Alfa Builders
What’s the Benefit of Keeping the Jobsite Clean?
Alfa Builders has been in the construction business in the Montgomery, Alabama area as well as various other parts of the southeast United States for over a quarter century.
During that time, we have completed projects in all arenas of construction – from residential spec and custom homes to large scale retail facilities, restaurants, and professional office buildings.
One common denominator on all of our projects is the importance of keeping a project site clean.
When a project site is kept clean and orderly, the contractor can reap tangible benefits.
Two benefits that come to mind are that you can be more efficient with a clean site and that your visitors (owners, architects, engineers, or other interested parties) will have a much better feeling and opinion about the work.
The Construction Site will be More Efficient and Productive
In any environment, whether it be my house or our office or our construction site, we can be more efficient and effective if you keep things clean. As a general contractor, when we demand order out of our subcontractors, it makes our site easier to navigate and increases productivity.
Trash is collected daily and put into the appropriate containers so that workmen, rolling scaffolding, and the like are able to get to their intended destination without stepping over piles of debris. Conversely, a messy project site can sometimes double to amount of time it takes to complete a work activity.
The argument we hear from some subcontractors is that they don’t want to lose any time by having to stop and pick up their trash and scrap materials. This is a very short sited comment. If the workforce spends 30 minutes a day picking up after themselves, then the productivity of the remaining 7 1/2 hours will more than make up for the time spent cleaning up.
Our Visitors will Have a Better Opinion of the Quality of Our Work
When the appearance of the site is one of cleanliness and order, visitors will have a much more positive outlook on the construction process.
Most visitors are not savvy enough to determine if the electrical wiring they are seeing is 12 gauge or 14 gauge wire or if the wood studs are #2 spruce or #2 pine. But what they ALL can make a judgement about is the condition of the jobsite.
If there are soda cans and lunch bags littered throughout the landscaping and the floor is covered with scrap lumber and left over drywall boards, visitors are going to be left with a negative opinion about the site and probably about us as the general contractor. They are left to wonder, “If my contractor cannot even get his subs to do something as simple as pick up their trash, how can I be confident that they can build my building correctly?”
If you are thinking, “There is no way that an owner could have such a negative opinion of the project based on just the cleanliness of the site. Surely he could see the big picture and be able to tell that we are doing a great job in spite of the construction site conditions”, then you are dead wrong. Jobsite conditions are a HUGE factor in the eyes of the owner and project visitors. Don’t underestimate its importance.
In Conclusion
There are many more positive benefits to the cleanliness of the site. I have just barely scratched the surface. If other benefits come to the top of your mind after reading this article, please share your comments below or feel free to contact us.
