Why it matters
How long a clean takes decides what you pay if you are billed by the hour, and whether your day works if you are not.
Here is a common version of the problem. A homeowner in Chilliwack hires a solo cleaner at an hourly rate for their three-bedroom house and books three hours, because a friend said that is how long her cleaner takes. The friend's cleaner arrives as a team of two. Three hours for two people is six hours of work. Three hours for one person is half the house. At the three-hour mark the kitchen and bathrooms are done, the bedrooms and floors are not, and the homeowner has to choose between paying for three more hours and living with a half-cleaned house.
When someone quotes you a time, always ask how many people that time is for.
These are the times we plan for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with two cleaners:
- Standard clean: about 3 hours
- Deep clean: about 5 hours
- Move-out clean: about 5.5 hours
Four things move those numbers:
Bathrooms. Each extra bathroom adds more time than an extra bedroom. On a standard clean we allow about 25 minutes for another bathroom and 15 for another bedroom.
Square footage. Three bedrooms in a 1,200 square foot rancher and three bedrooms in a 2,800 square foot two-storey are different jobs. More floor is more vacuuming and mopping, and stairs slow everything down.
How long since the last clean. A home that is cleaned every two weeks takes the planned time. A home that was last cleaned in the spring takes longer, because buildup has to be removed before anything can be wiped.
Clutter. Cleaners can only clean surfaces they can reach. Ten minutes spent clearing counters and floors the night before can save half an hour of paid time.
If you are doing it yourself, plan on the one-person time at least: around six hours for a thorough clean with bathrooms and floors included. A professional works in a fixed order, top to bottom and room by room, with everything in one caddy, and that routine is where most of the speed comes from.
How Honourable Cleaning helps
We send two cleaners and we charge a flat price, so the clock is our concern and not yours. A standard clean of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Abbotsford is $190 plus GST whether the crew finishes in two hours and forty minutes or three hours and ten.
When you choose your home size on the website, the booking calendar works out the length of the job and only offers start times where the whole clean fits, along with the drive from the job before. Your confirmation shows the start and the expected finish, so you can plan around it.
If a home needs more time than its size suggests, we tell you before doing the extra work. You get an email with the extra hours and the cost, and nothing is charged unless you approve it.
Key takeaways
- Two cleaners: about 3 hours for a standard clean, 5 for a deep clean, 5.5 for a move-out. One cleaner: about double.
- Always ask how many people a quoted time is for.
- Count bathrooms and square footage, not just bedrooms, when you describe your home.
- Clear counters and floors the night before. It is the cheapest way to shorten a clean.
See your exact price
Pick your home size and service. Your flat rate shows up in about a minute, no phone call needed.
See my price →Call (604) 751-6260Questions people ask
How long does it take to clean a 3-bedroom house?
A professional crew of two takes about three hours to give a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house a standard clean. A deep clean of the same house takes about five hours, and a move-out clean about five and a half. One person working alone should plan on roughly double those times.
Related pages
House cleaning in Chilliwack Recurring cleaning in Langley