Hard floors are cleaned by the square metre: £6 to clean tiles, stone, vinyl or sealed wood, and £8 to clean and polish. Measure the floor before you call and you can work out a starting price yourself.
The cleaner brings the machine, brushes and products; all you provide is a tap and a socket. Most hard floor jobs in London homes are kitchens, bathrooms and the tiled hall of a period house, with the odd conservatory or open-plan ground floor.
Prices per square metre and the visit minimum
| Hard floor work | Price |
|---|---|
| Clean, each square metre | £6 |
| Clean and polish, each square metre | £8 |
| Viewing before pricing | £20 |
| One-off visits start at | £67 |
A bathroom or a galley kitchen on its own will not reach the £67 minimum, so people usually book the kitchen, hall and bathroom floors together, or add them to a carpet clean on the same visit. Tenants moving out can put the hard floors on an end of tenancy clean. The full London price list covers everything else.
Measuring the floor
Measure each room in metres, wall to wall, and multiply length by width. Split an L-shaped kitchen-diner into two rectangles and add them up. There is no need to count the space under fitted units, an island or the bath, so take their footprint off. Say a kitchen is 4.2 m by 3.1 m: that is 13 square metres, and with roughly 3 taken off for the run of units the floor to clean comes to about 10. Round each room up to a whole number, add the rooms together and give us the total with the type of floor in each one. If the shape is awkward, a rough sketch with measurements is enough to price from.
Tiles and grout lines
Ceramic and porcelain tiles are hard-wearing, and the dirt on a tiled floor is mostly in the grout. Grout is porous, and every mop pushes a little more grey water into it. The cleaner scrubs along the grout lines with a stiff brush before the main clean, then rinses and lifts the dirty water off. Grout that has darkened from years of mopping usually comes up several shades lighter. Grout stained by a spill, or worn down below the tile edge, stays as it is, and regrouting or colouring grout is not part of the service. Textured anti-slip porcelain holds more dirt in its surface than smooth tile and takes longer, so mention it when you book.
Stone, vinyl and sealed wood
Marble, limestone and travertine are etched by acids, including vinegar, lemon and many bathroom sprays, so they are cleaned with a neutral product. Slate and quarry tiles take a firmer scrub. The patterned hall tiles of a Victorian terrace are worked with a soft brush, since many of them are well over a century old. Sheet vinyl and vinyl planks get a mild solution with very little water at the seams. Lacquered or sealed wood is cleaned with a well wrung pad, since water standing on boards gets into the joints. Polish suits vinyl, sealed wood and some stone; the cleaner will tell you on the call whether your floor takes it.
Floors we ask to see first
Some floors need a look before anyone can price them fairly, and a viewing costs £20. That covers oiled, waxed or bare wood, which reacts badly to water; old stone with an unknown sealer on it; Victorian tiles with cracked or lifting pieces; floors with layers of old polish that may need stripping; and large commercial areas. Outdoor stone, patios and front paths are a different job done by jet washing, priced on the pressure washing page.
Questions about hard floor cleaning
Will a polish remove scratches from the floor?
No. Polish adds a thin layer with a sheen, which can make fine scuffs less obvious, but scratches in wood, vinyl or stone stay visible. Deep scratches need sanding or refinishing, which this service does not include.
Do you clean laminate floors?
Yes. Laminate is cleaned damp with very little water, because water left at the joints makes the board edges swell. Laminate is not polished.
Can hard floors and carpets be cleaned on the same visit?
Yes, and it is the easiest way to reach the visit minimum. List both when you book, with the square metres of hard floor and the carpeted rooms, and they go on one booking with one 50% deposit.