What Cleaning Products Do You Use?

It is one of the first questions a facilities manager asks us on a walkaround, usually somewhere between the kitchen and the toilets: "So what do you actually put on our surfaces?" Fair question. You are letting a team into your building after hours with a trolley full of chemistry, and you want to know it is not going to strip your vinyl, corrode your stainless steel or trigger a reaction in a hot-desking team of forty. So here is a straight, no-marketing answer to what sits on our trolleys, why each product is there, and how we decide what to reach for in your building rather than the one down the road.

The short version: fewer products, used correctly

The biggest myth about commercial cleaning is that a good result comes from an exotic cupboard of specialist bottles. It does not. Nine times out of ten a well-run building is kept clean with four or five core products used at the right dilution, with the right dwell time, on the right surface. The skill is not in owning fifty chemicals. It is in knowing that a neutral floor cleaner at 1:100 does more good on your entrance vinyl than something aggressive that dulls the finish over six months.

We buy nearly everything as a super-concentrate and dilute on site through a metered dosing system. A five-litre bottle of concentrate makes hundreds of litres of usable solution, which means less plastic through your building, less weight for our team to carry, and a consistent dilution every single time rather than someone eyeballing a glug into a bucket. It also keeps costs sensible, and that is part of how we keep commercial cleaning contracts affordable without cutting corners on what goes on your surfaces.

The core kit that covers 90% of the work

Most of what your building needs, day in and day out, is handled by a small, deliberately boring set of products. Here is what lives on the trolley and what each one is for.

• Neutral pH multi-surface cleaner. This is the workhorse. Desks, windowsills, doors, laminate, painted surfaces, general wipe-downs. Neutral means it will not slowly etch or dull the surfaces it touches, so it is safe on the vast majority of office and reception finishes.
• Neutral floor cleaner. Used through a mop and bucket or an autoscrubber for hard floors. Neutral again, because acidic or heavily alkaline floor products degrade sealed vinyl and wood over time and leave floors looking tired.
• Glass and stainless cleaner. A fast-flashing product for windows, internal glazing, mirrors and stainless fingerplates. The trick with glass is not the chemical, it is the microfibre and the technique, but a low-residue product stops the streaks.
• Washroom cleaner and descaler. A mildly acidic product that shifts limescale and uric scale in and around toilets and urinals. Gloucestershire is hard-water country, so this one earns its keep on taps and porcelain.
• Sanitiser or disinfectant for touch points. A product that meets the recognised kill standards for bacteria and enveloped viruses, used specifically on the surfaces hands actually touch. More on that below, because dwell time is where most people go wrong.

That is the backbone. Everything else on this page is a specialist product we bring in for a specific job or a specific sector, not something we splash around every night.

Disinfectant is not the same as cleaner, and dwell time matters

Here is the part most product questions are really about. People say "disinfectant" and mean "the thing that kills germs," but a disinfectant only works if the surface is clean first and if the product is left wet for its stated contact time. Spraying a door handle and wiping it dry two seconds later does almost nothing. The label might quote a kill on a virus at four or five minutes of wet contact. Wipe it off at ten seconds and you have cleaned the handle, not disinfected it.

So our approach on touch points is two-stage where it matters: clean off the visible soil and skin oils first, then apply the disinfectant and leave it to dwell. Door handles, light switches, lift buttons, shared keyboards, tap levers, kitchen surfaces, meeting-room table edges, the phone at reception. In a healthcare or care setting we step this up to a product with proven efficacy against a broader range of organisms, and we log it. If you want the detail on how we handle that in sensitive environments, our care home cleaning approach is built entirely around contact times and cross-contamination control.

The other thing worth saying plainly: we do not routinely fog or blitz a whole office in disinfectant. It is theatre more than science for a normal working environment. Targeted disinfection of the surfaces hands touch, done properly with the right dwell, beats a mist of chemical over surfaces nobody puts their fingers on.

Colour-coded cloths and why the same bottle behaves differently in each room

A lot of what keeps your building genuinely hygienic is not the chemical at all, it is the system that stops one area's germs travelling to another. We work to the standard colour-coding used across the industry: red for toilets and urinals, yellow for sinks and washroom surfaces, blue for general low-risk areas like desks and offices, green for kitchens and food areas. A cloth that has been near a toilet never touches a desk. Ever.

We use microfibre cloths and flat mops rather than old-fashioned cotton for a simple reason: microfibre physically lifts and traps soil and bacteria into the fabric instead of smearing it around in a film of dirty water. That means we can achieve a lot on many surfaces with less chemical, sometimes with water alone on glass. The cloths go back to be laundered at high temperature between shifts, colour-separated, so nothing gets reused dirty. It is unglamorous, but it is the difference between a surface that looks clean and one that is clean.

Green and low-hazard products, and when we still reach for the strong stuff

We default to the lowest-hazard product that will do the job. For general daily cleaning that increasingly means biodegradable, low-VOC concentrates with plant-derived surfactants that rinse away cleanly and are kinder to the people working in the building and to the drains they end up in. For most offices, the "green" version genuinely performs as well as the old solvent-heavy stuff, and the days of eco products being weak are long gone.

We are honest about the limits, though. A biodegradable washroom cleaner will not shift years of hardened limescale in one visit, and a gentle degreaser will not cut through carbonised fat on a commercial oven. When the job calls for it, we bring in a stronger, purpose-built product, use it in the smallest effective quantity, with the right protective gloves and ventilation, and then go back to the low-hazard default for everything else. Matching the product to the mess is the whole game. It is also why a proper deep cleaning visit uses a noticeably different set of chemistry to a nightly maintenance clean.

How we match products to your building and sector

No two buildings get an identical trolley. A solicitor's office full of oak and soft furnishings needs different care to a fabrication unit with epoxy floors and machine oil. Before we quote, we walk the site and note the surfaces that dictate the chemistry: floor type and finish, worktops, any natural stone, specialist equipment, and whether there is a kitchen or washroom with hard-water problems. A few examples of how that changes what we load up:

• Offices and professional services: neutral cleaners throughout, low-odour products because people are often back at their desks within hours, and careful touch-point disinfection at shared spaces. See our office cleaning approach for how this runs on a nightly schedule.
• Food and hospitality: food-safe sanitisers that meet the relevant surface-contact standards, heavy-duty degreasers for kitchen lines, and strict green-cloth discipline. This is the core of restaurant kitchen cleaning, where the wrong product on a food surface is a real problem.
• Industrial and warehouse: alkaline degreasers for oil and grime, and floor chemistry chosen to survive forklift traffic and spills rather than to look pretty.
• Retail and showrooms: streak-free glass and low-residue floor products, because everything is on display and fingerprints on glazing are the first thing a customer notices.

Safety, COSHH and knowing exactly what is on your surfaces

Every chemical we use has a safety data sheet, and we keep a COSHH file for the products in use at your site. That is not box-ticking. It means if anyone ever needs to know precisely what was used on a surface, whether that is for an allergy, a spill, or an insurance query, we can tell you the product, the dilution and the manufacturer in minutes. Our team is trained on decanting, dilution, safe storage and the personal protective equipment each product needs, and we never mix products, because mixing an acidic descaler with a bleach-based cleaner is exactly how people end up with a lungful of chlorine gas.

Products are stored in a locked, ventilated area, decanted bottles are labelled with their contents and dilution rather than left as anonymous spray bottles, and concentrates never leave their original containers until they hit the dosing unit. If you have specific requirements, say a fragrance-free product for a sensitive team member or a particular standard your industry demands, tell us and we will build the trolley around it.

If you would like to see the actual data sheets for the products we would use in your building, just ask. Call the team on 0800 069 9055 or email [email protected] and we will send them over, or bring them along and talk you through them on a site visit. You can also browse the full range of cleaning services we cover across Gloucestershire.

Frequently asked questions

Do you use eco-friendly cleaning products?

Yes, by default. Our everyday cleaning is done with biodegradable, low-VOC concentrates that perform as well as traditional products for general use. We only step up to stronger chemistry for specific jobs like heavy limescale or carbonised grease, and even then we use the smallest effective amount and return to low-hazard products for everything else.

Are your products safe around staff, children and pets?

The products we use for daily cleaning are chosen to be low-odour and low-hazard so people can return to the space quickly and safely. For nurseries, schools and care settings we take extra care with contact times and choose products appropriate to a sensitive environment. Tell us about any allergies or specific concerns and we will adjust the range we bring in.

Can you tell me exactly what chemicals you will use in my building?

Absolutely. We keep a COSHH file and safety data sheets for every product used on your site, listing the manufacturer, the dilution and the surfaces it is used on. Ask and we will share them before we start, so there are no mystery bottles in your building.

Do you bring your own products and equipment?

Yes. We supply all the chemistry, microfibre cloths, colour-coded equipment and machinery as standard, diluted on site from concentrate. If you would prefer we use a specific product you already stock, for instance to match an existing standard, we are happy to work with it.

Why do you use so few products rather than a specialist one for every surface?

Because a small set of well-chosen products, used at the correct dilution with the right dwell time and technique, cleans better than a cupboard full of specialist bottles used carelessly. The result comes from method and consistency, not from the number of chemicals. We add specialist products only where a job genuinely needs one.

Is disinfectant used on every surface every night?

No, and it should not be. We target disinfection at the surfaces hands actually touch, such as handles, switches and shared kitchen areas, and we leave the product wet for its full contact time so it works. General surfaces are cleaned with a neutral cleaner. Blanket disinfecting everything looks busy but adds little where hands never land.

How do you stop germs spreading between toilets and kitchens?

Colour-coded cloths and mops, with a strict rule that equipment used in washrooms never touches food or desk areas. Everything is laundered at high temperature between shifts and separated by colour, so nothing dirty gets reused. It is a simple system, and it is one of the most important things we do.