Home clean or deep clean? What the difference actually is

These are not the same job at two prices. They reach different parts of a house, take different amounts of time, and are bought for different reasons. Here is how to tell which one you need.

The short answer

A home clean maintains. It covers what is visible and in daily use, to the same checklist every visit, so the house never drifts far from where it should be. Two to four hours for most homes, weekly or fortnightly.

A deep clean recovers. It reaches what a regular visit deliberately leaves alone: inside appliances, behind and beneath fixed furniture, above head height, and built-up limescale. One to three days with a team, once or twice a year.

If your house is already maintained, you need the first. If it has not been properly cleaned in a while, or you are moving, selling or returning after months away, you need the second.

What each one covers

Both, every time

Bathrooms: sanitary ware, glass, mirrors, taps and fittings
Kitchen worktops, splashbacks, sink, hob and appliance exteriors
Dusting throughout, including skirtings, sills and frames
Floors vacuumed and mopped to the right method for the surface
Bins emptied, beds made or changed

Deep clean only

Oven interior, including door glass, shelves and runners
Extractor filters degreased or replaced
Inside the fridge and freezer, seals included
Inside every cupboard and drawer
Behind and beneath freestanding appliances
Full descale of tiling, screens, shower heads and taps
High level: cornicing, coving, pelmets, light fittings
Interior glass including reveals, shutters and sash boxes
Radiators, including behind and between the fins
Upholstery and curtains vacuumed with the right head
Behind and beneath furniture that moves safely

Why limescale decides it more often than dirt

London sits on a chalk and limestone aquifer, and the water out of a Thames Water tap runs between roughly 250 and 350 milligrams of calcium carbonate per litre. That is hard to very hard on the Drinking Water Inspectorate's scale.

Limescale is not dirt. It is mineral, it is harder than the chrome and glass it forms on, and no amount of ordinary cleaning will shift it. Removing it needs an acid at a controlled dilution, with dwell time rather than force, then rinsing to neutral and drying.

That is why a bathroom can be genuinely clean and still look tired, and why most deep cleans in this city are really descaling jobs with other work attached. A regular visit keeps scale from building. It will not remove what is already there.

Which one you need

Start with a deep clean, then maintain. This is what we recommend to almost every new client. A regular arrangement that begins from a known baseline stays on top of a house. One that inherits years of someone else's shortcuts spends months catching up and never quite does.

A deep clean on its own suits a seasonal property before a return, a house before sale photography, the end of a tenancy, or a home after illness or building work.

A regular clean on its own is right where the house is already in good order and simply needs keeping that way.

If you are moving out, what you actually need is a move-in or move-out clean, which is worked against the check-in report rather than a general standard. If builders have just left, that is a post-construction clean, which runs in three stages for a reason.

Time and cost, honestly

A regular home clean takes one person two to four hours for most properties. A deep clean takes a team of two to four between one and three days, depending less on floor area than on the number of bathrooms, the state of the oven, and how long the limescale has had.

We survey before quoting a deep clean, in person. A deep clean priced from a room count over the phone is a guess, and the guess is usually wrong in the direction that suits whoever made it.

Regular cleaning is billed monthly. Deep cleans are quoted as a single piece of work. More on both on our pricing page.

Questions

Common questions

How often should I have a deep clean?

Twice a year suits most households, usually at the end of winter and before the autumn. Once a year is enough where a regular arrangement is already in place and the house is lightly used.

Can a deep clean replace regular cleaning?

No. A deep clean recovers a house; it does not keep it. Without regular visits in between you are paying to recover the same house twice a year instead of maintaining it.

Is a deep clean the same as an end-of-tenancy clean?

They overlap heavily, but an end-of-tenancy clean is measured against your check-in report rather than a general standard, and the property has to be empty. That is a different service with a different test attached.

Do I need to be at home?

For neither. Most of our clients are key-holders with us. For a deep clean we do prefer you or your property manager to walk the house with us at the end.

Will a deep clean remove limescale from my marble?

From the chrome, glass and sanitary ware, yes, with the stone isolated and protected first. Limescale on the stone itself is specialist work, because the acid that dissolves scale permanently etches marble and limestone.

How long does a deep clean take?

A team of two to four, between one and three days for most houses. We survey in person before quoting rather than estimating from a room count.

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