To many cleaning company staff and maids, cleaning is home is a routine that they know and is tough by their cleaning supervisor, or manager. Cleaning will entail a list of tasks like making beds, taking out the trash, wiping areas, and vacuuming. Each cleaning company will have different strategies and routines. It’s recommended that each cleaning company, as well as each homeowner that likes to tackle their own housekeeping tasks, fully understands how cleaning works, and the science of cleaning. How certain cleaning chemicals work to remove dirt, grime, and other contaminants. The keys steps to follow when cleaning are

• Locate the dirt/contaminants: This simply means you need to find where the dirt and soiled areas are in the home so that you can begin successfully cleaning them
• Identify the dirt: We will get into more detail about this later on, but in this step, you need to figure out what the dirt is made of, ( blood, oils, food, calcium etc) so that you can determine the correct chemicals to use and a correct strategy to remove the dirt
• Contain it: ensure the problem isn’t getting worse or spreading, creating damage, or making it harder to remove
• Removing the dirt: ( aka actually cleaning it): Once again we will get into a lot more detail on this later on, but at this step, you will need to use the correct chemicals and strategy to remove the dirt and dispose of if it correctly.

To fully understand cleaning products, whether the ones you can buy at the store at retail, or special, commercially available chemicals, you need to have a solid understanding of the science of cleaning.

The Chemistry of Cleaning Agents:

In order to effectively clean something, you need to apply a cleaning agent and create a chemical solution. this is a fundamental part of how cleaning works. Most cleaning agents and solutions are made with water and soap/detergent, or an organic solvent. The key thing to remember is that similar items will dissolve into similar items. Like when you play chemist and try to mix water and oil, you will notice they won’t mix. They are not alike. Now let’s look at the actual cleaning science on a molecular level. Taking into account that water and oil don’t mix, and the majority of what we call dirt is actually some sort of oily base one way or another, you can combat the dirt with a water and soap combination. Soap will mix with water and with the oil. This is because the soap will have to different ends on a molecular level. These two ends are hydrophilic and hydrophobic. One end will bind with the water, and the other end, with the grease/ dirt, creating an effective chemical reaction that allows you to remove the dirt the soap molecule has two different ends, one that is hydrophilic (polar head) that binds with water and the other that is hydrophobic (non-polar hydrocarbon tail) that binds with grease and oil.

With a better understanding of how cleaning chemicals work, you must also remember that agitation is very helpful in removing dirt from surfaces. Agitation will help the charged particles separated, and then they will rearrange themselves based on their charges, further removing the dirt for you. Agitation allows the chemicals to do their job more effectively;

Just as important water is when cleaning, there also must be sufficient air during the cleaning process, so that the cleaned surface can properly dry, and not create further grounds for breeding contaminants and pollutants.  How does drying happen? It will happen only when suspended moist air is replaced by the warm dry air around it. Once an area is fully dried, the risk of mold and bacteria spread is limited and inhibited by the clean, dry surface.

To help further your understanding of the science of cleaning, let’s familiarize ourselves with some technical cleaning terminology.

Soaps and detergents will have certain molecular properties:

Hydrophobic – Water Fearing:  Hydrophobic is defined as “the fear of water”. Its molecules will repel water all the time. Hydrophobic liquids (like oils), will separate from the water and not mix. The molecules are non-polar, meaning the small atoms that make up the molecule do not produce a static electric field

Hydrophilic – Water Loving: A hydrophilic molecule is an opposite of hydrophobic. The molecule will interact with water and other polar substances in a more favorable way than their exchanges with oils or other hydrophobic solvents.

Lipophobic – Oil Fearing:  is a chemical property that means “fat rejection”, Lipophobic compounds are not very soluble in oil and fats, or other non-polar solvents.

Lipophilic – Oil Loving:  lipophilic has the ability to dissolve in refers to the ability of a chemical compound to dissolve in fats and oils.

Diving deeper into how something gets clean, it’s important to understand the mechanisms of cleaning. Things get clean for 7 mechanisms. Each one tackles the dirt/soiled area in a different way, and are important to understand, so you can use them in the correct applications

Solvency: this refers to a detergent that dissolves into another agent, like water. Think of your general cleaning chemical. It takes the detergent and spreads it across the water so that the molecules can begin to work on a molecular level against the grime and dirt

Emulsification: an emulsifier generally works to break down fats and oils, ones that generally wouldn’t mix with a cleaning agent, into small enough particles that they can then get suspended in the cleaning agent, and effectively rinsed away, leaving you with a clean surface

Saponification: the creation of soap, which is a staple in the cleaning industry. Triglycerides are treated with a strong base like lye, releasing fatty acids salts and glycerine.

Chelation: If you live in a hard water part of the world, like Calgary, you will need cleaning products with chelation agents in them; hard water is around in most of the world. It is caused when water travels through rock like limestone and picks up deposits of calcium and magnesium. This makes the water hard, and harder to clean with. A chelation agent will overcome this when you clean your home. Why is hard water bad with detergents? The calcium or magnesium will react with the detergent, and create fewer bubbles and foaming when cleaning, making it harder to clean. A chelation agent will prevent the magnesium or calcium with interfering with the detergent and its cleaning properties

Suspension: A cleaning agent with suspension properties is great at taking the grime and dirt, and suspending it in the cleaner. This then allows the house cleaner to wipe away the dirty particles, and clean the area.

Wetting: If you decrease the surface tension of a cleaning solution, it will increase its wetting capabilities.  Increasing the wetting ability of a cleaning agent will allow a cleaner to break through small spaces and get under the soil to help lift it from the dirt. This is a great way of increasing the cleaning agent’s effectiveness

Disinfection: a disinfectant doesn’t lift away grime, or suspend the dirt like other cleaning chemicals will. It cleans on a more microscopic level. A disinfectant will kill pathenogenic bacteria, leaving an entirely clean surface. The pathogens you won’t generally won’t see with your naked eye, so it’s easy to skip this step. However, for a truly clean and proper job, disinfection should not be skipped. Even if you look clean, it may not be, until you use a disinfectant on it

Now that you have learned the chemistry of cleaning, from the molecular level of how it works to the more broad mechanisms of each cleaning agent, we now need to understand the cleaning equation. When you go to hire house cleaners, you need to ensure they have a full understanding of these 4  points: You have 4 cleaning tools when fighting a soiled surface. The four pillars are time, action, chemical, and temperature. A great acronym to remember them by is TACT.

Time: cleaning agents need time to effectively work. Time refers to the amount of time you allow the cleaning chemicals to sit on the soiled surface. The longer it sits, within reason, the more work the agent will do on your behalf

Action: This will refer to the mechanical action to apply to the soiled surface. For example, wiping with a cloth or scrubbing something with a brush. The more action you put into it, the cleaner the surface will get

Chemical: the strength of the chemical you are using. If you are using a mild cleanser, it will not work as fast as a stringer cleaner. The flip side of this is, that you need to ensure the strength of the chemical will not wreck the surface you are cleaning. For example, we can all agree that acidic cleaning ( like strate flush, with contains approximately 18 % hydrochloric acid,) will clean much faster than a naturally derive all-purpose cleaner, but it will also destroy surfaces like wood, granite, street etc, especially if you leave it on too long. So don’t follow the rule of thumb that the stronger the chemical the better it cleans. The cleaning agent’s strength needs to be evaluated against the task at hand, and the surface it will be dwelling on.

Temperature: the temperate of the cleaning agent you are using. Quite simply, many cleaning agents have an optimal temperature that increases their effectiveness. We have always been told that hot eater cleans better then cold water, but don’t be fooled, hot water isn’t great either. It could evaporate too soon off the surface, not allowing the cleaning agents enough time to separate the grime from the surface. Warm water is optimal for cleaning agents.

To fully understand how cleaning works cleaning products, you must understand PH levels of a product. What is PH? It is the measure of how acidic or basic a solution is, from cleaning chemicals to drinks. PH will range from a PH of 0 to a PH of 14. If the solution has a PH from 0-6 it’s considered acidic. From PH 8 to PH 14, you will have a base. PH of 7 is neutral, and a good example of a neutral liquid is plain water. Review your regular household cleaners to fully understand their PH levels, and how cleaning works with them

Acid cleaning products: These cleaning solutions will attack items like rust, hard water calcium like on your shower glass, minerals, and deposits in places like toilets in bathrooms.

Alkaline cleaning products: Alkaline cleaning products target fatty items, like oils in the kitchen, blood on bedsheets, and much more. Alkaline cleaning products are specially made, and they will consist of wetting agents, chelating agents, and alkaline salts.

Solvent cleaning products: solvents are substances that are capable of dissolving a solute, to get the area cleaned. They are used in applications where acidic or alkaline products do not work. They can remove glue, nail polish, are used in dry cleaning, and carpet spot treatment. Solvents are specialized cleaning chemicals, and due care must be practiced. They can be harmful to the cleaning staff if used improperly, and they may damage the cleaning surface. Both are unwanted in the cleaning industry and full and proper training must be had for anyone using a solvent cleaner. Solvents will have different boiling points, which is what makes them more dangerous to use then other styles of chemicals. If it has a low boiling point, it can evaporate fairly quick when applied, releasing fumes into the air. If the boiling point on the solvent is high, you will need to apply additional heat to it, in order to allow it to do its job.

To hire a cleaner, you can see that not all cleaning companies will be made the same . Very few will know this in-depth chemistry of cleaning, which is vital to getting the job done right. Commercial cleaning will require a different chemical “toolkit” then what a regular house cleaning company will.  Things can get even more granular from there, for home cleaning. Move out cleaning will need the correct chemicals, correct application of TACT, and the correct elbow grease to get the house clean. On the other side, and AirBnB will need a more basic cleaning chemical setup, as you want to stay efficient when cleaning, so your costs stay low. If your cleaning company understands how cleaning works, this will result in them getting the job done properly, and faster, reducing your cleaning costs significantly