Cleaning House Does Not Mean Cleaning Office: The Differences in Residential and Commercial Cleaning
Cleaning is cleaning. Everyone does it the same. Every space requires the same effort and order of cleaning. It’s all the same.
NO!
This is the farthest thing from the truth. It truly hurt my heart to write that very sentence! One person’s clean may very well be another person’s dirty - that’s what we say here at Clean Club Calgary. And this applies whether in a home or a workspace.
And just as there are differences in cleaning preferences, there are even further differences in how one cleans a residence versus a commercial space.
The Dusty Devil in the Details
Residential Dusting
As much as we love our dust bunny friends, they need to be evicted as they impact air quality. Dig into the exact details on how and why to dust at home right here. A quick overview: go top to bottom, left to right; feather dusters are bad; use the right materials properly and use them often!
Commercial Dusting
Traditionally, dusting in workplaces was minimal. Today, as we’ve become more aware of how dust impacts our health, companies are regularly requesting dusting. Now, cleaners wipe everything on one’s desk (keyboard, mouse, phone, desk surface). *
Interestingly, many of our clients are in spaces where their landlord is responsible for ensuring the duct systems are cleaned. This allows for proper ventilation. While we can dust as part of a cleaning package, it is virtually impossible to remove all dust if the air ducts are circulating with dust from the rest of the building.
Dusting is definitely not a one size fits all
*Note: we recommend you implement a clean desk policy as, by law, cleaners are not allowed to touch and/or move any paper remaining on a surface. If your employees do not remove the paper, we are not able to take all the necessary steps to ensure proper cleaning, sanitizing, and/or disinfection.
Floor Fashions that Differ
Residential Floor Cleaning
Vacuuming is VERY detailed for residential services. As much as we can, we move furniture, lift area rugs, vacuum under, heck sometimes even over. Anywhere that’s easy to reach gets a detailed vacuum every, single time.
Once we’ve vacuumed, we solidify the work by mopping. Using a freshly cleaned microfibre cloth, mopping picks up any dust that beat the initial vacuum power!
Commercial Floor Cleaning
Commercial vacuuming is done once every 1 - 2 weeks and is not quite as detailed as residential vacuuming. For Clean Club Calgary’s commercial cleaning clients (contract stipulations apply), we provide a once/year deep clean, which ensures digging into the nooks and crannies to remove as much as possible. This requires support in lifting stuff off the floor, pulling out desks from walls, and other such involvement from the client.
For commercial mopping, we have special mop heads. Unlike the microfibre cloths we use in residences, these must be sent away to be laundered because of the special material and size they are. It is an additional step in how we care for our cleaning materials that is one of the major differences between residential and commercial clients and cleaning frequencies.
Busting Bathroom Rumors
Residential Bathrooms
Each time you ask us to clean the bathroom, it is always a thoroughly deep clean as we do not offer the same frequency cleaning packages as we do for commercial cleaning. With more and more people working from home, a deep bathroom clean, particularly the bathroom, shower, and sink surfaces, is always one that is included. Other things for the bathroom that need deep cleaning, but not every time include the lights, which should be done monthly, and the ceiling fans (and vents), to be cleaned quarterly. The cabinets and baseboards are cleaned every 2 - 4 weeks.
Commercial Bathrooms
While the actual cleaning techniques are similar, it’s the frequency and depth of clean that vary. With Clean Club Calgary, our commercial cleaning packages typically offer daily, 3 times/week, 1 time/week, or monthly (our most common) service.
For daily commercial cleaning clients, we are able to replenish their supplies (e.g. paper products, hand soap, and sanitizer). We also do the surfaces and toilet cleaning as well every time. Once per week, we do a deeper clean, getting into the corners, scrubbing the base of toilets, washing stall dividers and the wall tiles.
The touchpoints for both residential and commercial are always sanitized with each clean. These are areas such as doorknobs, switch plates, faucets, knobs, etc.
Kitchen Cleaning
Residential Kitchens
More and more meals are cooked from home, and the beautiful messes left behind are showing us that kitchens are being USED! While we have our usual cleaning, which involves wipe down, sanitize, and make it sparkle, we also complete deep residential kitchen cleans by request. These include things such as washing the counters and/or backsplash, cleaning the stove, washing the fridge (inside and out), cleaning the oven, wipe down the cabinets, wipe inside the cabinets, etc.
With our mopping, we have one rule of thumb, taught Day One of team member training: Mop Twice!
Commercial Kitchens
For our daily and 3x/week service, we do surface level every week. Once a month, we do a deep clean of the kitchen, including a fridge wipe (and throw) out.
While there are not as many large appliances as there are in residences, we do still wipe down the small ones most kitchens have (coffee machine, toaster, and microwave). 99 percent of the time, people in the office take the responsibility for office dishes, whether washing by hand or in a dishwasher.
The kitchen is probably where we spend most of our time mopping as it is one of the most heavily used rooms in an office. There is a lot of traffic with numerous coffee breaks, water breaks, breakfast, snacks, lunch, afternoons snacks all leaving behind scuffs, dirt, and spills.
Whether residential or commercial, what’s important is the work is done by a professional, in a manner that provides a higher quality of living.
If you’re curious as to how we can clean so you don’t have to, connect for an instant quote.