commercial
Industrial, factory and warehouse cleaning
Industrial cleaning costs £18 to £30 an hour and is more often quoted by the shift or by the square metre than by the visit. What makes it a different trade from commercial cleaning is not scale but access: most of it happens during a shutdown, at height, or around machinery that has to be isolated before anybody touches it.
What this covers
What it costs. Industrial cleaning costs £18 to £30 an hour, £0. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Factory, warehouse and production floors, cleaned outside running hours
- Ride-on and walk-behind scrubber drying of large hard floors
- High level cleaning of racking, beams, ducting and light fittings
- Machinery and plant cleaning, where access and isolation are agreed first
- Post-installation and shutdown cleans on a fixed window
What is involved
The equipment is the trade. A ride-on scrubber dryer covers ground a mop cannot, industrial vacuums handle dust a domestic machine would blow back into the air, and high level work on racking and ducting needs a scissor lift and somebody trained to use it. A firm quoting this work from a van of household kit is quoting a different job.
Safety paperwork is part of what you are buying rather than an overhead. Risk assessments and method statements, permits to work at height, isolation of machinery before cleaning, and confirmation that anyone on a lift is trained. On a live site that paperwork is what lets the work happen at all.
Shutdown work is its own discipline. The window is fixed, it usually costs the site more per hour than the cleaning does, and a contractor who has not scoped it properly turns a planned two-day shutdown into a three-day one.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask what equipment they own rather than what they can arrange. Owning a scrubber dryer and a scissor lift is the difference between a price and a subcontract.
Ask for risk assessments and method statements in advance, and for evidence of training for work at height. On a live industrial site, that is the first thing your own health and safety people will ask you for.
On a shutdown, agree the window in writing and what happens if it slips. The cost of overrunning is rarely the cleaning.
Common questions
How is industrial cleaning priced?
By the hour, by the square metre or by the shift, depending on the job. Shutdown work is nearly always a fixed price against a fixed window.
Can our commercial cleaner do it?
For a small unit with an ordinary floor, often yes. For racking, ducting, plant or anything at height, no: different equipment, different training and different insurance.