How Long Does It Take To Clean a House? 

Hiring a cleaner provides a simple way to keep your home clean and maintained, giving you time to do other things and get your work done. But how long does it take to clean a house? 

It takes between one and two hours to clean a house if the home is around 1,000 sq ft (92 sq m). This will provide a general clean, so the cleaning session will be a bit longer if there are many rooms in the house or the home requires a deep clean.  

In this article, I’ll explore what you need to know about how long it generally takes to clean a house. I’ll look at what a professional cleaner can achieve in three hours versus one hour, as well as provide tips on how many hours you should hire a cleaner to make your home sparkly clean. 

How Long Does It Take To Clean a House? 

If you’re cleaning your house by yourself and you want to do a thorough clean, it will probably take you longer than it would take for a professional cleaning service to do the job instead, especially if more than one cleaner is hired. 

It takes 1 ½ to 3 ½ hours to clean a house, depending on its size. It takes 1 ½ hours to clean a 1,000 square foot (92 sq m) house. Since an average house in the U.S. is about 1,650 square feet (153 sq m), it will take a bit less than three hours for someone to clean it. 

How Long Do Housekeepers Take To Clean a Full House? 

Housekeepers will take between 1-3 hours to clean a house since they are professionals and will typically do a better job than most. However, they’ll need longer to clean if the house needs to be deep cleaned or if it’s a very big house. 

That said, professional cleaning services may sometimes clean in one-hour intervals because they send two cleaners instead of one.

A full house can take a bit longer to clean because it contains furniture and other items. If there are items lying around, such as dirty dishes in the kitchen sink or children’s toys on the living room floor, this will further increase the time required to clean the house. 

What Can a Cleaner Do In 3 Hours? 

A cleaner will take about 40 minutes to clean a bedroom, so if you have a two-bedroom home, a cleaner will be able to clean the bedrooms and use the rest of the time (about an hour and a half) to clean the rest of your home. 

For example, it takes about half an hour to clean a bathroom and about half an hour to clean your kitchen. Three hours are therefore enough for a cleaning service to clean your home and add some tasks that require deeper cleaning to their schedule. 

What Can a Cleaner Do In 1 Hour? 

A cleaner can achieve various cleaning tasks in an hour and gives a light clean to the general environment. As long as there are no stubborn stains to remove or furniture to move around, a cleaner could dust and mop your entire home in just an hour. 

Other tasks that a cleaner can do in an hour include: 

  • A light dusting of furniture
  • Sweeping rooms
  • Vacuum cleaning
  • Mopping – this shouldn’t involve stopping to clean away stains
  • Wiping kitchen countertops
  • Taking out the trash

Hiring a cleaner for a one-hour cleaning session isn’t enough if your house is dirty and you want to give it a deep clean or if it’s a large home. In these cases, booking a two-hour or three-hour session is recommended so that everything you want cleaned will be done in time. 

How Many Hours To Hire For 

If you’re hiring a professional cleaner to clean your home, you can use the general rule of it taking approximately three hours to clean a 2,000 square foot (186 sq m) house, but it’s also useful to consider what cleaning tasks you want the cleaner to do. 

Generally, you should add an extra hour to the time it takes you to clean your home if deeper cleaning of the home is required. Examples of tasks that take a bit longer include: 

  • Washing laundry 
  • Cleaning the fridge 
  • Cleaning gutters 
  • Cleaning the oven 
  • Vacuuming drapes and curtains 
  • Stain removal 

If you’re still unsure of the amount of time for which to hire a professional cleaning service to clean your home, here are some things that can help you save time and schedule the correct number of hours: 

  • Ask about the cleaner’s experience. A seasoned cleaner is going to work quickly and be able to tackle more complicated cleaning tasks in less time. 
  • Clean away some clutter. It can be useful to remove clutter from your home, such as children’s toys. This will make it easier for the cleaner to start cleaning instead of having to remove the clutter first, which will take extra time – and cause you to spend more money. 
  • Write a checklist of what you want cleaned. Give this list to your cleaner so that you don’t have to worry that they’ll forget to do some tasks that you want to be done. It’s also useful to prioritize the tasks so that the cleaner will do what’s most important before their session ends. 
  • Check what tasks they will do. Not all cleaners will do your laundry or wash your dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, so it’s useful to check with them before hiring them to be sure that they’ll meet your requirements. 
  • Bring out all your cleaning products. Although your cleaner might have their own cleaning products, it helps to have products you usually use to clean your home on display so they don’t have to waste time trying to find your bathroom or kitchen detergent. 

To find out what detergents you should – and shouldn’t – be using to clean your home, read our article on whether you can clean a toilet with bleach.

Final Thoughts 

If you don’t have time to clean your home on a weekly basis, you should consider hiring a professional cleaning service. Cleaning your entire home could take a few hours, but it’s always a good idea to inform the company of what you need, such as if you want deep cleaning, and mention the size of your home so that they can quote you effectively.

Previous Post

What Does ‘Do Not Dry Clean’ Mean?

Next Post

How Long Does It Take To Clean a Hotel Room?