatever a builder or other paid tradesperson stripped out is refused. Rochdale's building control team lets work start 48 hours after an application is accepted, and the builder's programme should end with the skip collected and the rubbish gone, because the crew cannot clean round it.

A 3-bed house after a refurbishment usually takes 2 cleaners for 5 hours: £332 all in, which is £30 per cleaner-hour plus £32 for equipment and detergents; the full refit figure above includes the extra crew. Each extra bathroom adds about an hour and a half. What a builders clean costs lists every size.

Fees, skip licences and parking across the borough are on the rest of Rochdale. The same council covers Middleton at the other end of the borough, and south of the borough boundary builders cleans in Oldham follow Oldham Council's rules.