37. Operational Insight: How to complete a Kitchen Deep Clean
Including a workflow you can swipe.
I’ve been rummaging through my business archives this week.
Found a bunch of deep cleaning workflows to break down.
Hope all you remote cleaning business operators in the community find them useful.
Any questions, drop them in the comments or DM me on Twitter.
This week is all about the kitchen deep clean.
Agenda
Products
Equipment
Prepare the clean
Start high, go low
Detailing
Clean out
Here’s the workflow:
Let’s break this down.
Products
To complete an effective kitchen deep clean, our teams used 6 products:
Heavy duty degreaser
Oven cleaner
Glass cleaner
Limescale remover
Stainless steel cleaner
Washing up liquid
The combination of these 6 products will tackle 99% of the grease and dirt in the kitchen.
Equipment
Products aren’t enough for an effective clean.
You also need the right equipment:
Wire wool (Oven)
Steam cleaner (Oven, tiles, cupboards, fridge, floor)
Scourers (Cupboards, drawers, worktops, fridge, skins)
Heavy duty scrapper (Oven)
Screwdriver (Oven)
Microfibre cloths (All surfaces)
Towel rags (Oven)
Vacuum cleaner (Cupboards, drawers, floor)
Mop + Bucket (Floor)
Now our teams were ready to tackle any kitchen deep clean.
Prepare the clean
Before starting to clean, you need clear surfaces to work from.
Tenants leave a whole bunch of shit behind when they move:
Food in the fridge
Flyers in the drawers
Tins and sauces in the cupboards
That’s why collect all the rubbish should be the first step.
The oven also needs preparing. Our oven cleaner needed 15-20 minutes to take effect.
Once the rubbish had been cleared, the team would remove the trays, spray the inside of the oven and let the cleaner go to work.
Start high, go low
Start with the highest points in the room and clean your way down.
It’s the most effective way to clean.
Otherwise you’re doubling up on work, which impacts the time it takes to clean, affects costs and margins.
The flow looks something like this:
Above eye-line: cupboard tops, fridge tops, windows + frames
Eye-line: Extractors, fans, fridge
Below eye-line: Worktops, tiles, hobs, sinks
Knee-line: Cupboards, oven, dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, freezer
Below knee-line: Skirting boards, floor.
The flowchart breaks down the individual steps for cleaning each item.
Detailing
Deep cleans are all about attention to detail.
Common areas that are often overlooked include:
Cupboard tops and bottoms - These areas collect a lot of dust and grease.
Inside the glass on oven doors - That’s why a screwdriver is essential kit. Unscrew the glass and clean the inside.
Extractor filters - These can be removed and cleaned. Spray with degreaser and leave them to soak before cleaning.
Behind the fridge - Free standing fridges collect a lot of dust and cobwebs at the back. Pull out the fridge and vacuum the back (take care with the floor!)
Dishwasher - Remove and clean the filter. Clean the limescale around the edge of the dishwasher door.
Washing machine - Remove and clean the soap tray. Over time there’s a lot of washing detergent build up that tenants rarely remove.
Tumble dryer - A lot lint collects in the filter. This needs to be cleaned.
Clean out
During the final stages of the kitchen clean, our team would prepare to leave the room.
That included:
Collecting any additional rubbish from the clean
Collecting all unused cleaning products and equipment
After the cleaning was finished and the floor was hoovered, our supervisor would check the kitchen.
They made sure everything was cleaned according to our checklist, all rubbish had been removed and none of our products and equipment (or anything else) had been left behind.
Then the floor would be mopped, from the furthest point in the kitchen to the kitchen door.
On to the next room.
Next week I’ll break down the workflow our team used to deep clean bathrooms.
Leave any questions on kitchen deep cleans in the comments below 👇🏾
Content to check out
I missed publishing this week’s episode of The Growth Lab podcast, really sorry.
We’ll be back with on Monday!
In the meantime, if you’ve missed any of the recent episodes, here are three of my favourites:
Thanks for reading!
Matt @ The Growth Lab
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