Why autumn should be in the FM deep-clean calendar

A deep clean in the spring is on every facilities manager’s calendar. But, for those responsible for commercial cleaning, autumn can provide another valuable point in the FM calendar.

A deep clean in early autumn offers a chance to reset a workplace before weather conditions change and workplaces deal with the busy Q4 season. It also enables FMs to review whether the existing cleaning specification is suited to the current and upcoming conditions.

In York, seasonal events bring in additional considerations. The Food & Drink Festival brings activity to central locations including Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square.

While a nearby office may not be directly involved in the event, conditions around its entrance can change, impacting cleaning requirements.

Rather than thinking of spring as a universal date for an annual deep clean, autumn can be a useful, planned intervention point between summer and winter.

Smart Cleaning, a commercial cleaning company in York, provides a guide to what facilities managers need to add to their autumn deep cleans. 

What should a deep clean achieve that routine cleaning doesn’t?

Routine cleaning is designed to maintain the workplace from day to day. Periodic or deep cleaning gives facilities teams an opportunity to address areas, surfaces and tasks that are not covered as frequently by the regular schedule.

Depending on the building and its condition, this might include:

• Carpet extraction or intensive floor cleaning
• Upholstery cleaning
• High-level dusting
• Internal glazing
• Skirting boards, corners and edges
• Areas behind or underneath movable furniture
• Detailed washroom cleaning
• Kitchen appliances and less-accessible surfaces
• Entrance flooring and matting

Benjamin Hirst, Director of Smart Cleaning, said: “City-centre premises close to areas such as Parliament Street or York station often have very different periodic cleaning needs to an office on a lower-footfall business park.

“Surface types, occupancy, footfall and the existing cleaning specification all matter.

“A deep clean should therefore do more than make a building look refreshed. It should help restore and protect areas that need additional attention before they deteriorate to the point where reactive action becomes necessary.”

Why autumn creates a natural reset point

Building use starts changing again

Summer can bring irregular patterns of building use. Annual leave, reduced occupancy or changes in working patterns may mean some areas have received considerably less use than others.

As those patterns begin to change again in September, autumn brings a useful opportunity to reset the entire space to a consistent baseline before the weather turns.

Ben added: “In York, we find that September sees a change in pedestrian activity, public transport use, visitor patterns and staff commuting conditions. This is down to university terms restart and major city centre events take place.

“These will not affect every building equally, but they are important operational factors for FMs to monitor.”

Winter contamination is approaching

As wetter conditions become more common, the amount of moisture and debris being brought into commercial premises can place greater demands on certain areas.

Mud, grit and fallen leaves can all increase the need for entrances and circulation areas to be cleaned throughout the season so an early-autumn clean is a logical time to prepare surfaces before waiting until they visibly deteriorate.

Cleaning needs may be changing

An autumnal deep clean is the ideal opportunity to assess the condition of the workplace and ask whether the existing cleaning programme still responds to how the space is being used.

For example, an autumn review might identify entrance flooring that needs attention before repeated moisture and soil ingress causes visible deterioration. It might reveal that matting is no longer adequate, that periodic floorcare has been missed, or that certain areas are becoming difficult to maintain through routine cleaning alone.

An autumn deep clean also gives FMs a useful window before year-end pressures build, when workplaces may face busier diaries, client activity or seasonal operational demands.

Start with the entrance, but don’t stop at what visitors can see

The entrance is one of the first areas where changes in the external environment can become visible indoors. It’s also likely to be one of the highest-footfall areas, and the first part of the building visitors see, so it deserves particular attention during a periodic deep clean.

Consider the condition of entrance matting, flooring and carpets, as well as the areas immediately around doors where moisture, grit and debris are most likely to collect.

Cleaning programmes also need to respond to changing external conditions, particularly in these transition areas where what’s happening outside can quickly affect the condition of the interior.

But an autumn deep clean should go beyond the most obvious areas. It’s an opportunity to look at the parts of the building that routine cleaning doesn’t necessarily reach. Edges and corners, high-level surfaces, upholstery and other easily overlooked or less accessible areas are important to include in a deep clean.

This more thorough approach helps make sure the clean is addressing the actual condition of the building, rather than simply repeating the same tasks as part of the regular cleaning schedule.

What’s happening outside your building?

Cleaning specifications are often based on internal measures such as:

• Building size
• Occupancy
• Contracted cleaning hours
• Internal usage patterns

Those factors are important, but they are not the whole picture. External factors can also have a significant influence.

These include:

• Local events
• University terms
• Transport changes
• Seasonal tourism

Longer-term changes matter too. York Central, for example, is planned to include up to 112,000m² of office, leisure and retail space. The point for FMs is not the development itself, but that commercial districts, access routes and patterns of movement evolve. Cleaning specifications may need to evolve with them.

That is precisely why cleaning plans need to reflect individual circumstances rather than assumptions about how every building should operate.

Use autumn to audit the cleaning specification

A periodic deep clean should not simply be treated as a one-off exercise before returning to exactly the same cleaning programme. It can also provide a useful trigger for reviewing whether that programme is still doing what the building needs it to do.

Questions worth asking include:

• Which entrances now experience the greatest footfall?
• Are some areas becoming dirty faster than expected?
• Have occupancy or attendance patterns changed?
• Do particularly busy days require different cleaning coverage?
• Is entrance matting adequate for wetter conditions?
• Are periodic cleaning tasks explicitly scheduled?
• Are some areas being cleaned repeatedly while others are being missed?
• Are facilities being used differently from when the cleaning contract was first specified?
• Are there changes around the site that are affecting how the premises are accessed or used?

This is particularly relevant where a cleaning specification has been in place for some time. Buildings evolve, the way people use them changes, occupancy patterns shift and different areas can become more or less demanding to maintain.

A cleaning programme that worked well when it was first introduced should not automatically be assumed to remain the right programme indefinitely.

For organisations in York, local conditions may provide another reason to keep that review ongoing. City-centre activity, changing travel patterns and seasonal conditions can all affect different premises in different ways. The important thing is to assess what is actually happening at the site rather than applying a one-size-fits-all response.

Don’t wait until something looks dirty

Cleaning becomes reactive when periodic work only happens after a carpet has visibly deteriorated, an entrance is struggling to cope with moisture, or an area has clearly fallen outside the standard maintained by routine cleaning.

A planned autumn review gives facilities teams an opportunity to intervene earlier.

That doesn’t mean there is one correct month for every building to have a deep clean, or one frequency that works for every commercial property. City-centre retailers, offices, educational settings, hospitality venues and industrial sites will all have different requirements.

The FM deep-clean calendar should reflect factors such as:

• Building type
• Occupancy
• Footfall
• Surface types
• The external environment
• Seasonal conditions
• The existing cleaning regime

September in York provides a useful illustration of why timing and context matter. The city moves into a period of changing activity while the transition towards wetter autumn conditions begins. For some premises, this may change cleaning demands significantly; for others, the effect may be minimal.

Either way, autumn can provide a valuable moment to stop, assess and prepare.

Rather than waiting for visible deterioration or automatically scheduling a deep clean because spring has arrived, facilities teams can use periodic cleaning as part of a more responsive approach to maintaining their buildings.

For businesses reviewing their requirements for commercial cleaning in York, the same principle applies: the cleaning specification should reflect the building itself, how it is used and the conditions around it.