HDB flats are plentiful in Singapore and the HIP (Home Improvement Programme) is a type of renovation spearheaded by our government to rejuvenate the HDB housing conditions!
If you have not experienced HIP before, you might have heard many stories, both good and bad about it.
Largely, the bad stuff comes from noise, dust, dirt, and having to deal with all the inconvenience, tidying up, and cleaning associated with post-renovation messiness.
Yet, homeowners are more often pleased to be selected. With HIP, they get to enjoy upgraded laundry racks, newer toilets, better electrical and plumbing fixtures, and many other perks!
As a well-established cleaning company in Singapore, MEIDE.SG has heard and experienced so many of these HDP HIP stories. Hence we have decided to compile them. Alongside our deep research (as usual) for this blog article, let us take you through crucial cleaning hacks to make the most of your HDB HIP.
Whether you have already completed the HIP, or are currently in the midst of it, or preparing for the voting and installations, these cleaning hacks (pun intended) would certainly come in handy!
BEFORE THE HIP (Home Improvement Programme)
To win the (Cleaning) battle, always know thy (HIP Process) enemy well.
Learn about the history, and details of the administrative process of HDB HIP at the official HDB HIP website here.
You will realize that one can actually plan well ahead. From obtaining the list of HDB flats due for HIP, to knowing the polling dates (yes majority of households need to vote for it before it can successfully proceed), and the poll results, you will thus be able to optimize your personal schedule.
Schedule for Extra Renovation and Fitting Early
If you are as enthusiastic and earnest as this homeowner who survived HDB HIP here, you’d benefit extra during HIP and renovation works.
Basically, because HDB HIP only covers a few sections of your flat. However, it results in a full scale renovation-related inconvenience. So why not renovate the other parts of your house too?
Of course, you’d need to plan ahead. Plan which parts of the house and what kind of renovation you want. On top of that, remember that the renovation you are planning aside from HIP, will need to be fully paid from your own pocket. So, you’d need to liaise and schedule with interior designers and a separate renovation team.
All these take time and effort. But would certainly make your homely abode much fresher and delightful with the special additional renovation works. And, you do not need to worry! Even with the additional cleaning, all the cleaning post-HIP would also clear up the mess anyway!
Plan Your Moving and Residence As Required
There are two choices. One, stay in your flat and two, endure the dust and noise during HIP, or move to somewhere else temporarily.
Some homeowners are lucky to have more than one property. Or, they could stay with a friend’s or family member’s place to hide out during HIP. Others may do short-term rented rooms or hotel stays.
Hence, planning the dates for the moving out, in, out and in again, is crucial such that it does not clash with dates that cleaning sessions are taking place. Ideally, the cleaning should occur in each residence before you move in. Also, we recommend a second cleaning session after you have moved in if you have many boxes, luggage’s, or furniture and appliances. This is because the scale of moving conversely affects the extent of dust displacement in your home.
Cover Up All Appliances and Accessories
Remember, after and if you have moved out of your flat before HIP, your house is still not yet fully ready for the renovation!
Be sure to cover up your remaining appliances, accessories, and furniture too.
A brief and non-exhaustive list of items to drape plastic sheets, drop cloths, and even luggage-sized cling wraps over:
- Television Sets
- Coffee Tables, TV Consoles
- Your Wifi and electronics
- Computers
- Sofa and Cushions
- Dining Table and Chairs
- Overhead fittings like ceiling lights, fans and chandeliers
- Photo frames, Shelves, Trophies, and Cabinets too
- Exercise and Gym equipment if any
- Children and Baby Appliances and Toys
- Clothes and Dish Racks
- Ceiling, Standing and Wall Fans
- Air-Conditioner Units
- Refrigerators, Ovens, Microwaves
- Washing Machines, Dryer
- Kitchen Stove, Hob and Hood
- Light and fan switches, aircon remotes, door handles
- Bicycles, Sports Equipment
From experience, you’d also need lots and lots of masking tape to adjoin and connect plastic pieces.
P.S. If you need a helping hand to do this, because you have too much stuff, MEIDE can send a helper to help you do this! Do this to save time and energy, and make this dust-proofing process less laborious and much more efficient for yourself!
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Claim your Discount for a General Home Clean by our dedicated HSS Cleaner! Quote #MEID15BLOG for 15% Off (First Time Customers ONLY) (Valid to 12 Dec 2024 Only)
Book your #1 home services today, or join our team!
meide.sg is here for you, always.
Now, you have no more excuses to have a dusty home post-HIP.
Finish Dust-Proofing Your House
Or, maybe you do, if you skipped the final dust-proofing here!
For this, you’d need really huge “Dust”or “Renovation” Plastic Drop Sheets. You would also need right-sized synthetic tarps, or commonly known as “blue tarp”, that people can use for camping basha (tarpaulin). MEIDE recommends you to purchase from local supermarkets or DIY / Hardware stores.
Or, you can order online too if time permits.
Now, use the tarps and sheets to cover your ceiling, walls, walkways, baseboards, and floorings – in this order. Remember to go from top to bottom. Systemically it will save you the chore of having torn sheets on the floor even before HIP begins.
Lastly, you can also use the tarps and sheets to create partitions to isolate dust as much as possible.
Make sure this is done ONLY after concluding your discussions with the renovation contractor and team because you need to know which areas they will renovate, and which walkways they require. For example, if you block the path to water supply, the reno contractors may have difficulty doing the tiling and plumbing works.
One HDB HIP client did a wonderful job with details and photos you can check out here!
DURING HIP / RENOVATION
Have Someone Around At Home
As per what HDB recommends too, it is best to have at least 1 person around during the HIP renovation itself.
If hanging around the noise and dust is too much to bear, you could try to at least pop by at the start, end and one or two times in the middle. This is to assist and supervise the renovation as well as ensure the renovation tasks are on-going as planned.
For instance, during the washroom renovation, the contractors may need to double verify which toilet appliance you want to keep or discard. Even if you have expressed desire to retain certain fittings, the experienced contractors may find certain wear and tear that would render the fitting non-reusable.
On site, the workers would likely also need to ask about specific stuff, like whether the height, position of certain fittings to be drilled in are okay.
All in all, MEIDE would think it is a good idea to leave your HP and contact number with 1 or 2 of the main contractors on site. This way, you can still go about your breaks and daily business and just have them call you if there are any issues.
Nonetheless, bear in mind that some contractors might just make their own decisions (instead of calling you) if you are not around in person. So, it all boils down to how much you want to be involved.
Maintain Your Dust-Proofing Works
One other top reason to be around is to ensure that with all the rough renovation works, the dustproofing stays intact.
It is not uncommon for the HIP process to result in torn plastic sheets, or dislodged drop cloths.
Then, all your painstaking hard work would end up in vain!
Now, we wouldn’t want that, would we?
Keep handy more masking tape, plastic sheets and drop cloth. On a daily basis, do a quick sweep and check, or perhaps utilize CCTVs at home, to ensure the partitions, and coverings are all still in position. Often, they get blown away by the gusts of wind, or accidentally ripped open for dust specks to fly in!
AFTER RENOVATION / POST HIP CLEANING
Your perfect Post HIP Cleaning outcomes can be achieved easily so long as you heed our 4 cleaning hacks here.
Learn the 3-step post HIP cleaning: chemical wash, preliminary dustdown and the final full post renovation clean.
And remember to schedule each cleaning session at the appropriate juncture. Find out how exactly below:
Start with Post Renovation ‘Chemical’ Washing
First, the renovation guys would pour chemicals and scrub down or wipe down surfaces affected to remove concrete and cement stains. This is colloquially known as “chemical wash”, and involves mainly the use of acidic (occasionally alkaline*) solutions:
- Muriatic Acid
- Phosphoric Acid
- Hydrochloric Acid
- Potassium Hydrochloride*
- Etc buffer and balancing solutions
Again, this ‘chemical wash’ is almost always handled and arranged by your interior design team and renovation guys. They would have already factored in the costs of this into the reno quote that you paid / are to pay for. Hence, remember to check with the ID or reno peeps beforehand to avoid double-booking the same type of post-HIP chemical clean!
However, we are aware some homeowners, with delicate surfaces like cement screed flooring or marble flooring, deliberately opt out of this. An alternative is to use bio-safe and plant-based chemicals, which our MEIDE Cleaning Team can recommend, provide and bring for you should you request. Simply let us know that you wish to have “bio-safe ‘chemical wash’ post renovation” to arrange this!
Hey… don’t miss this!
Claim your Discount for a General Home Clean by our dedicated HSS Cleaner! Quote #MEID15BLOG for 15% Off (First Time Customers ONLY) (Valid to 12 Dec 2024 Only)
Book your #1 home services today, or join our team!
meide.sg is here for you, always.
Do A Preliminary Sweep and Dust-Down
Next step is to sweep away all that concrete dust and cement debris. We are talking about packing up all the loose items, wiping away dust bunnies, and clearing all that wood splinters and lost-and-found nails.
Expect that after HIP renovation, a lot of dirt, fragments and unwanted stuff would be strewn all over the house. Hence, this step is to get rid of all those in the surrounding areas.
This step is usually handled, and accounted for by the renovation team too. Unfortunately, many renovation workers refer to this as the “post-renovation clean”, but is really not as comprehensive as the “official” one that MEIDE Post Reno and Post HIP Cleaning Team would offer.
Here is what we mean:
Get The Full Post-Renovation Clean
Now that the preliminary chemical wash and dust-down are done, we can begin the PROPER post-HIP / post-renovation clean.
This cleaning process is very elaborate and follows this step by step cleaning checklist HERE.
Notably, most renovation and ID teams do not provide this. Instead, this is handled by professional cleaning crew like us!
You would have the option to remove your plastic sheets and covers of appliances and furniture any time before, during, or after this post-renovation clean. However, the best time to remove the plastic sheets and coverings differs on an individual basis.
Contact us at MEIDE Cleaning via WhatsApp or Email to find out our recommendation for your exact situation! (P.S. our consultations and quotations are all free-of-charge and available 24/7 online!)
Schedule Your Post HIP Cleaning Carefully
Truly, we understand that renovation and HIP works can be quite a handful to handle.
With drilling, plumbing, tiling, painting and even more renovation tasks all lined up, it becomes quite a blur as to when the HIP will all end.
Even though sources online, such as the HDB HIP guide, says that the HIP works end within 10 days usually for your individual unit, chances are, it will take longer than that. This is because most owners are also juggling their work, kids, family, and other commitments. Often, homeowners also need to check the post-renovation finishes to ensure the fixes have been done properly. Then, if there are post-renovation problems, the contractors may have to return to remedy and result in some further dirtying of the house again.
Unfortunately, many HDB dwellers end up postponing their cleaning sessions after booking. Some even have to forfeit the deposit and cleaning fee when they failed to schedule the HIP cleaning properly.
So, when to schedule the HIP Cleaning?
As such, as a rule of thumb, it is reasonable to schedule the first 2 cleaning sessions above-mentioned (the chemical clean and preliminary dustdown) once most major renovation works are completed.
After all, the dusting and sweeping can be easily repeated! It only takes 1 or 2 persons and a few hours, equipped with dusters, brooms, clothes, mops and pans.
In fact, from experience, you can ask your ID / contractor to repeat their “post reno clean” or sweeping FREE-OF-CHARGE. This is particularly if they had to return to touch up painting, drilling or finish up tasks they forgot to do.
Or, you can engage 1 or 2 of MEIDE part time helpers at a slight fee! For simple sweeping, we only charge per hour per helper, which is much cheaper than the full post-reno cleaning.
Finally, when you are certain all touch-ups and paintings are done, and you are ready for the full post-renovation cleaning, complete with the detailed checklist, just give us a buzz or text.
This time, we will send down the full team to conduct detailed post-HIP cleaning for you inclusive of all tools like ladders and vacuums too.
Hey… don’t miss this!
Claim your Discount for a General Home Clean by our dedicated HSS Cleaner! Quote #MEID15BLOG for 15% Off (First Time Customers ONLY) (Valid to 12 Dec 2024 Only)
Book your #1 home services today, or join our team!
meide.sg is here for you, always.
About the Moving In Cleaning
Ah ha, bet you forgot about this!
Post HIP cleaning can get your lovely abode all nice and neat.
However, after the plastic sheets removal, and re-adjusting of furniture, and re-moving of boxes and items around the house, expect stuff to get messed up again.
Albeit less messy than what renovation works would cause, the moving in process causes flecks of dust to fly around and displacement of dirt. Hence, we strongly encourage homeowners to schedule another round of moving in cleaning AFTER the post HIP cleaning is completed. Then schedule yet another onafter the moving in has been done.
The details and topic of moving in cleaning is for yet another article. But in short, the moving in cleaning can be pretty variable. It can range from a very deep and detailed clean, to just a simple wipedown with 1 or 2 cleaning assistants.
Regardless of your circumstance and requirements, rest assured that MEIDE.SG can tailor a customized cleaning plan for you. We will await your bookings and cannot wait to start cleaning for you!
