Post Construction Cleaning Tips

Post construction cleaning tips

3 tips for Post-Construction Cleaning Projects

Post construction cleaning tipsHere you are, the building workers have pulled out, and it’s time to clean up. Dust, dirt, bits of drywall, and filthy window seals are mounting a powerful offensive against your team of cleaners. What will help you do this in a safe, competent, and productive way? Here are three post-construction cleaning tips to help make your project a success!

1. Protecting Everyone Involved

Post-construction cleanings vary in many respects from other forms of cleaning. Our commercial builders explain that one of the main differences is that there might be hazards not everyone is used to. For example, power tools, carts, ladders, and lifts can be found on-site. You may also have active development in the vicinity. It’s not hard to imagine how any of these could become a risk to an unsuspecting cleaner. As a consequence, much like the building project, cleaning work must be done in a secure manner.

It’s important to get to know the site before you bring the whole cleaning crew in. Inform the cleaning staff of items and equipment that might have been left behind. Feel free to speak to any other contractor you can meet on-site. Chances are they will tell you all about the details you need to look for.

And, ensure that you comply with the specifications for personal safety devices on the construction site. Protective eyewear, tough caps, foot protection, and the like may be needed.

Finally, make sure those involved have a written safety manual in place. In addition, teach your staff to do so. The safety manual should provide direct instructions on construction sites, on the cleaning of buildings, and on how to stay secure at all times.

2. Supply and Facilities

Do you have regular vacuums that you use in traditional office cleaning settings? Well, please don’t bring them here! Post-construction cleaning may be a tax on machinery. If you take your office vacuum to a construction cleaning site, it might become hundreds of dollars worth of broken parts and plastic. It is important to invest in industrial equipment. Big and strong shop vacuum cleaners manage bits of drywall and obnoxious quantities of dust far better than regular equipment. In addition, utilizing an auto-scrub system for large floor areas. It will significantly increase productivity.

Our Sacramento commercial construction company advises ensuring that the project has an abundance of well-planned cleaning supplies. Anything from rags to your range of cleaning agents needs to be well-stocked. Don’t underestimate how easily a post-construction site will deplete cleaning supplies. Having to fly back and forth to supply suppliers can be expensive and stressful for the cleaning workers who are ready to produce.

Finally, make sure that you maintain a strict list of your supplies and equipment. Construction sites are infamous for other on-site contractors borrowing materials from neighbors and not returning them. This can easily turn into reduced margins, lost efficiency, and reduced quality of construction cleaning services. Additionally, our General Contractor Sacramento strongly recommends that you have an approved area in the building where your supplies and equipment can be arranged and locked.

3. Using a staggered approach

We asked our friends over at Maid For Muddy Paws, a Commercial cleaning service in Montgomery, TX,  shares their practice: a staggered approach.

When it comes to staggered approach cleaning – what does it really mean? A phased approach is a form of cleaning that takes on larger tasks and breaks them down into smaller, manageable parts. Furthermore, no matter how good you clean at the construction site during the first stages, dust will accumulate and this dust will have to be removed in order for the room to be ready for company. Thus, the only alternative is to allow time to pass to allow the dust to settle and then to be cleaned between phases.

Commercial Construction Projects in Sacramento, CA

Ready to take your project to the next level? At Headwaters Construction Inc., we are specialized in commercial construction, tilt-up construction, project management, and more! Contact our skilled team today to discuss your project.

Ensuring Your Project is Delivered Faster

Ensuring Your Project is Delivered Faster

How to Ensure That A Construction Project is Delivered Faster

Ensuring Your Project is Delivered FasterCommercial construction projects require much planning, leaving many individuals wondering how to ensure that a construction project is delivered faster. Today on the blog, our Sacramento construction general contractors share all they know about ensuring your project is delivered faster.

Lookahead Schedules

Unfortunately, failing to plan efficiently may result in delays, which may push your deadline further and waste resources. This may lead to overspending and the creation of conflicts among stakeholders. To help with planning, many Sacramento construction companies use a lookahead schedule to help them plan and avoid any hitches. A lookahead schedule is a three to six-week plan highlighting the objectives and tasks of a strip mall construction project for the next 3 to 6 weeks.

This planning mode is an important part of the general schedule and is also used in weekly progress meetings. This makes it an essential part of the main plan. 

Without a lookahead schedule, members of a ground-up project team would have no clear outline of what needs to be commissioned, what needs to be ordered, and what deliveries are pending for the Sacramento commercial construction project to succeed. All these are important elements that need a data-driven plan.

A lookahead plan holds a very crucial role in the commercial construction process, from beginning to end. Thus, we will be identifying the main problems that face these schedules and come up with solutions on how to resolve them. 

Below are a few issues that need to be addressed:

Using the Wrong Tools for the Job

The Sacramento ground-up construction industry uses many digital tools that aren’t particularly suited to the industry’s needs. This might lead to frustration and mistakes that may have been avoided easily if a digital solution was tailored to fit the construction industry.

With everyone working in silos, data may sometimes not reach the intended parties, which affects your lookahead schedule and adds confusion to the building process due to the delays experienced. 

However, by enabling project teams to gather and store information in a centralized hub, you make sure that every individual can locate and access the current updated information whenever they need it. 

This will help Sacramento construction project managers plan ahead and make any adjustments in case of any changes.

Lack of Communication

Working individually on a project is quite dangerous. As different teams use their own tools to gather data and report progress, it becomes impossible to make short-term plans.

Having a centralized hub allows the submission of the latest updates from the field and easy access to all project data. Thus, this ensures that the smooth flow of communication is maintained. Our neighbors over at Gilmore Heating, Air, and Plumbing say it best: communication is key in any project type. Their Sacramento HVAC company uses communication at every job site. This offers task managers the ability to plan for the short-term, using updated site information while allowing them leeway to incorporate any last-minute additions or changes made.

A Strong Culture of Blame

Pointing fingers is a common situation in some commercial construction companies’ projects. Mistakes that occur may have teams trying to avoid responsibility. This can interfere with the short-term plans in the lookahead schedule. Unfortunately, if they are not resolved in time, they may also affect the masterplan too. So, a digital platform will again be helpful here by determining the cause of the mistake and the party responsible. 

How to Deliver Your Lookahead Schedule Faster

  • Automate Your Compliance Process

By activating automated task-based follow-ups, you ensure that the site inspector is automatically notified once a target is reached. They will then come and perform a follow-up check at the Sacramento commercial renovation site. With the information updated, you can identify problems that come up, the status, and the party responsible.

  • Resource and Material Management Built-In

Building materials are frequently delivered at the wrong place and the wrong time. Using a digital platform to schedule material deliveries to sync with your work schedule is the answer. This allows you a clear view of what is required on-site while ensuring that no materials get lost.

  • A Centralized Hub for Task-based Communication

In a construction project, all the communication should revolve around the task at hand. Using a centralized communication hub may make it easier for project progress to be updated and documented. Another benefit is that this also follows the main plan. This eliminates wastage of time on email threads, time-consuming phone calls, and more.

  • Link your Master Plan to Lean Planning

Linking your master plan to your planning can be useful to achieve success in a ground-up construction project. Additionally, choosing a commercial construction-specific digital platform that allows you to develop a 3 to 6-week sub-plan of the main plan can help you improve your master plan. Thus, the details required to manage the day to day activities on site efficiently will be provided. Tasks that have been changed or completed should be added to the main project plan. As follows, this will assist in smarter decision making. 

Many strip mall construction projects involve at least 80% of the same processes across the board. Thus, this offers a great opportunity for task managers. This allows them to keep construction site activities under control through past projects’ best practices to their current work.

Contact Headwaters Construction Inc.

Contact Headwaters Construction Inc. today for your commercial construction needs. We would love to assist you with your construction projects.

The Future of Construction Post COVID-19

The Future of Construction Post COVID-19

The Future of Commercial Construction Post COVID-19 

The Future of Construction Post COVID-19The COVID-19 crisis has hit many commercial construction companies hard, making many of us wonder about the future of construction post-COVID-19. Projects have been put on hold, and many have been canceled. To many, the future looks shaky at best, but this needn’t be the case. Construction companies in Sacramento and elsewhere can take a number of measures to not only survive this situation but also come out of it stronger. Today on the blog,  our commercial builders highlight some of those helpful measures.

Pay Special Attention to Financial Stability

Commercial construction companies in Sacramento need to review their corporate and capital budgets. Additionally, they should look at any additional alternatives to generating funds. This will help as adjustments can be made to weather the current storm. However, the lack of clarity about the direction of the pandemic makes it hard to conduct financial reviews and adjustments.

A possible way around this challenge is to engage in robust scenario analysis for each project and market. This case-by-case approach is critical since each ground-up construction project is unique and has its own contractual requirements. Tools that generate different models for various conditions can help Sacramento construction companies make data-driven decisions about how to keep costs manageable during and after this difficult time.

Staff Safety and Engagement

The stay at home orders issued in the wake of the pandemic had immediate effects on construction sites. Our neighbors at Gilmore Heating, Air & Plumbing, Sacramento HVAC company, explains that they’ve had to make tons of adjustments in their day-to-day business. This is because a significant number of workers have to be present on the job site during typical workdays. Construction companies now need to pay even more attention to PPE, especially with regard to disease prevention, and it is possible to take additional measures (staggering work shifts, for example) to reduce the number of employees at sites at any given time.

For those who can work from home, special attention has to be directed towards cybersecurity. Sensitive project and company information is likely to be transmitted over the home internet connection. Unfortunately, that can create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. Regular communication with telecommuters can avert most avoidable threats.

Inevitably, some employees may have been furloughed due to the pandemic. These staff members needn’t be neglected during the pandemic because they may have skills that are in short supply when normal conditions prevail. Strip mall construction firms and other companies in the construction sector are therefore advised to consider upskilling their furloughed employees so that they can remain useful to the company.

Supply Chain Evaluation

The harsh economic effects of the pandemic are undeniable. Commercial construction companies need to assess how the lockdowns have affected their planned or ongoing projects. For example, Sacramento construction companies with overseas suppliers may have suffered disruptions, and supplies may not come through as expected.

Our team advises you to contact your suppliers. This will help understand the specific supply chain vulnerabilities you are exposed to. Find out what challenges they are facing in their operations. Generate a dashboard depicting this information and keep updating it as the pandemic evolves.

Now maybe the time for you to discuss project flexibility with your supply chain. Additionally, and it is time to look at the real possibility of having to change suppliers in case the current ones become casualties of the pandemic.

Don’t forget to analyze the legal implications of every decision you make. The current situation isn’t an excuse for you to act without thinking through your contractual or other obligations.

Bolster Your Financial Position

The cash flow of many commercial construction companies has likely taken a huge hit during this time. This is due to stalled projects or accounts receivables that can’t be collected. Without cash, a construction company can go belly up quickly. Now is, therefore, the time to look into government financial support, restructuring credit facilities, and looking for ways to raise additional equity. The survival of your Sacramento construction company depends on how well you keep cash flowing.

Raising resources shouldn’t only be focused on staying afloat during the crisis. When the pandemic is brought under control, and a degree of normalcy returns, you’ll want to be prepared. Only those sector players who manage to have a healthy balance sheet will reap the benefits of the numerous contracts aimed at stimulating growth. Such companies can also grab the choicest merger and acquisition opportunities. These are the inevitable outcome of such a crisis.

The bottom line is that this pandemic presents an excellent opportunity for commercial construction companies to rethink how they do everything. Not all companies are likely to emerge out of this unscathed. Certainly, you don’t want yours to be one of the Sacramento construction companies that go under. Are you ready for the future of construction post-COVID-19?