A deep clean is a full reset of a property covering everything a regular clean deliberately skips: inside the oven and fridge, limescale on taps and screens, grout, inside cupboards, behind and underneath furniture, skirting boards, door tops, light fittings and window interiors. It takes three to four times as long as a standard clean, costs roughly £165 to £350 for a typical home, and is usually done once or twice a year.
The simplest way to think about it: a regular clean maintains a standard, a deep clean resets it. If you have a cleaner every week and the bathroom still has a grey tidemark in the grout, that is not a failing of your cleaner. Grout is not in a weekly clean and never was.
The short version
- Covers the annual jobs, not the weekly ones
- Takes 5 to 7 hours for a two bedroom home with a team of two
- Costs roughly £165 to £350 depending on size and region
- Carpets are almost always priced separately
- Best done twice a year, or three times with pets or children
What a deep clean includes, room by room
Kitchen
The kitchen usually takes 40% of the total time.
- Oven interior, racks, side runners, door glass and grill pan
- Hob, including underneath the burner caps and around the seals
- Extractor hood and filter, degreased or replaced
- Inside, on top of and underneath all cupboards and drawers
- Fridge and freezer, emptied, defrosted and washed inside including the seals
- Washing machine drawer, rubber door seal and filter
- Dishwasher filter and spray arms
- Microwave inside, including the roof and turntable
- Splashback, tiles and grout
- Sink, taps, plughole and overflow, descaled
- Bin, inside and out
- Behind and under appliances where they pull out
- Worktops, including the join at the wall
- Kickboards
Bathrooms
- Limescale removed from taps, shower head, screen, tiles and grout
- Shower head soaked or bagged with descaler
- Grout scrubbed, mouldy sealant identified
- Shower screen seals and the tracks they sit in
- Toilet including hinges, base and behind the pan
- Bath sealant line and overflow
- Extractor vent
- Cabinet interiors
- Mirrors and chrome polished
- Floor, including behind the toilet
Everywhere else
- High level dust: light fittings, lampshades, picture rails, door tops, coving
- Skirting boards by hand throughout
- Behind and underneath furniture
- Window interiors, sills, frames and the tracks the windows run in
- Radiators, including between fins and behind them
- Curtain poles and blind slats
- Switches, sockets and door handles
- Carpet edges, which a normal vacuum pass misses
- Inside wardrobes and drawers, if requested
- Mattresses vacuumed and turned, if requested
- Stair risers and bannister spindles
How long it takes
| Property | Team of two | One person |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 3 to 4 hours | 6 to 8 hours |
| 1 bedroom | 4 to 5 hours | 8 to 10 hours |
| 2 bedrooms | 5 to 7 hours | 10 to 14 hours |
| 3 bedrooms | 7 to 9 hours | 14 to 18 hours |
| 4 bedrooms | 9 to 12 hours | 18 to 24 hours |
Two things drive the number more than floor area. The first is how long it has been since the last one: a property deep cleaned annually takes far less time than one that has never had it done. The second is bathroom count, because bathrooms are slow and limescale needs contact time.
Add two hours if the oven has not been touched in over a year. Add two to three hours in a hard water area.
What it costs in the UK
| Property | Typical range | London |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | £110 to £170 | £140 to £210 |
| 1 bedroom | £140 to £210 | £170 to £260 |
| 2 bedrooms | £165 to £260 | £200 to £330 |
| 3 bedrooms | £220 to £350 | £270 to £430 |
| 4 bedrooms | £300 to £450 | £360 to £550 |
Priced hourly, deep cleaning usually runs a few pounds above the standard domestic rate, which sits around £17 to £25 per hour nationally.
Commonly charged separately:
| Extra | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Carpet cleaning, per room | £35 to £60 |
| Oven, if not included | £45 to £80 |
| Interior windows, whole property | £40 to £90 |
| Upholstery, 3 seat sofa | £45 to £90 |
| Mattress, each | £30 to £60 |
| Inside wardrobes | £20 to £40 |
Always ask whether the oven is included. It is the single most common gap between two quotes on the same property.
What a deep clean is not
It is not decluttering. A deep clean cleans surfaces. If the surfaces are covered, they cannot be cleaned. Clearing worktops, windowsills and floors before the team arrives is the single biggest thing you can do to get value from the booking, and paying an hourly rate for someone to move your post around is poor value.
It is not repair. Grout that has failed will not be restored by cleaning. A scratched shower screen will still be scratched. Etched chrome stays etched. Cleaning removes what sits on a surface, not damage to the surface itself.
It is not the same as an end of tenancy clean, although the scope overlaps almost entirely. The difference is who judges it. A deep clean satisfies you. An end of tenancy clean has to satisfy an inventory clerk against a check-in report, which is a stricter and more adversarial test, and it normally comes with a re-clean guarantee.
It is not a substitute for regular cleaning. A deep clean six months ago does nothing for the kitchen floor today.
It is not a one-visit fix for a badly neglected property. A home that has never been deep cleaned may need two visits, and a good company will tell you that at the quoting stage rather than discovering it halfway through.
When people book one
The common triggers, roughly in order of frequency:
- Moving in or out of a property
- Before or after hosting, particularly Christmas
- Spring, when the light changes and dust becomes visible
- After building work or decorating
- After illness in the household
- Before a new regular cleaner starts
- After a pet has been in the property
- Selling, before photographs and viewings
- After a period of the property being empty
- Landlord turnarounds between tenancies
That penultimate one is under-used. Estate agent photographs are taken in a single session, and limescale and grubby grout photograph considerably worse than they look in person.
Should you do it yourself?
Genuinely possible, and for a small flat it is a good weekend's work. The honest constraints are time and equipment.
Time. A two bedroom flat is 10 to 14 hours for one person working steadily, and the oven can absorb two of those alone. Most people start enthusiastically in the kitchen and run out of energy before the high level dusting, which is why so many self-deep-cleaned homes have spotless worktops and dusty light fittings.
Equipment. The gap is narrower than people assume for most tasks, and genuinely wide for three:
- The oven, where professional caustic products and heated dip tanks substantially outperform retail products
- Carpets, where hot water extraction is not replicable with a hired domestic machine, mostly because of water temperature and vacuum recovery
- Limescale in hard water areas, where the products that actually work are stronger than supermarket descalers
A sensible middle path is to do the general deep clean yourself and pay for the oven at £45 to £80 and the carpets at £35 to £60 per room. Those are the two jobs where the equipment gap is widest and the time cost highest.
If you do it yourself, what to buy
- Caustic or gel oven cleaner with a rack bag
- Long chemical-resistant gloves
- Limescale remover, not just vinegar, in a hard water area
- A proper degreaser
- Biological washing powder for soaking racks and filters
- Eight or more microfibre cloths, colour-coded
- A plastic scraper, a stiff grout brush and an old toothbrush
- A vacuum with a clean filter and a hair-free brush bar
Getting the most from a booking
1. Clear surfaces and floors first. Worktops, windowsills, the floor under the bed, the bathroom shelf.
2. Say what matters to you. If the grout has been bothering you for a year, say so, because it changes how time gets allocated. Cleaners are not mind readers and they will otherwise distribute effort evenly.
3. Empty the fridge if you want it done inside.
4. Be realistic about one visit. A property that has never been deep cleaned may need two, and it is better to agree that in advance.
5. Book the follow-up regular clean for a week or two later, since a deep clean is a baseline and baselines decay.
6. Be in for the first fifteen minutes to walk through priorities, then leave them to it.
7. Check the oven is in the quote, and the interior windows, and whether carpets are separate.
Frequently asked questions
How often should I have one? Twice a year for most homes, three times with pets or young children, once for a small low-traffic flat.
Do I need to be home? No, though being present for the first fifteen minutes to set priorities helps.
How long before I can use the rooms? Immediately, except carpets, which need two to six hours to dry.
Does it include windows? Interiors usually yes, exteriors usually not. Check.
Will one deep clean fix a badly neglected house? Often not. Expect two visits if it has been several years.
Is it worth it before selling? Yes, particularly before photographs. It is one of the cheapest things you can do to a property before marketing it.
Can I book just one room? Most companies have a minimum charge of around £60 to £90, so a single small room rarely costs less than that.
