You’ve called your local heating and cooling specialist to come and check a noisy air duct in your living room, but you notice that something is standing in the way of the specialist being able to reach the duct on the ceiling. Your grand piano. And then there is also the love seat, your countless family vacation photos, a glass vase from your grandmother and a number of other odds and ends.
But whose responsibility is it to move the furniture out of the way? And will the specialists who come to fix the duct plow through everything, leaving a trail of broken glass and torn pictures for you to clean up when they leave?
According to Mark Wethington, owner of B&J Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning Inc., any reputable company should have standard measures in place to make sure that your home is not dirtied or destroyed when specialists service your home. It’s not the homeowner’s job to move large, heavy furniture, he says. To help expedite the process however, he does recommend that you move any small pieces before the workers arrive, like pictures, artwork and anything you wouldn’t want in the hands of others, such as a clock that has been in your family for years.
Once the specialists do arrive in your home and they conclude that repair work needs to be done, employees at B&J take a number of other measures to ensure that any residual mess made from the repairs is as contained as possible. Ask your contractor if he take any of the following precautions as well:
- Drop cloths to cover the floor where work will take place.
- Plastic sheets to drape over furniture that is not moved out of the way but can still collect dust or debris.
- Floor mats to place tools on so they don’t scratch or dirty the floor.
- A wet vacuum to clean any immediate spills.
- Shoe covers worn throughout the home so no dirt or dust is tracked from room to room.
No matter what type of work is being done to your home, says Wethington, at the very least, the company you hired should be held accountable for cleaning up any mess they make.
