Community buildings such as churches and schools are frequently busy, and many people come in and leave. Therefore, regular cleaning is essential to eliminate visible and non-visible dirt accumulating rapidly in these places. Ongoing cleaning, including mopping floors, wiping furniture, benches, and staircase rails, litter collection in the compound, etc., happens daily.
However, because it’s impossible to access and clean some places in these buildings every day, thorough cleaning tasks are usually scheduled annually. These involve a lot of detailed work and need careful planning and execution. Luckily, a professional commercial cleaning service can handle the annual cleaning project for you and guarantee a satisfactory outcome.
Related: Is it worth it to hire a professional cleaning company for your church?
Steps Involved in Planning Annual Project Work for Cleaning
Identify All Parts and Places That Require Cleaning
Daily tidying activities such as mopping floors and tidying the compound are enough to keep community buildings clean for regular everyday use. Taking care of the places that aren’t easy to reach or would be time-consuming to wash frequently requires an annual clean.
Therefore, the first step in planning an annual project work for a church or school cleaning is to identify the various sections that need a thorough sprucing up.
These are the places that, once you clean today, will take time before you need to tidy them again. So, start by creating a list of these cleaning tasks. They might include scrubbing the lower parts of the exterior walls, cleaning windows and roofs, etc.
Choose the Dates for the Annual Project
After identifying the cleaning tasks, the next step would be to choose the dates for the job and schedule the activities early enough. Generally, major cleaning tasks take place in the springtime. It’s the perfect time to look at those parts and areas often overlooked when tidying up.
However, you can schedule the annual cleaning project during the time of the year that favors you. It does not have to be only during the spring season. For example, for a school, you may want to have the annual cleaning when the students break for the summer holiday.
You can schedule the annual cleaning dates immediately after they go on holiday, in the middle, or when they are about to report back. This, however, depends on several factors. For instance, if your annual cleaning project is likely to take time, you will want to schedule it immediately or a few days after the holiday. You don’t want the students to report back while you still have some windows to clean. A professional cleaning company can help estimate how long the project is likely to last and help you determine the perfect dates for the straightening activities.
Communicate the Dates Early
Once you choose the dates for the annual cleaning project, ensure everyone knows about it early on. You can pin posters on the noticeboard, include them in the yearly schedules calendar or share the information during meetings or assemblies. For a school, you may not need to inform the students if they will be out for a holiday.
However, letting them know about an upcoming major cleaning project can help them do those little things in their classrooms that can make work easier when tidying up. Things like placing paper charts in a safe location or taking them to the store, especially if you are to clean the interior walls, can go a long way in expediting the process. Also, the staff members or anyone who stays within the institution should have the information.
The church may be different since the congregants visit the place year-round. You have to make several announcements before the cleaning dates. This prepares the church members and allows them to make necessary adjustments. You don’t want anyone showing up for evening prayers only to find the place closed or ongoing cleaning activities.
Prepare the Place
Before the big day, ensure you pick up anything that can obstruct the tidying process. Commercial cleaners can help de-clutter before wiping dirty floors and removing stubborn stains from various areas. However, it would be better to straighten up multiple building sections before a cleaning appointment.
Removing clutter will give more time to mopping and scrubbing rather than organizing the place for accessibility. Also, straightening things up in advance gives ample time to figure out where to store the items. If it’s a school, there are always papers and books on the shelves or tables. All these items need to be placed in a secure place to avoid damage during the cleanup exercise.
While a commercial cleaner takes all precautions to ensure the safety of items and property in a building, it makes sense to clear the clutter or store things elsewhere to give room for wiping the shelves.
Keep All Important Items Safely
As you remove clutter and move the things to give way for cleaning, you should note where you place all the essential items. Things like furniture won’t give you a headache if you need to remove them before the work begins. They can be pushed to one side of the building or taken to a different space.
However, you should securely store essential files and any delicate items. You’ll save yourself the hassle of searching everywhere, trying to trace bank statements and other crucial things missing from the church or school secretary’s office.
Rank the Cleaning Tasks
Remember the list of the annual cleanup activities you identified? It is time to rank them according to which task will need to be completed first. A commercial cleaning service can help in this process. Of course, you don’t want to mop the floor and remove stains on the walls — the floor will have to be cleaned again. Typically, a top-down approach is favored, where you clean the windows before the floor.
Related: Floors, windows, deep-cleaning, & more: checklist for summer school janitorial operations
Examples of Annual Project Work for Church and School Cleaning
Window Cleaning
Cleaning windows can brighten up your church or school. Window grime can often go unnoticed until you see how much better things are after they’ve been cleaned. An Applicator is usually used to apply a detergent to the glass and scrub it. The glass is then dried using a Squeegee.
Some community buildings have screens between the windowsill and the exterior component. Therefore, cleaning will focus on these screens too. Since the washing typically happens annually, grime might have accumulated on the screens.
Fortunately, a commercial cleaning service knows the solutions that get the grime off completely. Also, hard water spots may fail to wash off the windows even after wiping, but professionals can remove the hard water stains and apply a product to prevent them from appearing again.
Pressure Washing
Pressure washing refers to using high-pressure cold water to remove dirt and other debris from the surface. The machines used are powerful for driveways and building exteriors. Highly-pressurized water exerts a force on the dirty area, blasting away built-up dirt, mud, dust, and other materials.
Some stubborn stains, especially on the walls, walkways, driveways, or even floors, can shame daily cleaning exercises on the church or school buildings and make it seem like you didn’t put any effort. Luckily pressure washing does the most challenging job and gets rid of these spots within minutes.
Deep Cleaning
This is usually more thorough than the ongoing cleaning regularly done in the building. It takes more time and effort since it involves a lot of detailed work. Some of the deep cleaning projects to include in the annual checklist include:
- Dusting various surfaces, including signs, stairs, hanging framing, and lights
- Cleaning chairs, desks, tables, and fixtures
- Full chemical clean of washroom
- Complete chemical cleanup of the kitchen and food preparation areas
- Elevator and elevator frames cleanups
- Wiping down the office equipment, including computers, keyboards, and TVs
- Steam cleaning the carpeted areas
Get Professional Assistance in the Annual Project Work
Annual project work for community buildings can be overwhelming, from planning to completion. Luckily, you can always enlist a commercial cleaning service for professional help. A contractor has the experience, correct equipment, and skilled staff who can advise you on various options specific to your property, help in planning the annual project work, and execute the cleaning to your satisfaction.
At DTK Facility Services, we offer a full suite of commercial cleaning services to keep the interior and exterior of your church, school, or any community building clean, healthy, and safe. Our integrity, dependability, and ability to consistently deliver quality work for more than two decades have seen us rise to become a top cleaning company. Reach out to us today for a custom quote.