After builders cleaning in New Cross, SE14

Both conservation areas were designated in 1990, and both carry an Article 4 direction to keep their architectural features. Telegraph Hill takes its name from a semaphore station set up in 1795 to pass messages between the Admiralty and the fleet; its houses went up from 1871, built to strict guidelines the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers set for a middle-class estate. In Hatcham the Haberdashers allowed terraces to strict specifications after the old manor house was pulled down in the 1840s. Along New Cross Road the bigger buildings were houses first, and shops were built later in their front gardens.

Houses of that age and standard usually have tall rooms, plaster cornices and long runs of skirting, and a renovation in one of them fills every room with fine dust. The crew works from the ceilings down: cornice and picture rail first, then doors, frames, radiators and switches, then the skirting; the floors come last, after a second dusting. A 3-bed terrace after a full renovation, with replastering and a new bathroom, is usually 3 cleaners for 5 hours: £482 all in. After a lighter refurbishment it is 2 cleaners for 5 hours, £332.

Lewisham's reuse and recycling centre is here, on Landmann Way, but it is for residents' own DIY loads in small amounts. It turns away trade waste, including rubbish a contractor clears for you, and takes no plasterboard, so the builder's skip or a licensed carrier has to clear the house before the crew can start. More on the rules is on the rest of Lewisham.

SE14 is shared with Southwark: Nunhead & Queen's Road ward sits under the other council, so check whose parking and skip rules apply on your street. If the street is in a Lewisham zone, a visitor e-voucher covers the crew's van. Next door, builders cleans in Deptford cover the High Street and the river, and to the west is Peckham (SE15). For heavy sanding dust see construction dust cleaning; every total is on our prices.