Deep clean or regular clean: which does your Bristol home need?

It is the question we are asked more than any other in Bristol: do I need a deep clean, or will a regular clean do? The honest answer is that most homes need one of each, in a particular order. Here is how to work out where yours sits.

What a regular clean is for

A regular clean is maintenance. It keeps a home at a steady, comfortable standard so dirt never gets the chance to settle in. For most of our customers that means a weekly or fortnightly visit, working to a checklist you help set.

• Kitchen surfaces, hob, sink and the outside of appliances wiped down
• Bathrooms sanitised, showers and taps cleared of everyday soap and water marks
• All floors vacuumed and mopped, including under lighter furniture
• Dusting through the house: sills, shelves, skirtings, switches and picture rails
• Beds changed and general tidying on request

What a regular clean deliberately does not do is take an appliance apart, move heavy furniture, or spend forty minutes on one set of shower tiles. There is not time in a routine visit, and if the home is already being kept up, there is no need.

What a deep clean adds

A deep clean goes after the build-up a routine visit never reaches. It is slower, more thorough, and usually done by a small team rather than a single cleaner.

• Inside the oven, the grill and the extractor filter
• Grease and splatter behind and beside the hob
• Limescale off taps, shower screens, tiles and around plugholes
• Skirting boards, door frames, the tops of doors and picture rails
• Inside cupboards, wardrobes and drawers
• Window sills, frames and the inside of the glass
• The tops of wardrobes, kitchen units and anything else above eye line
• Radiators, light fittings and switch plates

Two things make deep cleans in Bristol take longer than people expect. The first is hard water: the supply here leaves a chalky scale on anything that meets water regularly, and shifting it properly takes time and the right product rather than a quick wipe. The second is the housing stock. A lot of Bristol homes are Victorian or Edwardian terraces with deep skirtings, sash windows, tiled hallways and original features that all hold dust and all need doing by hand.

How to tell which one you need

Book a deep clean if any of these is true:

1. Nobody has cleaned the home properly in three months or more
2. You are moving in, and want a clean slate before your things arrive
3. You are moving out, in which case you probably want an end of tenancy clean, which is a deep clean built to letting agent standards
4. Builders, decorators or a new kitchen have left dust everywhere
5. You are hosting something and want the whole house to lift, not just the visible parts
6. You are about to start a regular schedule and want to begin from a proper baseline

A regular clean on its own is enough if the home is already in good order, is lived in lightly, or has been kept up by a previous cleaner and you are simply taking over the schedule.

The pattern that works

For most homes the sensible route is a deep clean first, then a regular clean every week or fortnight to hold that standard. The deep clean does the heavy resetting; the regular visits stop it ever needing to be done again. Customers who do it this way rarely need another full deep clean unless something unusual happens, like building work or a long spell away.

Skip the deep clean and go straight to fortnightly visits on a home that has been neglected, and the first few cleans are spent catching up rather than maintaining. It takes longer to reach the standard you were hoping for, and it can cost more overall.

Still not sure

Send us a few photos of the kitchen and a bathroom and we will tell you honestly which one your home needs, even when the answer is the cheaper option. You can see what each visit covers on our deep cleaning and regular house cleaning pages, or ask us for a fixed quote.