I love learning about cleaning. I love learning about the cleaning techniques, the science of cleaning, the business of cleaning, just about everything there is to do with cleaning, I love learning about it.
One of my favourite ways to learn is from other cleaning companies and professionals. This is an industry where we truly love what we do. Where we feel honour and pride in what we do every single day.
It’s this excitement that has helped me and the rest of the Clean Club Calgary team continue to evolve, grow, and provide better quality cleans. In this spirit, today we’re going to share a few of our team’s favourite cleaning tips and tricks that we’ve learned over the years.
Clever Cleaning Products
Cleaning products aren’t always great, which is why we tend to stick to mild soap, water, and bleach for the most part. However, there are some products that we love because of their versatility and effectiveness. Three include Bar Keeper’s Friend, Tide, and Easy Off.
Bar Keeper’s Friend
Website: www.barkeepersfriend.com
This is a super versatile cleaning product, great for all kinds of scuffs and scruffs. You can use it on all types of surfaces, such as sinks, pots and pans (except non-stick), and bathtubs. Here are two fun clearing tricks to do with this product.
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Front-load washing machine. The door is meant to stay open after running a load to let it dry out. This doesn’t always happen, causing mold to build up. Simply run a cycle with a scoop of their cleanser and you’ll freshen your machine right up.
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Sneaker bottoms. Use a bit of Bar Keeper’s Friend to brighten up the bottoms and keep your sneaker bottoms scuff-free.
Tide
Website: tide.ca
Great for laundry AND great for cleaning other household items.
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Baseboards and walls. Use a small scoop of Tide, mixed with warm water to wash down your baseboards and walls.
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Barbecue. It’s barbecue season right now so this a timely tip! Fill a bucket with warm water, add a bit of Tide, wipe down the barbecue. Easy.
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Sneakers. Want to get your whole sneaker clean and not just the bottoms? Then soak your sneakers in a bucket with Tide and Borat/Baking Soda. After soaking for an hour, remove and run through your washing machine. Wash with towels to keep the sneakers from bouncing around, helping to prolong the life of your washing machine.
Easy Off
Website:www.easyoff.us
This may be a bit controversial as this Easy Off can be a bit harsh of a product and many homes do not want to use this product. However, we find that if the self-cleaning option on your oven doesn’t do a good enough job of cleaning the racks do the following:
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Pull the racks out and put them in a garbage bag.
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Spray inside the bag with Easy Off.
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Close the bag and leave for 1 hour.
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Take out racks and rinse off.
You can also do this with your barbecue grills. Works like a charm…or a Clean Club Calgary team member!
If Easy Off isn’t for you, not to worry. Do the following:
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Lay down an old towel in the bathtub.
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Put in the oven racks.
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Add 2 dishwasher pods with hot water and let soak overnight.
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Take out, rinse off, dry and put back. You may have to scrub the racks, but the overnight soak loosens the grime, making this easier.
The Many Uses of Vinegar
There’s a reason why vinegar disappeared off the shelves in March 2020 alongside toilet paper and all other cleaning products. It’s because this is one of the most versatile household items that almost every house has.
Bathtub Jets
Issue: cleaning out the jet spouts. This allows the inside of the jets to be cleaned, removing any mold, soap scum, etc. from the jets themselves.
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Items needed: white vinegar, one dish pod tablet (e.g. Cascade)
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What to do: fill the jet tub with hot water. Add one cup of vinegar and 1 dish pod. Let jets run for 30 minutes. Drain tub. Refill and relax with your freshly cleaned jets.
Dishwasher
Dishwashers often become scaled with lime. This lowers the power of the cleaning and removal of food bits.
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Items needed: white vinegar
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What to do: place one cup of vinegar in the dishwasher and run through a regular cycle. Do this once a month to maintain.
Laundry Machine
Whether top or front loading, all laundry machines need to be cleaned once every month or two. This helps keep your machine clean and your clothes super fresh.
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Items needed: white vinegar, baking soda
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What to do: combine 1 cup of baking soda and 1 cup of vinegar in your laundry machine. Run through a regular cycle. Once finished, open the door to let the machine air dry. Do not do this with clothes in the machine.
Coffee Maker
One of my personal favourite home appliances, the coffee maker often needs to be descaled of lime. This will help keep your coffee tasting delicious and perking you up the right way!
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Items needed: white vinegar, glass cleaning cloth.
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What to do: Add ½ cup of vinegar to a pot of water. Run the water/vinegar mix through the machine as you would if making a normal pot of coffee. Afterwards, rinse and dry. Make it sparkle and shine – a coffee pot fit for scrumptious coffee – with a glass cleaning cloth.
Pleasant Freshening Tips
There are always forgotten items in the house when it comes to cleaning. Not to worry as we have fun tips to freshen a few of these often overlooked things.
Pillows
Pillows have so much hidden on them…even itty bitty mites. Washing pillows is a must – and you can use your washing machine more! Do it the right way, though, to keep your pillow nice and fluffy. Wash a minimum of two pillows at a time to keep the machine balanced. This also goes for dog beds (if they fit).
Stuffed animals
Did you know these can be washed? Trust us…you want to wash them if you haven’t yet. Just…trust us. Use the gentle cycle. If possible, place the plush friend in a laundry bag. You can find these in most dollar stores or in the laundry aisle at the grocery store.
Feather Duvet
To thoroughly clean this, they should be drycleaned. However, freshening up your duvet is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your sleep peace of mind. Put your duvet into the dryer. Add in dryer sheets and/or dryer balls. Run the heavy-duty program. This helps to kill any of those tiny mites who may have burrowed in somehow.
Bedsheets
I was born and raised in Hungary, where it is common practice to iron our bedsheets. To this day, when I am feeling low, overwhelmed, or just need a pick me up, I’ll iron my sheets before putting them on the bed. Crawling into a bed with freshly washed and ironed sheets is heavenly! There is nothing quite like it and I instantly relax and feel better. Ironing your sheets is essentially creating a fresh space for your mental health.
Air vents
Grime, dirt, hair, mud – so much gets caught in the air vents. Depending on just how dirty the air vents are, you can put them in the dishwasher, top shelf, and run them through for a turbo clean.
Do you have a fun cleaning trick you’d like to share? Did you try one of the above? I’d love to hear all about it your experience and your own unique hacks. Connect with me here.
Or – if you are really just looking for how to get someone to give you a quote so you don’t have to know these super fun tips, connect with me here. Happy to provide you with a quote that fits you!
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.
The 3 Types of Clean: Cleaned, Sanitized and Disinfected
Cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting – since COVID, these terms have flooded our lives, newsfeeds filling with articles using these words interchangeably and scaring the bejeebus out of readers, including me at times…and I’m a cleaning business owner!
Customers have been asking more and more exactly what the difference is and should people even care. My simple answer is yes. Absolutely, you should care. A properly cleaned home provides a healthy environment. So, for this month’s blog, I wanted to take a moment to break down what each of these terms means and how your residential cleaner uses them to provide you with a higher quality of life.
CLEANING WITH CLARITY
To clean is to remove dirt, debris, dust and other unwanted materials from surfaces. It may or may not involve tidying up (e.g. organizing and putting things in their place) and can include simple cleaning agents, such as soap or detergent. Regular cleaning keeps your place looking and smelling nice while also reducing the germs living on the surface. However, cleaning on its own will not have the same benefits or peace of mind as sanitizing and disinfecting.
To clean, think “simple wiping.”
SANITIZING MADE SIMPLE
Sanitizing is a step up from cleaning. Similar to cleaning with the removal of debris, sanitizing further reduces the germs living on a surface. This act focuses on eliminating these pathogens and microorganisms that can transfer germs, such as COVID or the flu. Sanitizing typically uses a chemical agent of sorts (e.g. bleach or even steam), reducing the germs that come in contact with the agent. Specific touchpoints that require regular sanitization include handles, doorknobs, TV controllers, keyboards, kitchen utensils, and other high touch shared surfaces in your home.
To sanitize, think “wiping with a cleaning agent.”
DISINFECTING DEFINED
Disinfecting is the highest form of germ and debris removal. While sanitizing does an excellent job of reducing pathogens, it is typically done in a quick fashion and does not always kill them. The goal of disinfecting is to kill all microorganisms, leaving a sterile environment behind. This is particularly crucial in hospitals and special care facilities. To disinfect, one must let the cleaning agent sit for a specific amount of time, allowing the agent itself to work. When ready, the cleaner removes the agent, reducing the risk for germ and other pathogen transfer.
To disinfect, think “apply cleaning agent, let it sit and work.”
WHY YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND AND DO ALL THREE FOR YOUR HEALTH
Knowing these differences will help to keep you and your family safe. Understanding these terms guides the type of cleaning products you buy, how you use them, and why you use them. Unfortunately, post-COVID, we are going to be faced with heavy gaslighting from advertisers for cleaning products that are focusing on selling the fear of COVID and not real cleaning solutions. By understanding whether you want a cleaned, sanitized, or disinfected environment, you’ll be able to make smarter choices when it comes to buying cleaning products and when scheduling your professional cleaning services.
I understand that this can be stressful with so many “facts” out there, but it is important to know what your specific risk is and what you can do to protect your own health (e.g. a quick wipe down or full disinfectant cleaning day). Armed with the above definitions, I encourage you to connect with your home cleaning service provider. Ask what cleaning agents they use, along with the Safety Data Sheets for the products they are using. This will give more insight, and hopefully more sleep-filled nights, as you relax knowing how safe your home really is.
Curious as to how you can improve the quality of your life through cleaning sanitizing, or disinfecting?
Connect today and share why dirt is keeping you up at night!