Deep cleaning

A deep clean is a different product from a recurring visit, and pricing it as a long version of one is the commonest mistake in this trade. A maintenance visit keeps a house at its current standard. A deep clean moves the standard, which means detail work by hand in places that have been accumulating for years.

What is actually included. Inside the oven and under the burners. Inside and behind the fridge, including the coils and the drip tray. Range hood filter degreased. Inside cupboards and drawers where they are emptied. Baseboards, door frames, switch plates and handles wiped rather than dusted. Light fixtures and ceiling fans taken down where safe. Interior windows, sills and tracks. Blinds cleaned slat by slat. Grout scrubbed and shower glass treated with an acidic product for mineral film. Behind and under furniture that can be moved. Vents and returns vacuumed. Skirting and stair edges done by hand, because that is the only way they get done.

Step one: agree the list and the hours. Deep cleans are honestly quoted as a time budget with a priority order, because nobody can see inside your cupboards from the doorway. A good quote says how many cleaner-hours are allocated and what gets done first if the time runs short. A flat price with no hours and no priority order is a guess that becomes an argument.

Step two: decluttering, which is yours to do. Cleaners clean. They do not decide where your possessions live, and time spent moving objects is time not spent cleaning surfaces. Clearing counters, bathroom shelves and the floor before the crew arrives can cut a deep clean by a fifth.

Step three: top down, wet last. The sequence matters. Dry work first and from high to low, so dislodged dust falls onto surfaces still to be cleaned. Degreasing and soaking next, because oven cleaner and bathroom acids need dwell time and that time is free if the crew starts them early and works elsewhere. Floors last, and vacuumed before they are mopped.

Step four: products, and what needs a dwell time. Most of the work in a deep clean is chemistry and patience rather than pressure. Alkaline degreasers for kitchen grease, acidic products for mineral scale and soap film, and a neutral cleaner for finished hardwood. Mixing products is where people get hurt: chlorine bleach with an acid or with ammonia produces toxic gas, and a cleaner who reaches for two bottles at once on a bathroom floor should be stopped. If a disinfecting step is genuinely needed, Health Canada authorised products carry a drug identification number on the label, which can be checked (Health Canada). Most household cleaning does not need disinfecting at all.

How long it takes. A maintained three-bedroom, two-bathroom Ottawa house is usually six to twelve cleaner-hours, so two people for half a day to a full day. A house that has not had one in five years, or a rental after a long tenancy, can be sixteen to thirty cleaner-hours across two days. Three hours for a whole house is a maintenance visit with a different name on the invoice.

What it costs in Ottawa in 2026. Indicative ranges. A deep clean on a standard three-bedroom, two-bathroom house commonly runs $400 to $800. A larger or long-neglected home is $800 to $1,600. A one or two bedroom condo is often $250 to $450. Oven interiors are frequently a separate $60 to $120, and interior windows are usually priced per window or per hour on top. What moves the number: floor area, number of bathrooms, how much has to be moved, the state of the grout and the oven, and pets.

Why Ottawa houses need this more than the climate suggests. Two reasons, and both are seasonal. Salt and grit are tracked in for five months, and they grind into entrance flooring, stair nosings and grout lines in a way ordinary household dust does not. And houses here are sealed tight and mechanically ventilated through a long heating season, so dust circulates through the same ducts and settles on the same high surfaces for months without a single open window. High dusting, vent covers and returns are worth more in an Ottawa deep clean than in a milder city. Century homes in the Glebe, Old Ottawa South and Hintonburg add painted trim, radiators and original floors, all of which are hand work and none of which tolerate aggressive products.

Licences and credentials. None required, because none exist for cleaning in Ontario. The checks worth making are the same as for any cleaning work: liability insurance, a WSIB clearance number valid for up to 90 days (WSIB), and whether the people entering the house have consented to a police record check (Ontario). If the crew is handling hazardous products at work, their employer has WHMIS duties: supplier labels kept intact, safety data sheets available, and instruction and training provided to workers, in every workplace covered by the Occupational Health and Safety Act apart from farms (Ontario).

What to ask before you book. How many cleaner-hours am I buying and how many people are coming. What is the priority order if time runs out. Is the oven interior included or extra. Are interior windows included, and how are they priced. Will you move furniture, and what will you not move. What products are you using on my hardwood and my natural stone. Do you carry insurance and WSIB. Ask for the hours as a number, because a deep clean sold as a flat price with no time budget is the single most common source of disappointment in this service.