What a Cleaner Can Do in 2 or 3 Hours

In two hours a cleaner can give a one or two-bed flat a thorough regular clean, or cover the essentials of a three-bed house: kitchen, bathroom, floors and a dust round. In three hours they can clean a three-bed house properly, bedrooms included. At £25 an hour that is £50 for two hours and £75 for three, with products, equipment and travel inside Derby included.

What a cleaner does in 2 hours

Two hours goes quickly, so a good cleaner works in a set order and spends the time on the rooms that show dirt most. For a typical two-bed home, a two-hour visit looks like this.

1. 1Kitchen, about 40 minutes: clear and wipe worktops, clean the hob and the outside of the oven, scrub the sink and taps, wipe the front of appliances and cupboard doors where marked.
2. 2Bathroom, about 30 minutes: descale taps and shower screen, clean the bath or shower, toilet, basin and mirror, then wipe the surfaces.
3. 3Living room, about 20 minutes: dust shelves, TV unit and window sills, wipe the coffee table, plump cushions and vacuum the sofa edges.
4. 4Bedrooms, about 15 minutes: dust the surfaces, make the beds and run the vacuum round.
5. 5Floors, about 15 minutes: vacuum carpets and hallway, mop hard floors from the far corner back to the door.

Those timings are typical rather than fixed. A kitchen with baked-on grease takes longer, and a bathroom with a lot of limescale does too. The cleaner moves time from the lighter rooms to the heavier ones.

What a cleaner does in 3 hours

The extra hour is not just more of the same. It is where the cleaner gets to the jobs that two hours leaves out. A three-hour visit to a three-bed house usually covers everything in the two-hour list plus the following.

• Every bedroom dusted, vacuumed and bed made, rather than a quick pass
• Wardrobe fronts, door handles and light switches wiped
• Skirting boards and door frames wiped in the busiest rooms
• Inside of the microwave and the front of the fridge cleaned
• Stairs, banister and landing vacuumed and dusted
• Mirrors and glass surfaces polished
• Bins emptied and the kitchen floor mopped to the edges
• Time left over to change bed linen, tidy up or fold clothes if you have asked

How many hours does your home need?

The size of the home sets the starting point. How lived-in it is sets where you land within the range. Weekly visits need fewer hours than fortnightly ones, because less builds up between them.

A first-time deep clean is a different job. A two-bed flat takes 5 to 7 hours, and a three-bed house takes 7 to 10 hours, which is £175 to £250. If it has been a long time since the last proper clean, start there and then drop to two or three hours a visit. The guide to deep cleaning versus regular cleaning explains when each makes sense, and the regular cleaning cost page has the full breakdown.

How to prioritise your hours

A cleaner can only do so much in a set time, so the most useful thing you can do is say what you care about most. Five minutes at the start of the visit changes the outcome.

1. 1Pick your top three. The kitchen, the bathroom and the floors are the usual answer, but if you have guests coming it might be the living room and the spare bed.
2. 2Name the one thing that bothers you most. A stained shower screen, sticky hob or dusty window sill. That gets done first, not last.
3. 3Say what can wait. If the bedrooms are fine, say so, and the time goes to the rooms that need it.
4. 4Decide on extras before you start. Changing beds, tidying and folding clothes all take time, so agree them up front rather than at the end.
5. 5Clear the floors and surfaces if you can. A cleaner who spends 20 minutes moving toys and post has 20 minutes less to clean.

Tidying up and folding laundry

Many people assume a cleaner only cleans. Our team also tidies up and folds clothes during regular visits if you ask. For a busy household, a pile of dry washing folded and put on the beds, or toys and post cleared off the floor, can be as useful as a scrubbed bath.

The thing to know is that tidying uses the same clock as cleaning. Folding a full basket of laundry might take 20 to 30 minutes. In a two-hour visit that is a quarter of the time, so if you want both done properly, book an extra half hour (£12.50).

What 2 or 3 hours will not cover

A regular clean keeps a home in good order. It is not a deep clean, and some jobs belong in a separate booking rather than being squeezed into the same visit.

• A full oven clean with the racks soaked and the door glass cleared of baked-on carbon, which is a separate oven clean
• Carpet cleaning, sofa cleaning and other soft furnishing work
• Washing walls and ceilings
• Cleaning the outside of windows
• Limescale or mould that has built up over months, which needs more time than a routine visit allows
• Moving heavy furniture to clean behind and underneath it

If the oven is the main problem, our oven cleaning service does it in one visit, and our guide to oven cleaning products covers what you can do yourself.

What it costs

We work seven days a week, 9am to 9pm. For the wider picture, see how much a cleaner costs in Derby and how a fixed price compares with hourly pricing.

Getting the most from a short visit

• Put away anything on the floor, worktops and bedside tables before the cleaner arrives
• Leave a short written list of priorities on the kitchen side
• Move laundry you want folded to one place
• Tell the cleaner about anything delicate, such as a marble worktop or a polished table
• Check the work within 48 hours. If anything is missed, tell us and we come back to put it right under our 100% satisfaction guarantee