Count it in days, not hours. Between the trades walking out and your walkthrough there are two published waits: the dust needs a day or so to settle, and booking typically runs on a 24–48 hour lead time. A light cosmetic remodel is usually one detailed visit; drywall-heavy work often adds a lighter follow-up pass.
You will notice there is no hours-per-project table here. That is deliberate. Post-construction is a reviewed-quote service — scope, access and dust level are confirmed before we schedule — and a table promising how many hours your bathroom takes does not know how much drywall got sanded, how high your ceilings are, or when your building will give you the elevator. What can be published honestly is the order of operations, and the order is what sets your date.
The real sequence, stage by stage
Every stage and every wait below is published on our post-construction cleaning in Miami page; we put them in a row here so the whole calendar reads in one pass.
- 1. Bulk debris leaves — Your contractor’s haul-away, not ours — and a precondition, not a preference. If bulk material is still on site we will ask you to have it removed before we schedule, so this is the stage that slips dates.
- 2. The dust settles — A day or so, once the trades are off site. Cleaning into air that is still carrying dust means cleaning the same surface twice.
- 3. The reviewed quote — You send size, what the renovation touched, dust level and how the crew gets in; scope, access and dust level are confirmed by a reviewed quote before we schedule.
- 4. The detailed visit — Booking typically runs on a 24–48 hour lead time, so request your time as the punch list wraps up rather than after it closes.
- 5. A lighter follow-up pass, if needed — A light cosmetic remodel is usually one detailed visit. After drywall-heavy work, airborne dust keeps settling for a day or two, so some clients add a second, lighter pass once it lands.
Add the two published waits — the settle day plus the 24–48 hour lead time — and two to three days pass before the visit can begin. The visit itself and any optional follow-up pass take additional time; neither is included in that sum. Your actual walkthrough date comes back in writing in the reviewed quote before anything is scheduled.
“The useful question isn’t how many hours the visit runs. It’s what day it can start.”
What makes the job longer
Condition is the biggest swing in the quote, and in the clock. A light cosmetic refresh leaves a fraction of the dust of a drywall-heavy gut renovation, where fine powder settles into every hinge, track and cabinet interior and needs slow, repeated wiping rather than a single pass. That phrase — slow, repeated wiping — is the honest answer to “how many hours?”: there is no figure, there is a surface you work until it releases.
After that come ceiling height, which matters more here than on most cleans — high fixtures, fans and shelf tops collect construction dust and need ladder work to detail properly — and whether the space is empty or already furnished, because every piece of furniture is one more surface and one more obstacle. Size enters through the price rather than the clock: the published floor is $650 for the first 1,000 sq ft, and the full formula with worked totals lives in how much post-construction cleaning costs.
In Miami, the building sets the calendar
In a Brickell or Miami Beach tower, the thing that decides your date is rarely the dust. Condo build-outs come with elevator reservations and front-desk rules, and the service page asks for them up front: have any elevator reservation or front-desk requirements sorted in advance. A crew can be free on Thursday while the service elevator is not.
The other clock is paperwork. JAS carries $2,000,000 general liability coverage with every cleaner background-checked; the certificate of insurance is requested by email to bookings@jascleaning.com with “COI” in the subject line and the entity name, and most certificates are returned within 2 business hours — published on our insurance page. Those 2 hours are ours; what we cannot speed up is how long your building takes to approve and file it. So the move is to request the COI and reserve the elevator the same day you request your time, not once you have a date. How those building rules work is covered in our apartment and condo guide.
What Miami’s air does to the plan
Humidity changes the material you are dealing with. In a humid room, drywall powder does not stay loose and sweep away clean — it grabs onto the surface. That is why the service page describes drywall-heavy work as slow, repeated wiping rather than a pass. The same room in a dry climate goes faster, which is exactly why a national hours table travels badly to Miami-Dade.
The A/C runs twelve months a year here, and that explains two things about the calendar. It explains why air vents sit on the published post-construction checklist at all, and it explains why the settle stage is not fussiness: every time air moves through a freshly renovated space, some of the settled dust moves with it. The lighter follow-up pass is not an invented extra — it is the answer to a space that keeps redistributing whatever stayed airborne. And in units near the water, salt film joins that mix: the window tracks and patio door on the checklist come up carrying sanding grit and salt together, which is scraped before anything can be wiped.
One calendar note, not a weather claim: hurricane season runs June through November, and the Terms allow that we may need to reschedule for weather, safety or staffing reasons — telling you as soon as we know, with no fee for a change we initiate. If your walkthrough, your photos or your closing land in those months on a hard date, leave a buffer day between the clean and the commitment.
Two things that can stretch the day itself
The first is a site that is not the one you described. The Terms put it plainly: quotes reflect what you told us about the property, and if the scope on arrival is materially different — for example, additional rooms or heavy build-up — we re-quote with you before doing extra work, never silently. That protects your invoice, but it moves your finish time: the conversation happens on site, with the crew standing by.
The second is more serious. A renovation that opened a wet wall, a roof that leaked, or a space closed up for months can leave behind something that is not dust. A cleaning visit is not remediation, and we will not pretend otherwise: the Terms reserve the right to refuse service in cases of unsafe conditions (mold, infestation, biohazard). If something like that turns up we tell you and stop, rather than cleaning around it. What happens next belongs to a specialist in that field, not to us — the judgment call is covered in when to call a professional instead.
How to make it shorter
Almost all the time lost on a post-construction clean is lost before the crew arrives. Five moves, all of them yours: have the contractor haul the bulk debris before you request a time; say in the notes whether it was cosmetic or drywall-heavy; say whether the space is empty or furnished; request the COI and reserve the elevator on the same day; and confirm working power, water and safe access — a key, a lockbox code, or an on-site contact. Do that and the reviewed quote comes back with a date instead of questions.
If you are still deciding what the job includes before you think about dates, the item-by-item list is in what post-construction cleaning is and what it includes. On eligible completed visits, the CleanCheck Report arrives with checklist status and customer-safe photos — useful when the person signing off on the handoff was not on site.
Quick answers
Can you clean while the contractor is still finishing?
No, and that is the honest reason a rushed timeline does not work. The published site requirements are construction finished and trades off site, bulk debris removed, working power and water, and safe access — a key, lockbox code, or an on-site contact. We clean finished spaces, not active job sites, because anything installed, sanded or cut after we leave puts the dust straight back.
Does twice the square footage take twice as long?
Not reliably. Area sets the price — the published floor is $650 for the first 1,000 sq ft — but the hours live in tracks, vents, hinges, switch plates and cabinet interiors, and a small condo gutted to the studs can hold more of those than a large house that only had floors replaced. That is why the reviewed quote asks what the renovation touched, not just how big the place is.
My contractor slipped a week after I already booked. Now what?
Move the date. Cancellations and reschedules are free up to 24 hours before your appointment, and $25 inside 24 hours — the Terms publish both. In the other direction, we may need to reschedule for weather, safety or staffing reasons; we tell you as soon as we know, and you never pay a fee for a change we initiate.
How is the follow-up pass decided — and priced?
In writing, before anything is scheduled. Whether your project needs one depends on the dust level, and we flag it in the reviewed quote so there are no surprises. Nothing is charged at booking either way, and we invoice after each completed visit.
The short version
Days, not hours. Debris out, a day or so for the dust to settle, a 24–48 hour booking lead time, one detailed visit — and a lighter pass after drywall-heavy work. Nobody can honestly publish how many hours your job takes without seeing it, but the order can be published, and in Miami your building’s elevator and COI rule the date as much as the dust does.
This guide is part of the JAS operating playbook — written to answer in public the question the rest of the industry prefers to answer on a phone call.