While our regular commercial cleaning service keeps spaces sparkling in day-to-day use, an office deep clean goes a step further.
We get asked how to deep clean an office all the time – and people are always surprised at just how much work goes into it. In this post, you’ll learn how to deep clean an office, down to the smallest details, and you’ll get our ultimate office deep cleaning checklist.
We’ll cover the stuff you’ll need, like cleaning supplies and equipment, plus our specialist knowledge of how to do the job to a high standard. Let’s start with our first office deep cleaning checklist: items you’ll need.
Cleaning supplies and equipment checklist
This isn’t an exhaustive list – but these items will cover the basics of what you’ll need for carrying out a full office deep clean:
- Vacuum cleaner
- Document shredder
- Cleaning gloves
- Duster
- Microfibre cloths
- Lint-free cleaning cloths
- Sponges
- Mop and bucket
- Toothpicks and cotton buds
- Bin bags
- Distilled vinegar
- Bicarbonate of soda
- WD-40
- Rubbing alcohol
- Antibacterial surface spray
- Window cleaner
- Floor cleaner
- Furniture polish
- Compressed air
Office deep cleaning checklist
This is every step we’ll cover, in full detail below:
1. Clear out the clutter
- Remove clutter from desks
- Remove any bags or boxes from floors
- Dispose of accumulated junk and shred old documents
- Empty the office fridge, dispose of expired items
2. Move the office furniture
- Unplug and remove phones, computers and any devices on desks
- Pull desks away from walls
- Move filing cabinets and storage to the middle of the floor
- Roll office chairs away, as required
3. Dust and disinfect
- Open windows
- Start up high: remove cobwebs from ceilings, doorways and lighting fixtures
- Dry-dust door frames and shelves
- Dry-dust blinds and window sills
- Dry-dust radiators, check walls for dust and cobwebs
- Clean marks off painted walls
- Wet-dust and disinfect
4. Clean the floor
- Deep clean carpets, or;
- Vacuum all carpets and check for stains
- Vacuum, mop and disinfect hard floors
5. Reorganise
- Reposition desks and furniture
- Set and plug in all computers, phones, and devices
- Empty bins and take out rubbish
- Tidy away cleaning supplies and equipment, noting anything that’s run out
Detailed guide: how to deep clean an office
It’s a big job – and one that requires a little team effort to get right. But once it’s all done, you’ll have a deeply clean office that can easily be maintained for months on end, with a weekly or fortnightly office cleaning service.
1. Clear out the clutter
This one will need your team to put in a little work, at the end of their working day before the big deep clean! Clear all desks of clutter, and get bags and document folders off the floor – maybe use the opportunity to get rid of any junk that’s built up over time, too.
Read more – How to declutter your office
It can actually be quite a satisfying experience. Be sure to shred any sensitive documents fully, using a good document shredder. You could take this opportunity to clear out your office fridge, too – but the office kitchen (and its evil twin, the office toilet) is a whole new level of deep cleaning, so we’ll touch on that at the end…
2. Move the office furniture
To maximise efficiency, don’t worry about cleaning anything just yet; first, get things moved into place.
Any furniture that can move should be gathered into the middle of the office space, exposing all the edges and corners (where dust usually builds up). You’ll probably notice the floors are a different colour where they’re regularly cleaned!
Now that everything’s in place, it’s time to get your cleaning supplies ready. Let’s get dusting…
3. Dust and disinfect
Make sure the office is well ventilated, and then start off by dry dusting all surfaces. Getting dust wet makes a weird, goopy mess that’s really hard to shift – so use a duster and cloths, or a small brush attachment on a vacuum cleaner before breaking out the polish and cleaning products.
Start from the top of the room; light fixtures, rails and high shelving or tall furniture first. You might need a step ladder or a high reach duster to help.
Need help cleaning blinds, ceiling tiles and office furniture? Follow these guides:
Work your way down to desks and cabinets, being careful not to disturb and spread large accumulations of dust too much. It’s okay if it goes on the floor at this stage, though.
After any further dust has settled, it’s time to wet-dust and disinfect – with either a vinegar/water solution or a streak-free disinfectant cleaner. Again, start with surfaces at the top and work your way down – remembering to clean the insides of windows.
Clean marks off painted walls, if there are any, and remember to work your way from top to bottom wherever possible.
At this point, pay very special attention to the dirtiest places in the office: desks, phones, keyboards, computer mouses and screens.
Need some help? In our Ultimate Guide to cleaning office equipment, we show you:
- How to clean a computer mouse
- How to clean a computer keyboard
- How to clean a computer screen
- How to clean a laptop
- How to clean office phones
- How to clean your office desk
- How to clean office chairs
- How to clean whiteboards
- How to clean the office photocopier
4. Clean the floor
Now that the dust and grime have been tackled, there’s no chance of knocking more onto the floor – so we can give that a clean.
With furniture away from walls and corners, get the vacuum cleaner into every gap and suck up all the dust you can. Check for stains – this guide will show you how to get coffee stains out of carpet. If that doesn’t work, you might need to hire an expert. To deep clean office carpet, specialist equipment is required, and our hot water extraction method cares for fabric while removing dirt and bacteria.
For hard floors, start with a run of the vacuum cleaner before mopping with disinfectant – paying close attention to the corners and edges that are rarely cleaned.
5. Reorganise
Once the deep clean has been completed and floors are dry, it’s time to get everything back in place and reorganised. Put all desks and furniture in their rightful places, plug the computers back in and get ready to enjoy a sparkling-clean office.
Don’t forget to make a shopping list of cleaning supplies, to replace what you’ve used up in the deep clean.
What about deep cleaning office kitchens and toilets?
As you can probably tell, this guide is for only deep cleaning the office workspace. The kitchen and toilets are separate cleaning jobs that deserve their own guides. Lucky for you, we’ve got those covered, too!
- Office Toilet Cleaning Guide
- How to Clean the Office Coffee Machine
- Cleaning the Office Dishwasher
- How to Keep the Office Fridge Fresh and Clean
- Cleaning the Office Microwave
As it’s such a big subject on its own, we’ll create an office kitchen deep clean guide in the near future – so watch this space.
How often should you deep clean an office?
No commercial cleaning service would be complete without an initial deep clean – but after that, they’re not necessary every week. In fact, you might not need to perform a deep clean of your office very often at all, especially if you’ve moved to a hybrid system since COVID.
Read more – hybrid office cleaning schedules
It’s still important to make sure your office does get a deep clean at certain intervals – at least to get into all the places that everyone forgets to clean! So, as a general rule, once every four to six months is a good schedule for an office deep clean, depending on how many people you have working there.
Use the top office deep cleaning service in Cardiff
Get a brilliantly clean office, every time – with The Abbey Cleaning Service. For reliable commercial cleaning in Cardiff, call 029 2067 9323 today. Ask about our office deep cleaning service – and find out how we can help make it quick and easy, with minimal disruption.
