It would (and did) bug me! The builder we used in our 2 story farmhouse a few years ago was a PIG. The outside and inside was a total mess, and we complained a little, but for the most part let it go (except they were smoking inside, which we told them it had to stop). Anyway, long story short, when it was complete, the site and house was all cleaned up and he did a beautiful job.

Pretty sad way to treat lumber. At the end of each day we always did a fast clean up and stacked usable lumber according to what was going to be needed the next day. Un usable lengths were stacked seperately to be used for temporary bracing, blocking, small framing projects such as water heater stands. A clean organized site makes the work go more efficiently and is safer.

Comparing these photos with worksites at various stages of completion is like comparing apples to aardvarks.

The 1st photo shows an incomplete stick built frame job during construction. It could be the builder and his crew stepped out for lunch.

The 2nd set shows a frame job that is fully completed with stone veneer being installed.

The 3rd group of photos shows a stick frame job that appears to be done except for the delivery and installation of the roof rafters.

None should be compared or deduced to be any 'better' or 'cleaner' than the other. They should be considered for what they are: Under construction and at different stages of completion.

Think of it this way, if your dinner guests saw your house before you cleaned up and they arrived, would they still want to eat?

The reality is, in most cases it should not matter, if the house is clean when the guests arrive and the meal is served.

I wouldn't be too concerned about how the builder works and operates his site at various stages of construction, but rather at what state he leaves it in the end.

I inspect thousands of jobsites every year and I can assure you that jobsite cleanliness should be one of the least important criteria for choosing a competent builder.

To the casual passerby, most construction sites look a mess. Mud! Ugh!

You have to know what you're looking at.

Site One would be totally unacceptable to me for the reason sierraeast notes. Usable dimensional lumber and OSB is strewn all over the place. Dimensional lumber must be stacked on a level area to reduce the opportunity of warping. Furthermore, a messy site encourages further messiness and is dangerous--tripping hazards to begin with. To be generous, this site might be cleaned up by the end of the day

The "medium" site is on par for the masonry stage. The discarded broken pile is in one place. And even the stray wood in front of the left garage may serve a purpose. I frequently have just such a "mess" in areas that become bogs when it rains and have to tell the cleanup guys to leave it there.

The "clean " site is ideal. But only if that's not a one-time shot just after a cleaning crew came in.

Neatness and order in any workplace that turns out a physical product is a key sign of proper management and quality. (Writers, artists and lawyers are another matter!)

LOL nice pic! You should see my kitchen when I am doing some major high volume baking! In the end everything turns out great.
Our house construction site has its ups and downs of mess and clutter but that's because we are completing another build milestone. When one milestone is done we or I clean and prepare for the next item.

One time I went to a home builder show home and asked to see the GC. I lived in the city and was getting frustrated cleaning ALL the construction GARBAGE that would blow into my yard blocks away! Things like shingle wraps packaging, empty boxes... I think talking to him helped a bit and suggesting that the older home owners in the area are getting an image of poor workmanship because the next couple of days later the blocks long perimeter fence was cleaned from the debris plastered to it.

Just to clarify, these were the way the sites were left over the long weekend. I didn't catch anyone during a lunch break. The photos were taken on a Saturday afternoon at about 3pm.

I have been to the clean site previously, and it is always clean. The messy site is always messy, though it seemed worse this time.

I find it interesting that some people claim that site cleanliness is very important, and that others, like Manhattan42 who say:
>>I wouldn't be too concerned about how the builder works and operates his site at various stages of construction, but rather at what state he leaves it in the end.The only reason I brought the topic up is that many sites and books which give advice for choosing a builder say you should consider how sites are left after hours -- messy, it is claimed, indicates poor management of the site / general disorganization; clean, the opposite.

Has anyone used a GC who had a clean building site, but with a poor outcome?

FWIW, I used to edit and was a contributing editor to a number of tradebooks covering industries from metal coating to shopping centres, from trucking to forestry operations, from food production to papermaking. I usually came in ignorant to the specifics of the industry. But when I inspected and wrote on a business I was told to watch for "housekeeping" as a marker of a well-run operation.

All three are in different stages of construction. You can't really compare them. Framing is very messy with lots of scrap around. I would suggest getting some references from the builder and see if his previous clients found him to be messy.

This has got to rank rioght up there as one of the most useless ideas going.

If you want the framers to throw every piecfe of scrapo in the trash you are going to wast a lot of usabloe lumber.

Where do you think the pieces for blocking come from, cutting a fresh 2x4 (or larger) into 14.5 inch sections?

It is right up there with sweeping all the sub-floor clean before starting to mud the drywall.

The inevitable drywall mud on the floor sticks very well to clean concrete or plywood, increasing the labor to remove it.

Sawdust prevent it from sticking so it can be easily removed with a coal grain, or snow shovel.

Useful material should not be left exposed to the elements, but placed in a pile that is easily visible & accessible for use later in the project.

Drywall mud is easily cleaned off of concrete by damping the mud spots and scraping. Comes up real easy and for areas that need to be completely rid of traces of mud, a light mopping,( such as vinyl flooring areas). Plywood is another animal and is why most pros cover the floor with rosin paper or the equivalent before mudding. Sawdust/debris isn't going to catch all of the mud and on a plywood deck, you are just making way more work for yourself trying to get it up off the plywood surface. I papered our floor off until after paint, pulled it up to a spotless plywood deck. Worth the effort of laying down the rosin paper and taping the seams/perimeters as overall, it took very little time.

I never thought about this when I was picking my builders. I would suggest looking at his end product... do you like the house? do they have good attention to detail? do they finish on time? are current owners of his homes happy? does he have good follow through for warranty items? ... etc. I have built twice. Both sites were relatively clean. One builder was a nightmare, one builder was amazing. I would have been more aware of this had I asked around more from others who used them.

The messy factor could suggest his framers are just messy and he hasn't yelled at/micromanaged them yet. The messy factor could suggest he is messy and doesn't care. I suppose it could suggest also that his work is sloppy. You can't assume it means one or the other definitively... I think answering the above questions is your best bet.

(With all that said, I would absolutely run a clean job site because of appearances. I would want my image to be of quality...... *shrug* but I was a business major.... :p)

Papering off subfloors or even covering the whole deck in #30 felt seems extreme to me. And just how sloppy are your taping guys?

if you want the framers to throw every piecfe of scrapo in the trash you are going to wast a lot of usabloe lumber. (sic)

When I started building, my project manager let the carpenters get away with this, using their rationale that pulling nails out of of wood was beneath them. (Pretty much going along with whatever the trades did or asked was a tactic the manager used to endear himself to them.)

Once on my own, I was pulled up short by an old world carpenter who admonished me for scrapping small pieces. Since then, I keep cutoffs down to 10" on site till final cleanup.

You can't assume it means one or the other definitively.

Maybe not in a court of law!

But as a rule when I see a messy site, I know it's a care-for-nothing-but-the-bottomline builder, usually an absentee investor or first timer. And no matter how pretty the place looks in the end, I know there are loads of hidden flaws. I watched one of these messes go up and heard all the tales of woe from trades who had been on site. When it was finished I went to an open house. I didn't want to be critical to the listing broker as it would look like builder rivalry. But then he said, "I could show you half a dozen things wrong in each room!" In the end, that builder made a killing largely on the basis of the impressive fake stucco mouldings on the front elevation. Good for him!

"Drywall mud is easily cleaned off of concrete by damping the mud spots and scraping. "

And all that does is smear the mud onto the concrete or plywood.

And then you have to wait for the water to evaporate before anything else can be done on the surface.
Add to that the labor costs money.

"Plywood is another animal and is why most pros cover the floor with rosin paper or the equivalent before mudding."

Note at any job site I have seen.
Time is money, let alone the material to cover the floor.

Sawdust works very well.

It gets there during construction and is simply left there.
No extra expanse incurred in time or materials.

After all the finishing (and any sanding required) a quick pass with a shovel (and wider is faster) and then limited sweeping.

If you want to add costs go right ahead and require that everything be cleaned up each step of the way.

I leave significant cleaning until all the heavy work is done, including framing, wiring, plumbing, and drywall.

A single clean up gets things ready for the finish carpenters and laying floors.

You would only DAMPEN the concrete, it doesn't take a soaking to loosen up the mud and it scrapes up clean, no smearing. You wouldn't even want to dampen plywood, that's why most out here paper it off. Most drywall hangers I know wouldn't appreciate tripping over wire cut offs, d.w.v. cut offs, and scrap 2x's while hanging, but bottom line is whatever works for you to get a decent outcome whether it's a build, remodel, or whatever the project incurs.

I understand your method, Brick as that's how it was always done back in the days here where you scrapped out in a pile leaving dusts and minor debris, so the hangers aren't really tripping over anything. Plywood decking is rare out here except for two stories, mostly slabs where we currently live, mostly crawlspaces up in the area of our build where slabs are rare. Im not saying that trades people should have a broom and dust pan in their tool bags, just that a daily clean up and organizing for the next days tasks is more efficient and safer, at least on our projects. Again, whatever works for you and yours!

Has anyone had a contracter have the tiles installed prior to the inside walls being finished? They did this in our new home recently and then made a huge mess on the new tiles. We had discussed our concern with the contractor prior and he had said they would put plastic down and wear clean shoes but they did not. The building is concrete so when they are finishing the walls they are dropping concrete and stucco all over the tiles, plus tracking mud inside. They say it can be cleaned after but to me those tiles will never be the same, they should never have made such a mess on them. Also our contract says that the windows and floors will be installed just prior to the finishing but the contractor changed the order because he said it will make a cleaner look. It is definitely not cleaner! The site cleanliness matches the lack of communication skills and organization of the project.