Cleaning companies use the phrase "deep clean" to mean different things, which is why it is confusing before you have ever booked one. This is what it means at Happy Maids: what is in it, what is not, how long it takes, and how to tell whether your home needs one.
What is a deep clean?
A deep clean is the same rooms and the same tasks as a regular house cleaning, held to a higher standard. The task list barely changes. What changes is the verb: surfaces that are dusted on a maintenance visit are hand-washed on a deep clean, and that is why it takes longer.
That definition sounds anticlimactic, and it is worth sitting with, because it is the part most people have backwards. A deep clean is not a longer list of rooms or a set of exotic extra services. It is the ordinary list done slowly and by hand, on surfaces a weekly visit only passes over.
Happy Maids has cleaned homes in the Barrington area since 1985, and the pattern is consistent. A home that has never had a deep clean has a film on it: dust settles into cooking oil, hand oil and humidity, and after a few months it is bonded to the surface rather than sitting on it. Dusting a surface in that condition simply redistributes it.
What is included in deep cleaning a house?
A deep clean includes everything on a standard house cleaning done to a higher standard: baseboards, trim, doors, door frames, blinds and window sills hand-washed rather than dusted, cabinet fronts hand-washed across the whole front, and showers, tile and grout given a much longer scrub.
Room by room, this is where the extra hours actually go.
Kitchen
- Cabinet and drawer fronts hand-washed across the whole front, including the grease film on the doors above the range that builds up invisibly
- Range hood, the front of the range, the knobs and the cooktop
- Microwave cleaned inside and out with the turntable, plus appliance exteriors and handles
- Counters, backsplash, sink and drain given a detailed scrub, and the faucet dried by hand, because the water out here is hard and leaves a film
- Baseboards, trim, doors, blinds, sills, switch plates and light fixtures hand-washed
- Floors vacuumed with sealed-HEPA machines, then mopped into the corners, along the edges and into the toe kick under the cabinets
Bathrooms
- Shower and tub given a long, detailed scrub, with glass, tile and grout worked for soap film and mineral film
- Shower door track cleared out
- Toilet cleaned base to lid, under the rim, around the hinges and behind the pedestal
- Sink, counter, faucet and drain scrubbed, and chrome dried by hand so it does not spot
- Baseboards, door, frame, trim, vent cover and light fixture hand-washed
- Floor vacuumed then mopped, including behind the toilet and along the baseboard
Bedrooms and living areas
- Baseboards, doors, frames, blinds, sills and ceiling fan blades hand-washed
- Stair rails and spindles wet-wiped, one spindle at a time
- Every horizontal surface dusted in detail, with decor and picture frames lifted and put back rather than dusted around
- Couches and chairs vacuumed, and switch plates, door handles and handrails cleaned
- Floors vacuumed then mopped
Happy Maids does not clean floors on hands and knees. We mop, in detail, and the hand work goes where it genuinely changes the result: cabinet fronts, doors, trim and baseboards. The full room-by-room list, with a maintenance visit and a deep clean set side by side, is on our house cleaner checklist, written out rather than summarized so it can be printed and compared against anyone else you are considering.
What is not included in a deep clean?
Several jobs people assume are part of a deep clean are add-ons on every service Happy Maids offers, including a move-out. They are priced separately because they add real time, and they need at least one business day's notice so the visit can be scheduled with room for them.
- Inside the oven
- Inside the refrigerator
- Inside cabinets, emptied first
- Interior windows, within step-ladder reach
- Vacuuming inside the sofa, under the cushions
- Bed linens changed, which carries a per-bed fee
- A finished basement
On a move-out, the oven and the refrigerator are commonly added and nearly everyone takes them, because that is what a walkthrough looks at first. Mention any of these when you call and they go into the estimate rather than surprising you later.
Then there is work that is not ours at all, which is better known before the day than on it:
- No carpet shampooing, steam cleaning or extraction. Carpets are vacuumed with sealed-HEPA machines. If a lease requires professional carpet cleaning, book it separately and have it done last.
- No exterior windows, walls, ceilings or anything above the second step of a step ladder. A fixture hanging in a two-story foyer needs a specialist with the right ladder, and that is not us.
- No mold removal, biohazards, pet waste or debris hauling, and nothing inside a fireplace.
- No laundry or laundry folding, no shopping or errands, and no cleaning inside the dishwasher, washing machine or dryer.
- No hard water or mineral stains and buildups that require more than standard cleaning supplies and tools.
That last one deserves a straight answer, because it is the most common disappointment in this industry. Happy Maids will not use an abrasive pad or an aggressive chemical to take years of mineral film off shower glass in one visit, because those etch glass and dull glazed tile permanently and that damage does not come back off.
What we do instead is work at it every visit with standard supplies. It comes off a layer at a time over several visits, and once the glass is clear, regular cleaning keeps it clear. That is a slower answer than most people want and it is the true one, which is also an argument for recurring service rather than a single heroic visit.
The complete exclusion list, plus the damage policy — incidental damage handled as a credit toward future service, larger claims through insurance, and no liability for inherently unstable items or old window blinds — is published on our policies page.
Standard cleaning vs deep cleaning: what actually changes?
Almost nothing on the task list changes. The verb changes. A deep clean is the same rooms and the same tasks held to a different standard, and that is the entire reason it takes longer and costs more per visit than a maintenance clean.
- Baseboards, trim, doors and door frames — dusted, versus hand-washed
- Cabinet fronts — spot-cleaned where marks show, versus hand-washed across the whole front
- Showers and tubs — a standard scrub, versus a long scrub of glass, tile and grout
- Counters and sinks — wiped and scrubbed, versus a detailed scrub
- Blinds, sills, fixtures, switch plates and stair spindles — dusted, versus hand-washed
There is a reason the deep clean has to come first rather than second. You cannot dust a baseboard that was never washed, because the dust is held in a film and dusting only moves it around. Wash it once and every visit afterward can hold it with a dusting.
It is also worth knowing that cleaning and sanitizing are two separate steps, not one. Illinois Extension's food-safety guidance is to wash surfaces, sinks and appliances first with hot, soapy water and to sanitize afterward, because a sanitizer applied over soil does not do its job.
How long does it take to deep clean a house?
Size sets the floor and condition sets the ceiling: two homes of the same square footage can take very different amounts of time. The detail sits in our guide to how long a whole-house deep clean really takes.
How is a deep clean priced?
Deep cleaning, move-in and move-out cleaning and post-remodeling cleaning are all priced by the time the job takes. Happy Maids charges hourly for those three services and pro-rates every ten minutes, so you pay for work actually done. Recurring house cleaning is different and is a flat, predictable rate.
The flat rate on a recurring plan is set by the size of the home, the services chosen and the condition it is kept in. It does not move visit to visit, which is what most people want from a service they are budgeting for across a year.
For a real number on either, call or text 847-382-0082. A person in our Lake Barrington office answers the phone, the estimate is free, and there is no obligation and no contract to sign.
Do you need a deep clean before starting recurring service?
Usually once. Most Happy Maids clients start with a single deep clean and then settle into a weekly, every-two-week or every-four-week rhythm that holds the house there. Across a year that costs less than repeating deep cleans, because maintenance is far quicker than recovery.
Homes that have been cleaned professionally in the recent past sometimes skip it. That call gets made honestly on the phone rather than automatically, because a deep clean a home does not need is time nobody should be paying for.
What happens after that first visit is covered on our recurring house cleaning page, and the way rotating extras get built into a plan is on our custom cleaning plan page.
When is a deep clean the wrong service?
Three situations look like a deep clean and are not. Booking the right one saves both time and money, and the difference comes down to what the house physically allows on the day.
- An empty house. A move-out or move-in clean reaches what a deep clean cannot: closets back to bare shelves and rods, the gaps beside and behind the appliances, and floors mopped wall to wall. The interiors — inside emptied cabinets and drawers, the oven and the refrigerator — are add-ons, and on a move nearly everyone takes them.
- After a remodel. Drywall dust hangs in the air for days and travels into rooms the work never touched. Post-remodeling cleaning is built for that, and the contractor has to broom-sweep and haul the debris away first, because we clean the home rather than clear the job site.
- A house that is basically fine. If maintenance is all it needs, a housekeeping visit is the right service and the deep clean is money spent on nothing.
What comes with every visit, deep clean or not?
Green, kid- and pet-safe products are the default on every Happy Maids service, never an upsell and never an extra charge. So are sealed-HEPA vacuums and color-coded microfiber, so a cloth used in a bathroom cannot end up on a kitchen counter.
For households with allergies or asthma, that matters more than it sounds. The EPA's guidance on controlling asthma triggers at home puts vacuuming with a HEPA-filter vacuum and dusting with a damp cloth rather than a dry one near the top of the list, alongside washing bedding weekly in hot water.
The people using that equipment are Happy Maids employees: W-2, background-checked, bonded and insured, never gig labor and never subcontractors. A standard visit is a team of two, and we send the same familiar team whenever possible, which is most of why a second visit goes faster than a first.
If you are still deciding on the interval rather than the service, our post on how often to deep clean your house covers that room by room. If you already know the house is behind, the deep cleaning service page explains what the first visit covers.
Frequently asked questions
What is a deep clean?
A deep clean is the same rooms and the same tasks as a regular house cleaning, held to a higher standard. The list barely changes; the verb does. Baseboards, trim, doors, blinds, sills and cabinet fronts are hand-washed instead of dusted, and showers, tile and grout get a much longer scrub.
What is included in deep cleaning a house?
Everything on a standard clean, done in more detail: cabinet fronts hand-washed across the whole front including the grease film above the range, baseboards, trim, doors, frames, blinds, sills, fan blades, switch plates and stair spindles hand-washed, showers and tubs given a long scrub of glass, tile and grout, and floors vacuumed with sealed-HEPA machines then mopped into corners and edges.
How much does a deep clean cost?
Happy Maids prices deep cleaning by the time the home takes, charged hourly and pro-rated every ten minutes. What moves it is square footage, the number of bathrooms, the condition at the start, and how much of the surface needs washing rather than dusting. Recurring service, by contrast, is a flat rate. Call or text 847-382-0082 for a free estimate.
How much to deep clean a 2,000 square foot house?
Square footage alone does not answer it, which is why no honest quote comes from a calculator. Two 2,000 square foot homes can differ by hours depending on the number of bathrooms, how long it has been since the last thorough clean, and how much hand-washing the trim and cabinets need. A short call to 847-382-0082 gives you the real figure.
How much should you tip house cleaners for a deep clean?
Tipping is never required. If you would like to, Happy Maids suggests an amount equivalent to 10 to 20 percent of the cleaning cost. Three ways to do it: the Add a Tip form on your card, once or recurring; the post-clean survey; or cash in an envelope marked for the cleaners. Our cleaners are W-2 employees, so no one's wage depends on it.
How long does it take to deep clean a house?
Most of a working day for a professional team of two, and sometimes more than one visit in a home that has never had a deep clean. Homes over roughly 3,500 square feet get a team of two to three. Doing it alone, plan on several weekends rather than one.
Standard cleaning vs deep cleaning: what is the difference?
The rooms and the tasks are the same. The standard differs. Baseboards, trim and doors are dusted on a standard clean and hand-washed on a deep clean; cabinet fronts are spot-cleaned versus hand-washed across the whole front; showers get a standard scrub versus a long, detailed one. That is why a deep clean takes longer.
Do you have to deep clean an apartment before moving out?
Most leases require the unit returned clean, and a move-out clean is the service built for it rather than a deep clean. An empty unit allows what an occupied one does not: closets back to bare shelves, the gaps beside the appliances, and floors mopped wall to wall. Inside emptied cabinets and drawers, the oven and the refrigerator are add-ons, and on a move nearly everyone takes them.