[cleaning-team]

What kind of discount do estate agents typically want off standard prices for EOT cleans? Been asked to price some and need to try and fathom what price point to go in at and if it will be economically viable at the rates they want/need.

Thanks

Jase

[BDCS]

I charge a minimum of £12.50/hour, carpets on top - thats the price when normal people have lived there and obviously considerably more when a tramp had moved in

[deborah waters]

Hi I have a rough guide price list i've been using for my eot's for the past couple of years based on sparkle deep or enviromental. its not perfect (i think i need to up the enviromental prices) but it could give you a rough benchmark if you like i can email or fax it over but i usually work from a base of about £14 p/h and have a maximum time guide for my staff if it goes over that because of the condition i just charge extra i also charge separately for excess refuse removal i.e. if its more than 4 bags of rubbish.
Debbie.

[Adam P]

i'd love if you could email me that benchmark as well. at the moment i'm charging £12 per hour but then work out how long we expect to clean a property e.g. 10 hours and charge £120 before the clean. we are seeing others say much higher prices (some as high as £25 per hour) but we find it hard to charge any higher. Would be great if i can see the guide as then may help if our issue is that we are taking too long to clean, e.g. giving 2 hours for a bathroom, if others can say get it done in 1 hours so they can then charge double. i can't see how we'd get it done much quicker though as we do work hard and do do a lot.

email is adam@ greencleansolution.co.uk

many thanks

[suffolkclean]

Adam, try charging a bit more, we used to charge £12 per hour but if you do a great job offer a good service eg picking up & dropping off keys you can charge more. You could of charged £160 for your 10 hr job & I', sure they'd of still been happy, maybe its yourself that thinks you can't charge more cos your worried they'll think its too much but you can.
Barbara

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Hi,i'm thinking of adding E.O.T cleaning to my services,In my area most rented houses are 2 or 3 bed terraced,could i clean one of these on my own in a day,or would i need help.Do any of you do E.O.T on your own and how long does the letting agent/landlord usually expect to have it done by.....cheers.

[The Great One]

i'd love if you could email me that benchmark as well. at the moment i'm charging £12 per hour but then work out how long we expect to clean a property e.g. 10 hours and charge £120 before the clean. we are seeing others say much higher prices (some as high as £25 per hour) but we find it hard to charge any higher. Would be great if i can see the guide as then may help if our issue is that we are taking too long to clean, e.g. giving 2 hours for a bathroom, if others can say get it done in 1 hours so they can then charge double. i can't see how we'd get it done much quicker though as we do work hard and do do a lot.

email is adam@ greencleansolution.co.uk

many thanks

Hi Adam

I use the strongest solutions available and this cuts down time, also found a steam cleaner to really cut time, sometimes 4 hours off of a full student clean.

With a steam cleaner (I used a Vax one, £80 argos) You can top and tail a room with a broom to get the cobwebs and dust off of skirtings and then steam all skirtings while one other wipes them down, steam the window, spray and wipe and you're out in around 10-15 mins.

Also with things like limescaled tiles and a limescaled shower screen, Harpic toilet cleaner can strip it off in 1 min with either a metal or green scourer, wash down with shower attachment and wipe clean with kitchen towel, it's done and you can cut an hour off of your bathroom clean, if you've presprayed the toilet, window and basin to let the chemical get to work this also helps cut your time.

I know you like the eco stuff but for me it's weak and landlords and LA's don't care, they just want the job done, I would also recommend you put your prices up to £15 per man, per hour.

Regards

Martin

[TVCS]

sorry for the hijacking of this topic.
Martin, how are you getting on with the trauma cleaning etc.  Have you had much work in that area? 

Back to the topic in hand.  We charge a little over £15 per hour EOT cleans.  We always collect keys and try to get the keys collected from the premises so we can be signed off the job.  Now though, we're asked to just pop the keys back. ( i guess we do a good enough job)

[The Great One]

 

[Adam P]

Hi Adam

I use the strongest solutions available and this cuts down time, also found a steam cleaner to really cut time, sometimes 4 hours off of a full student clean.

With a steam cleaner (I used a Vax one, £80 argos) You can top and tail a room with a broom to get the cobwebs and dust off of skirtings and then steam all skirtings while one other wipes them down, steam the window, spray and wipe and you're out in around 10-15 mins.

Also with things like limescaled tiles and a limescaled shower screen, Harpic toilet cleaner can strip it off in 1 min with either a metal or green scourer, wash down with shower attachment and wipe clean with kitchen towel, it's done and you can cut an hour off of your bathroom clean, if you've presprayed the toilet, window and basin to let the chemical get to work this also helps cut your time.

I know you like the eco stuff but for me it's weak and landlords and LA's don't care, they just want the job done, I would also recommend you put your prices up to £15 per man, per hour.

Regards

Martin

thanks for the really helpful post. you didn't have to say much but it's help confirm my thoughts a little better.

We have tried a steam cleaner at home (approx £300 machine that was bought by family) and have found it not as good as we had hoped (we were under the impression it would get limescale off?) but it seems like it'll be fairly good at getting rid of the annoying grease around kitchens.

we plan to take it to the next house that we clean when no one is there to give it a try in hope it will help reduce our cleaning time.

£15 per hour seems very high but we'll try for it with the thought that if we have to £12 per hour is lowest we'll go as we'll still hopefuly earn some money from it. obviously if we start to get loads of cleans that we can price at £15 then we'll stop the £12 but for now i just don't see customers going for that high. only way is to reduce cleaning time heavily to bring it higher per hour in the end.

although we try to be green where possible (the only reason is purely for our health and customers and not because it "saves the world") with eot cleans we do use harsher chemicals if no alternative e.g. harpic. we use a decent degreaser from nothern environmental, can't imagine much better one and it's supposed to be eco-friendly. does anyone use the harpic toilet bombs for bad limescale? haven't given them a go but will do with the next really bad toilet.

my issue is i'm very meticulous so if i see some dirt that perhaps doesn't really need to be done, i can't just leave it and end up wasting time doing too much. things like bad limescale in showers in corners on those folding shower doors, do people just do what they can quickly and leave or remove 100% of it? with harpic it's hard to leave it on there to remove as it damages the stainless steal so ends up needing a knife to remove and it eats up the time very quickly

[The Great One]

Hey Adam

Always happy to help.

With regards to harpic toilet cleaner, I have not found anything as quick as this and for that corner gunge and limescale just leave on for a minute and just scourer out, it really is easy and it won't damage the stainless steel if you leave on for 1 min, rinse off with the shower attachment and wipe up and buff with kitchen towel, job done.

With regards to below water brown limescale the only thing i use here is half a bottle of spirit of salts (£2-3) pour in slowly (hold breath) close lid, go back at the end of the clean and brush away all the limescale, flush and it's done, used it for almost 7 years and it never fails but just be careful it's highly toxic & pungent.

The best degreaser  I have used and again for almost 7 years is brillo degreaser in 5ltr tube and dilute down into trigger bottles, it will literally melt the grease in front of your eyes, also nicotine.

With regards to the steam cleaner, on limescale about as much use as a 3rd armpit, but to save time on skirtings, windows, tiles, kitchen units it is fantastic.

A couple of tips:

You know that blue/green limescale build up in baths and sinks from a dripping tap? squirt a splodge of harpic on it, leave for 2-3 mins while you do something else, then scourer off and it just goes away, easy

BIO-logical washing liquid (Persil) now, you want an all round phenomenal degreaser NOTHING beats this, it is AMAZING and smells great. It's sole purpose if to break down fatty deposits and protein based stains. Some times you can use it neat (I did this today on a kitchen blind and made short work of it) i usually dilute 1/2 a cap into a 500ml trigger spray.

Regards

Martin