After builders cleaning in Richmond upon Thames

A skip on a Richmond road needs a licence costing £75.50, which lasts up to three weeks and takes up to three working days to issue. Put the skip in a controlled parking bay and the council adds a £150.10 administration charge and a daily charge for the bay, with two working days to process it and five calendar days to put the suspension signs up. On the fees in force from 1 April 2026, scaffolding costs £293.50 for the first four weeks and £200 for each four weeks after that, plus a £132 inspection charge, and a hoarding or materials licence is £200 for the first four weeks. The skip should be gone by the morning of the clean: nobody can keep a hall clean while rubble is still going into a skip outside the door.

Suspending a bay for the cleaners' van rarely makes sense: £160.80 in administration plus £53.10, £34.10 or £13.60 per bay per day by zone, with at least seven working days' notice. Residents of a controlled zone can buy trader permits for someone working at their home at £17.65 for ten scratchcards or £1.80 a booked session in most zones, rising to £35.30 and £3.55 in Richmond Town and Richmond Hill; they are not valid in pay and display bays or car parks. Where there is no free option, paid parking is passed on at cost.

Each of the 85 conservation areas has its own statement, and homes inside one, or under an Article 4 direction, may need planning permission for extensions or alterations that would be permitted development elsewhere. Barnes Green was one of the earliest, designated in January 1969.

Basements are the strictest case. Every basement needs planning permission and building regulations approval, plus a Construction Management Statement covering parking, noise, dust and vibration; the council may refuse one that takes up more than half the front or back garden. Its own building control charges for 2026 are £1,069 for a building notice on an extension under 40 square metres and £1,050 for a loft conversion of that size.

For the clean, a conservation street means original sashes, cornices and old boards, so the crew vacuums dust out of the sash runners and boxes, takes the cornices first and uses a mild product on period floors. A basement dig is the heaviest job there is, because the dust climbs the stairs into every room. A 4-bed house after a basement and a full refurbishment usually needs 4 cleaners for 5 hours, £632 all in; the page on getting plaster dust out of a home shows the order the crew works in.

At the 2021 Census 39.9% of Richmond upon Thames households lived in flats, 26.6% in terraces, 25.0% in semi-detached houses and 8.3% in detached houses, and 62.4% owned their home. In Teddington, Barnes and South Twickenham wards more than half of households live in houses, and houses mean stairs, landings and more bathrooms.

A 3-bed terrace after a refurbishment usually takes 2 cleaners for 5 hours: £332 all in. A 4-bed semi takes 3 cleaners for 4 hours, £392. Big houses get a bigger crew, so the hours stay about the same. Every extra bathroom adds roughly an hour and a half of cleaner time on tiles, grout and screens (see kitchen and bathroom cleaning). The sum behind each figure is £30 per cleaner-hour plus £32 for equipment and detergents, and the full price list gives it for every size.