Deep or one-off home cleaning: what it includes and when to book it

Some homes look clean until you move the sofa. Or until you open the shower screen in the morning light and see the limescale. The weekly clean keeps on top of what you can see; a deep clean reaches what you can’t.

Here’s how a deep clean differs from a regular clean, what it includes room by room, when it’s worth booking and how to prepare so it goes right first time.

Regular, deep or one-off: they’re not the same

Three words that get used as if they meant the same thing, and they don’t:

→ Regular. The usual clean: dusting furniture and shelves, vacuuming and mopping floors, kitchen and bathrooms, fresh bed linen. It keeps a clean home clean. It’s usually weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

→ Deep. All of the above, but in more detail and reaching what normally gets skipped: doors and frames one by one, grout, limescale, corners, behind furniture. A complete, detailed clean.

→ One-off. This is about frequency, not depth: it’s booked just once. It can be regular or deep. A one-off clean is usually a deep one, because it tends to come after a while without cleaning or before a change.

If your home needs a reset, the best value is to start with a deep clean and then switch to a weekly or fortnightly regular clean.

What a deep clean includes, room by room

This is what should be included, on top of the usual clean:

Kitchen

• Tiles and grout behind the worktop and hob.
• Cupboard fronts, handles and plinths.
• Sink and tap free of limescale and grease.
• Extractor hood and appliances on the outside.
• As extras: inside the oven, fridge and cupboards.

Bathrooms

• Limescale on taps, shower screens and sanitaryware, which is what shows most.
• Tiles and grout, including in the shower.
• Mirrors, vanity units and accessories.
• Toilet, basin and shower tray fully disinfected.

Bedrooms and living room

• Dust up high: lights, on top of wardrobes and shelves.
• Doors, frames and switches one by one.
• Skirting boards and corners, including behind furniture that can be moved.
• Under beds and sofas.

The whole home

• Floors thoroughly vacuumed and mopped, corners included.
• As extras: windows, blinds, ironing, and sofa and mattress cleaning.

When a deep clean is worth it

You don’t need one every month. But there are moments when it makes a real difference:

1. When the seasons change. In spring, to clear the winter dust, and in autumn, before the windows stay shut. With the humidity around the Bay of Cádiz, mould appears sooner than you’d think; we cover it in our guide to damp and mould at home.
2. Before moving in to a new or rented flat.
3. When leaving a rented flat, to get your deposit back. We explain it step by step in our end-of-tenancy cleaning guide.
4. After small building work, when fine dust settles everywhere.
5. Before an important visit, a celebration or the holidays.
6. When nobody has cleaned thoroughly for a while, through lack of time or after a difficult stretch.
7. Before putting the home up for sale or rent, because photos and viewings show everything.

How to prepare for it

A deep clean goes much further if the home is ready:

• Clear away what’s lying around: clothes, papers, toys. Whoever cleans shouldn’t have to decide where everything goes.
• Tell us what matters most to you. The kitchen? The bathrooms? The limescale? That way more time goes where you’ll notice it.
• Decide on extras beforehand: oven, fridge, cupboards, windows. They change the time and the quote quite a lot.
• Send a few photos. Photos of the kitchen, bathrooms and living room help estimate the time and the number of people much better.
• Mention delicate materials: marble, terracotta, untreated wood or old tiles. They can’t be cleaned with just any product; it’s very common in patio houses in Jerez.
• Air the home afterwards and let the floors dry before putting rugs back.
• Plan where you’ll be. You don’t need to stay at home: many clients leave us a key or a door code, and come back to a finished home at the end of the day.

What you can do yourself, and when a professional is worth it

You can deep-clean at home, with time and patience. The honest answer is that hiring someone isn’t always worth it.

You can do it yourself if the home is small, well kept and you have a free weekend. Work room by room, start high and leave the floor until last. And don’t try to do it all in one day: the kitchen on Saturday and the bathrooms on Sunday is better than finishing halfway.

A professional is worth it when:

• There’s a lot of built-up limescale or grease and you don’t want to spend hours scrubbing.
• You’re short of time or have a deadline: a key handover, a visit, a move.
• The home is large or has several bathrooms.
• There are materials you’re worried about damaging, such as marble, terracotta or wood.
• You’d rather spend that weekend on something else.

What saves a professional team the most time isn’t the product, but the order and the equipment: bringing everything needed and knowing where to start.

What makes a deep clean cost more or less

Without getting into figures, the price depends mainly on:

• The size of the home and the number of bathrooms and bedrooms.
• Its condition: a well-kept home isn’t the same as one that hasn’t had a deep clean for months.
• The extras you add: oven, fridge, cupboards, windows or blinds.
• The location, because outside town there may be a travel charge.

If you then want to keep it that way, a weekly or fortnightly clean usually works out better value than booking deep cleans every so often, because each visit takes less work.

What to do next

If your home needs a reset, at Hola Limpio we do deep and regular home cleaning in Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, Puerto Real and Rota. We bring the products and equipment, our staff are insured and, if you then want a regular clean, we try to send the same person every time.

You can work out a guide price in a minute with our quote calculator, choosing “Deep clean”, or send us a few photos on WhatsApp on +34 604 82 90 44 and we’ll give you a fixed price before we come. If you’d rather book by the hour, there’s also our hourly cleaning.