What to Do When Storm Damage Leaves Debris Across a Commercial Site

The phone goes at 05:20 on a Saturday in February, the morning after an orange wind warning for Leinster. It is the facilities manager of a multi let business park in Sandyford, and two of his tenants open at 08:00.

He is standing at the barrier looking at a car park under leaf litter, small branches, a section of timber fencing and what he thinks are roof slates in three of the parking bays. He has already tried a tree surgeon and been told midday at the earliest. His first question is whether we can get a road sweeper down there now. My first question back is not about the sweeper. It is whether anything has come off the roof, and whether he can see the gutter line from where he is standing.

The short answer: what to do first when storm debris is across your site

Nothing gets cleaned until the site is declared safe. That is not caution for its own sake, it is the order that protects you, your staff and your claim.

1. Keep everyone out. Do not open the site or the car park yet.
2. Look for fallen or low electricity wires. If you see any, keep everyone away and ring ESB Networks on 1800 372 999.
3. Check for structural damage from a safe distance: roof edges, parapets, cladding, glazing, signage, boundary walls.
4. Get a competent person to declare the building and the external areas safe to enter.
5. Photograph everything before you move anything. Wide shots first, then close ups.
6. Cordon the hazard zones: loose slates, broken glass, damaged fencing, anything overhead.
7. Clear in stages: pedestrian routes first, then entrances, then the car park, then gutters and gullies.
8. Segregate the waste and remove it through an authorised waste collector with a docket.

The clearing is the easy part. The sequence is what protects you.

Before anything else: is the site safe to enter?

Nothing gets cleaned, swept, washed or tidied until somebody competent has declared the site safe. There is no version of this where the brush comes out first.

What competent means depends on what you are asking about. For structural questions it is a chartered structural engineer or a competent building surveyor. For roof coverings it is a roofing contractor. For trees it is an arborist or tree surgeon. For anything to do with electricity supply it is ESB Networks and nobody else.

We will not put operatives onto a site that has not had that call made. That is not us being difficult. It is a protection for the client as much as for our people, because the moment somebody is working under an unsecured roof edge, everyone involved owns that decision.

The perimeter walkaround: what to look at without going in

You can run a genuinely useful check from outside the hazard zone. Stand at the far side of the car park and use your phone camera zoom rather than walking closer. Work in this order.

Overhead first, because this is what falls on people:

• Roof edge, ridge, flashings and parapet copings.
• Slipped, cracked or missing slates and tiles.
• Lifted cement or metal sheeting, especially anything still fixed at one edge.
• Dislodged rooflights.
• Aerials, satellite dishes, solar panels and their fixings.
• Signage, fascia and soffit boards.
• Anything visibly hanging or moving in the wind.

Facade:

• Cracked, dropped or missing glazing.
• Distorted curtain walling or dropped gaskets.
• Damaged or displaced cladding panels.
• Loose or blown render.
• Damaged canopies and covered walkways.

Ground:

• Fallen trees and limbs, and hung up branches still caught in a canopy.
• Broken fencing and gates.
• Displaced bollards and planters.
• Lifted or missing manhole and gully covers.
• Standing water, and where it is trying to go.
• Debris that looks like it came from height.

Services:

• Wires, poles and stay wires.
• Meter boxes and external plant.
• Any smell of gas.
• External lighting columns leaning or damaged.

If any item on the overhead list is uncertain, the ground beneath it stays closed. Debris on the ground is very often evidence of a live problem still above it.

Fallen and low electricity wires: the one hazard with no judgement call

ESB Networks advice is to assume electricity wires are always live, never to approach or handle fallen electricity wires, to keep away, and to contact ESB Networks immediately on 1800 372 999, which is a 24 hour service.

The ESB Networks Code of Practice for Avoiding Danger from Overhead Electricity Lines instructs anyone who encounters a fallen or low conductor to stop work, remain calm and stay away, keep everyone away from live conductors, and remain on site until ESB Networks staff arrive rather than leaving the site unattended.

• Do not approach a fallen wire to look at it.
• Do not attempt to move anything that is touching a line, including a branch, a fence panel or a vehicle.
• Do not drive through the area.
• Do not assume a line is dead because it is not sparking.
• Do not leave the site unattended if you can safely keep watch from a distance.

If a wire is down on your site. Treat the entire span between the two nearest poles as a live exclusion zone, with a generous margin on all sides. A conductor lying on wet ground can energise the ground around it, and a broken line can move. Keep people, vehicles and anything conductive out of that whole area, ring 1800 372 999, and wait. Do not open a car park route through it.

The very first thing I asked that facilities manager in Sandyford to confirm was that nothing was down across the estate road. That answer decides whether anybody moves at all, and it is the one question you ask before any other.

Structural damage: what stops a reopening

Cleaners cannot make a structural call and should not be asked to. What we can do is tell you what we look for and what it usually means.

Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations, S.I. No. 299 of 2007, a safe place of work is an employer duty, and that duty applies to the car park and the pedestrian routes just as much as it applies to the office floor.

Photograph everything before you move anything

Your instinct will be to tidy before anyone sees it. That instinct is understandable and it is wrong, and it is the most expensive ten minutes you can save.

Irish insurance guidance consistently advises contacting your insurer or broker early, following their advice, documenting the damage photographically and keeping receipts for temporary repairs. Business interruption cover may apply where storm damage to the premises prevents trading, and that claim is built on evidence captured before anyone cleared up. Your landlord, your managing agent and any service charge conversation will want the same evidence.

The protocol:

• Check date and time stamps are on before you start.
• Wide establishing shots of every elevation and every external area, before anything moves.
• Mid range shots showing the relationship between damage and where debris landed.
• Close ups of individual items with something for scale, a boot or a tape.
• Photograph debris exactly where it lies. Which bay, which door, which gutter line it came off.
• Photograph the gutter and downpipe condition, from the ground.
• Photograph standing water levels before they drain away.
• Take a slow video walkaround with the date and time spoken aloud.

Then keep a short written log: when you arrived, when the site was declared safe, when clearance started, who attended, and what was moved. Retain the waste dockets with it.

What your insurer will want: dated photographs from before the clearance, the cause of damage, the temporary repair receipts, evidence you acted to limit further damage, and any trading loss if business interruption is in play.

What your landlord or managing agent will want: the same photographs, what was cleared and by whom, what was flagged for repair, and where the boundary of the work sat.

We photograph every area before and after as standard and issue that pack with the sign off, so you are not doing this alone at six in the morning in the rain.

The hazards that stop a clean up dead

There are four things that make us stop, put the tools down and change the plan. Each one is worth being able to spot yourself, because you will be looking at the site long before we get there.

Broken cement roof sheets and suspected asbestos

This is the most important section on this page.

Plenty of older Dublin light industrial units, warehouses and commercial outbuildings have cement roof sheets that may contain asbestos. HSA guidance is clear that asbestos cement products used externally weather slowly, and that the risk of exposure is extremely low if the sheets are left undisturbed. It is equally clear that after years of external use these sheets become covered in lichen, algae or moss, and that removing those growths without adequate precautions can result in fibre release and high exposures.

A storm does precisely the disturbing that the guidance warns about. If sheets have cracked, shattered or blown across a yard, that debris is not a sweeping job.

The rule is simple and absolute. If there is any possibility that broken sheeting, loose fibrous debris or grey cement fragments in the yard came from a cement sheet roof, work stops.

Stop work if you see any of these:

• Grey or off white cement sheet fragments anywhere on the ground.
• Any fibrous or fluffy looking material at a break edge.
• A corrugated profile in the fragments.
• A visibly broken or missing section of a cement sheet roof above.
• Dust or fragments that have already been driven over.
• Any older building on site where nobody can tell you what the roof is made of.

Nobody sweeps it, nobody hoses it, nobody puts it in a skip and nobody drives over it. Dry sweeping and vehicle movement are exactly what puts fibres into the air. The area gets cordoned, damped down where that can be done safely, and the site owner arranges identification.

HSA guidance states that where no information is available, works must not commence until asbestos containing materials have been identified, which in practice means a survey by a competent asbestos surveyor. Removal is specialist work under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Exposure to Asbestos) Regulations 2006, S.I. No. 386 of 2006, and it is not something a cleaning contractor, a general builder or a caretaker takes on. We do not do it and we will not pretend otherwise.

We attended a light industrial unit in Blanchardstown where grey fragments in the yard stopped the job on arrival. The client had expected a sweep and a wash down before ten. What he got instead was a cordon, a phone call and a survey, and he was rightly relieved about it a week later when the result came back.

Glass and slate

Wind broken glazing produces two separate problems. There are large shards near the failure point, which everyone sees, and there is a fine scatter that travels far further than people expect, which nobody sees until a tyre carries it across the site.

• Toughened glass fails into small cubes that hide brilliantly in gravel, planters, drainage channels and matting wells.
• Glass is picked and vacuumed with industrial equipment, never brushed into a heap.
• Matting wells, gully gratings and expansion joints get specific attention, because that is where the fragments settle.
• Gravel beds and planters near a failure point need hand picking, not raking.
• Slate and tile fragments have sharp edges and enough weight to injure from height.
• A slipped but still hanging slate is a roofer's job, and the area beneath stays cordoned until it has been removed.

Anything overhead that has not fallen yet

This is the most common cause of a second incident on a storm site.

Hung up branches in a canopy. Half detached fascia and soffit. A lifted sheet still fixed at one edge. A loose parapet coping. Damaged signage. A light fitting swinging on a canopy.

The rule is that nobody works underneath any of it, including us. Cordon the drop zone with a margin, and remember that in wind the drop zone is considerably wider than the area directly beneath.

Water, electricity and standing floodwater indoors

Standing water inside a building near distribution boards, floor boxes, server rooms or plant is an electrical isolation question before it is a cleaning question. Isolation is done by a qualified electrician or the building's own competent person, never by a cleaning crew.

There is a second question underneath it. If surface water has surcharged from a foul or combined drainage run, the internal work is no longer a mop and extract job. It becomes a disinfection job with a different method, different chemistry and different PPE.

The decision rule is short. Clean rainwater tracked in from outside is a cleaning and drying job. Anything that came up out of a drain is a decontamination job, and it gets scoped as one.

Who does what: cleaning contractor, tree surgeon, roofer, electrician

Work at height is the sharpest boundary on a storm site. Under Part 4 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations, S.I. No. 299 of 2007, work at height must be avoided where reasonably practicable, and where it cannot be avoided it must be properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out by competent people using suitable equipment.

Fragile roof coverings, which includes older cement sheeting and rooflights, are not walked on. That is why our gutter work is done from safe access with the right equipment, and why a storm damaged roof is a roofer's job before it is ever a cleaner's job.

A facilities manager asked me once why a cleaning company was lecturing him about roofs and asbestos. It is a fair question and the answer is straightforward. We are usually the first contractor on site, often before daylight, and we are the ones who find these things. Knowing when to stop is the job. A contractor who will sweep anything you point at is not a lower risk option, they are a higher one.

The clearance sequence that gets a site open

Clear what people walk on, then what people drive on, then what water runs through, then what people look at. In that order, every time.

1. Cordon and control. Barriers and tape on every hazard zone, a single controlled entry route, signage, and somebody on the gate if staff are due. Done when there is one safe way in and every hazard zone is physically excluded.
2. Pedestrian routes and entrances. Footpaths, steps, ramps, accessible routes, entrance aprons and matting wells. Grit and silt removed rather than smeared, because a wet silt film on a polished entrance floor is more dangerous than the branch that started all this. Done when a person can walk from the gate to the front door without stepping on debris or a slip film.
3. Fire exits and escape routes. Consistently the forgotten stage. External escape routes, refuge points and gates must be clear and openable before anyone occupies the building. Done when every final exit door swings clear onto a clear route.
4. Car park and service yard. Bay by bay, mechanical sweeping where the surface and debris suit it, hand clearance around planters, kerbs, bollards and drainage channels. Loading bays and delivery routes prioritised if deliveries are booked. Done when a vehicle can be driven and a pallet trolley pushed without picking up debris.
5. Gutters, downpipes and rainwater outlets. Covered in full below, but sequenced here, because the next band of rain is the real deadline rather than the opening time. Done when water runs from the gutter to the ground without overflowing.
6. Gullies, channel drains and yard falls. Gratings lifted, leaf mat and silt removed from the gully pot, channel drains run through, and a check that water actually falls to the outlet rather than to a doorway. Done when a hose test drains away rather than ponding.
7. Facade, glass and internal reopening clean. External window cleaning where wind driven salt, silt or grit has filmed the glazing, entrance floor deep clean, carpet extraction where rain was walked twenty metres into an open plan floor, and a final walkaround with the client. Done when the site looks open rather than recovered.

On timing, be realistic with yourself. A multi let business park car park and pedestrian route clearance is a crew job before opening, not a single operative with a brush. The variables are what the debris actually is, how much has to be picked by hand, whether a hazard zone is still live, and whether the drainage is blocked.

We scope it on arrival, tell you what is achievable before 08:00 and what has to be a second visit, and we tell you which of the two you are getting before we start rather than after.

Gutters and gullies: the second flood you have not had yet

Here is the mechanism, because once you see it you will never look at a storm the same way.

The wind strips leaves, twigs, moss, roofing granules and plastic debris and deposits the lot into gutters and onto flat roof outlets. Then the wind event ends and the rain carries on. A gutter that is now a dam overflows down the facade, into the wall build up, over an entrance canopy, or backs up under the roof edge where it does the most expensive damage.

A blocked rainwater outlet on a flat roof creates ponding, and ponding is a structural load as well as a leak risk. At ground level, a leaf mat over a gully grating turns a car park into a shallow pond within an hour, and a surcharged yard gully pushes water toward a doorway or down a basement ramp.

Check in this order:

• Gutter runs and hopper heads.
• Downpipe clearance, including the shoe outlet at the bottom.
• Flat roof outlets and their leaf guards.
• Gully gratings, lifted, and the gully pot beneath.
• Channel drains along their full run, not just at the visible end.
• The falls themselves, tested with water rather than assumed.

One detail that catches people every time. A downpipe that is clear at the top and blocked at the bottom looks completely fine from the ground, and floods the base of the wall every single time it rains. If the ground at the foot of a downpipe is always wet, you have found it.

Our gutter cleaning work is done from safe access with the arisings bagged rather than dropped into the beds below, which matters more than it sounds when the beds drain into the gullies you just cleared.

Public road or private site. Dublin City Council maintains public roads, footpaths and street drainage and takes service requests for blocked gullies on the public road through its customer channels. The gutters, gullies and channel drains inside your site boundary are the owner's or occupier's responsibility, not the council's. Report a blocked public gully or a fallen tree obstructing the public road to the local authority, and check which authority applies, because a Sandyford or Leopardstown site is Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council rather than Dublin City Council.

What happens to the waste

Storm arisings from a commercial site are commercial waste, and the duty of care applies to them exactly as it applies to your everyday waste.

Under Irish waste law a business must ensure its waste is handled properly and goes through an authorised waste collection provider or to an authorised waste facility. Waste collectors need a waste collection permit under the Waste Management (Collection Permit) Regulations, administered by the National Waste Collection Permit Office.

In practice, on a storm job, that means you cannot hand a mixed pile of storm debris to whoever turns up with a tipper and a good price. "We disposed of it responsibly" without a docket is not a defence to anybody.

Keep the transfer dockets with the incident file alongside the photographs. The same file answers your insurer, your landlord and any HSA or environmental question that arrives six months later, and it takes about four minutes to assemble on the day.

Understanding Met Éireann warnings so you are not deciding at 05:00

Met Éireann uses three warning levels, and it is worth knowing what each one actually means rather than reacting to the colour.

Yellow means weather that does not pose a threat to the general population but is potentially dangerous on a localised scale. The message is to be aware and assess your own exposure.

Orange means infrequent and dangerous conditions, where all people and property in the affected area face significant potential impacts. The message is to prepare in a way that suits your location and your activity.

Red means rare and very dangerous conditions from intense meteorological phenomena. The message is to take protective action and follow official guidance.

Facilities managers plan against numbers, so here are the wind thresholds.

Warnings are generally issued within roughly a 60 hour window ahead of the event, and that is the real planning runway your site has. It is enough time to move the A boards and confirm the key holder list. It is not enough time to find a contractor who is not already booked.

On naming, storms affecting Ireland are named jointly by Met Éireann, the UK Met Office and the Netherlands service KNMI, with 21 names per season, and a storm is named when it is expected to cause medium or high impacts. The 2025/26 list ran Amy, Bram, Chandra, Dave, Eddie, Fionnuala, Gerard, Hannah, Isla, Janna, Kasia, Lilith, Marty, Nico, Oscar, Patrick, Ruby, Stevie, Tadhg, Violet and Wubbo.

For a sense of what the upper end looks like, during Storm Éowyn on Friday 24 January 2025 Met Éireann recorded a provisional national record gust of 184 km/h and a provisional record 10 minute mean wind speed of 142 km/h at Mace Head, Co Galway, exceeding records that had stood since 1945.

A real site example: the Sandyford business park, the morning after

Back to that Saturday at 05:20.

The answer to my question changed the whole morning. He could see a dark line along the gutter and daylight where a section of fascia had gone. That meant material had come off the roof edge, which meant the drop zone underneath it was still live, which meant the last thing that site needed was a man with a brush.

So I told him three things not to do. Do not send the caretaker out with a brush. Do not open the car park. Do not move the slates.

While we travelled, I asked him to photograph each elevation from the far side of the car park, tape off the two bays under the damaged run, and get the managing agent to line up a roofer for first thing.

We were on site at 06:15. It was mostly leaf and small branch litter, one fence panel, about a dozen slate fragments across three bays, and a scatter of finer fragments along the kerb line that told us the roof edge was the source rather than something blown in from elsewhere. Two gully gratings were completely matted over and holding water. No wires down. And no fibrous or grey cement debris anywhere, which is the first thing we checked for, because half the older units on that estate are not slated at all.

The order we worked in: cordon and single entry route, then the pedestrian route from the gate to both tenant entrances, then the two front entrances and their matting wells, then the fire exits at the rear, then the car park bay by bay leaving the taped bays untouched, then the gullies, then a hose down of the front apron where the silt film had gone greasy underfoot.

What we did not do was go anywhere near the gutter run or the roof edge. That was flagged to the roofer with photographs showing exactly where the fragments lay and which bay each landed in, because the landing pattern tells a roofer where to look before he goes up.

Handover was 07:50. Both tenants opened on time. Two bays stayed coned until the roofer had been. The fence panel went out as timber, the slate as construction debris, the green waste separately, all with dockets. The photo pack went to the facilities manager the same morning and he forwarded it to the managing agent and the insurer without editing it.

What this site taught us:

• The gutter run on that block had not been cleared in over two years, and it was the leaf load in the gutter, not the wind alone, that had been loading the fascia fixings.
• Asking one question on the phone at 05:20 saved a man being sent to sweep underneath a live drop zone.
• The photographs were worth more to that client over the following month than the sweeping was.

When to handle it in house and when to call a contractor

In house handling with a caretaker or maintenance operative is perfectly reasonable for light leaf and twig litter, on a small single occupier site at ground level, with no overhead damage, no glass, no suspected asbestos, no standing water and no wires. That is a genuine job for a yard brush and an hour, and nobody needs to pay a contractor for it.

Everything else goes out. Stop and call if:

• Anything came off the roof, at all.
• There is any glass.
• There is any suspected cement sheet or fibrous debris.
• There is any wire, down, low or damaged.
• There is any tree work beyond branches a person can lift by hand.
• Any part of the work would need a ladder or roof access.
• Drainage is blocked and water is standing.
• You have to open in under three hours and cannot finish in time.

An office manager at a single occupier building in Dublin 4 got this exactly right after a windy night. She cleared the leaf litter around the entrance herself before eight, which was the correct call, and then found glass fragments glittering in the matting well and stopped immediately. She rang us rather than picking at it, and that was also the correct call. Knowing where your own line is worth more than doing the whole job.

On cost, a contractor is priced on crew size, hours, access equipment and disposal. The cost of not doing it properly shows up later as facade staining, water ingress at the wall base, a slip incident in a car park, or a second flood the following week. We quote after a site survey, and we will not quote a storm job over the phone without seeing photographs, because a storm job scoped blind is a storm job priced wrong for somebody.

Who is responsible: landlord, tenant, managing agent or the council

Responsibility in Irish commercial property follows the lease rather than intuition, so the honest first answer is always to check the lease and take legal advice on it. This article is operational guidance, not legal advice.

The general framing looks like this. In multi let buildings, tenants typically handle internal repairs while the landlord handles structure and common areas, with building insurance arranged by the landlord and recharged through the service charge, and tenants insuring their own contents. Where damage is an insured risk, the landlord generally claims and applies the proceeds to reinstatement. Many leases suspend rent while premises are unusable, but where a lease is silent on that point, a tenant can remain liable for rent through the repair period. Single let properties frequently place the whole repairing obligation on the tenant.

On the public line, the local authority is responsible for the public road, footpath and street drainage outside your boundary, and Dublin City Council takes service requests for blocked gullies, road defects, street sweeping and trees on public roads through its customer channels. Inside your boundary it is your site. And a tree on private property that has come down across a public road remains a private responsibility to deal with, even though it is lying on public ground.

Whatever the position turns out to be, do not let a discussion about who pays delay making the site safe. Both insurers will ask why nothing was done.

Preventing the next one: what to do before the season

The Irish storm season effectively runs from late September through March, which makes this the most predictable maintenance calendar in the whole building.

Before the season

• Gutter, hopper and downpipe clearing in early autumn, and again mid winter after the leaf fall.
• Flat roof outlet and leaf guard checks.
• Gully pot and channel drain clearing, before the season and again after heavy leaf fall.
• A perimeter walkaround with an arborist to identify overhanging limbs and dead wood before the wind finds them.
• Fix loose fencing, signage, bin store lids and anything else that becomes a projectile.
• An asbestos register check for older units, so the answer is already known when a roof sheet breaks rather than discovered on the morning.
• A written storm response plan naming who declares the site safe, who cordons, who photographs, who calls which contractor, and who authorises spend out of hours.
• A standing arrangement with a cleaning contractor, agreed and priced before the season rather than negotiated at 05:20 when everyone is booked.

When a warning is issued

• Store or secure outdoor furniture, A boards, planters and smoking shelter panels.
• Confirm the key holder list and out of hours numbers.
• Brief whoever opens the site on the safety sequence, not just on the weather.
• Check the gutters and gullies are clear before the rain arrives, not after.

After every event

• Photograph before clearing, without exception.
• Log what was found, cleared and flagged.
• Keep the dockets with the photographs.
• Review what failed. A fence panel that goes twice is a fixing problem, not a weather problem.

Frequently asked questions

What should I do first when storm debris is across a commercial site? Keep everyone out and check from a safe distance for fallen wires and structural damage. Ring ESB Networks on 1800 372 999 if any wire is down. Get a competent person to declare the site safe, photograph everything, then cordon hazards before any clearing begins.

Do I need a structural check before cleaning starts? If there is any sign of damage overhead, yes. Displaced parapets, lifted roof sheets, cracked walls, sagging ceilings and damaged canopies all need a structural engineer, building surveyor or roofing contractor before anyone works underneath them. Debris on the ground is often evidence of a live problem above.

Should I photograph storm damage before clearing it? Yes, always, and before anything is moved. Irish insurance guidance advises documenting damage photographically and keeping receipts for temporary repairs. Wide shots first, then close ups with something for scale, plus a dated video walkaround. Your landlord and managing agent will want the same evidence.

What do I do about a fallen electricity wire on my site? Assume it is live, keep everyone well away, and ring ESB Networks on 1800 372 999, a 24 hour service. Do not approach it, do not move anything touching it, and do not drive through the area. Treat the whole span between poles as an exclusion zone and wait for ESB Networks.

Can a cleaning contractor remove fallen trees? No. Tree work needs an arborist or tree surgeon with chainsaw and rigging competence, because a fallen tree holds stored energy and can move unpredictably when cut. We clear the debris field afterwards, but the tree itself is not our work and we will say so.

What if broken cement roof sheets are scattered across the yard? Stop. HSA guidance is that asbestos cement weathers slowly and is low risk undisturbed, but disturbing it can release fibres. Do not sweep, hose, skip or drive over it. Cordon the area, damp it down if safe, and arrange identification by a competent asbestos surveyor before any work starts.

Who clears storm debris from the public road outside my building in Dublin? The local authority maintains public roads, footpaths and street drainage, and takes service requests through its customer channels. Inside your boundary it is your responsibility. Check which authority covers you, since Sandyford and Leopardstown fall under Dun Laoghaire Rathdown rather than Dublin City Council.

How do I dispose of storm debris from a business premises legally? As commercial waste, through an authorised waste collection provider or to an authorised facility. Collectors need a permit under the Waste Management (Collection Permit) Regulations. Segregate green waste, timber, glass, construction debris and metal, keep the transfer dockets, and never mix in anything suspected of containing asbestos.

Why do gutters and gullies matter so much after a storm? Because the wind fills them and the rain keeps coming. A blocked gutter overflows into the wall build up, a blocked flat roof outlet causes ponding, and a matted gully turns a car park into a pond within an hour. The second incident is usually water, not wind.

What does an orange wind warning mean for my premises? Met Éireann uses orange for infrequent and dangerous conditions where people and property face significant potential impacts, with mean speeds of 65 to 80 km/h and gusts of 110 to 130 km/h. Secure everything loose, brief staff, confirm key holders, and plan the morning after in advance.

Who pays for storm clearance in a multi let building? It depends on the lease. Typically the landlord holds structure and common areas with costs recharged through the service charge, while tenants hold internal repairs and contents. Check the lease and take legal advice, and never let the question delay making the site safe.

Can you clear a site before we open at 8am? Often yes, and that is exactly what out of hours and early morning attendance is for. We scope it on arrival, tell you honestly what is achievable before opening and what needs a second visit, and we tell you which one you are getting before we start rather than at half seven.

Get your site open, documented and drained

If you are standing on a site right now, ring 086 083 6141. We will ask about wires and the roof line before we ask about the car park, and if the answer is that you need a roofer before you need us, you will hear that first.

If nothing has happened yet, the more valuable call is the pre season one. We survey the site, price the clearance and the gutter and gully work in advance, and agree who does what before the first orange warning of the season. That way the 05:20 phone call is operational rather than financial.

• Free site survey and no obligation quote on post storm external clearance, gutter and gully clearing and reopening cleans.
• A pre season arrangement, scoped and priced before you need it.
• Out of hours, weekend and early morning attendance so the clearance happens before opening rather than during trading.

You get before and after photographs and a signed off scope for every area, issued the same day, and direct access to me rather than a call centre.

Catalin's note: What we sign off is the site, the photographs and the dockets. If the clean is not right, we come back and do it again, for free. What we will not do is tell you we can handle a part of the job that belongs to somebody else.

Email enquiries@premiercontractcleaning.ie or talk to us about a storm callout. You can read more about our commercial cleaning services in Dublin, our commercial window cleaning and our office cleaning in Dublin, or see what our clients say.

Catalin Fatul

Catalin Fatul is the founder and expert behind Premier Contract Cleaning, dedicated to providing top-notch cleaning solutions and tips. With a passion for cleanliness and a commitment to quality, Catalin brings years of experience in the cleaning industry to help readers maintain pristine spaces. Whether it's offering the latest cleaning hacks or recommending the best products, Catalin's mission is to make cleaning efficient, effective, and enjoyable.