How Long Will It Take For A Housecleaner to Clean My Home?
May 13, 2025
How long will it take a house cleaner to clean my whole home? How about just my bathroom and kitchen? Can’t they do this in like an hour or maybe two at the most?
To answer the questions I’d asked before, most average sized (3 bed 2 bath) homes will take anywhere from 2.5-3.5 hours to clean—that estimate, however, is based on a maintenance cleaning of a home that is cleaned at least biweekly, and assuming that daily chores (such as dishes, tidying, wiping counters, tables, disposing of trash etc) are completed. If a 3 bed/2 bath hasn’t been cleaned in a month, I’d add an hour to my original estimate, and if it hasn’t been properly cleaned in two - three months, add 1.5 to 2 hours overall.
First I’d like to offer this as a sidenote, people tend to greatly underestimate how dirty their home is, as well as the time needed to clean it. Let me give you an example that you can hang onto and think about in the future.
I like to use this example when discussing time needed with clients: When I clean my car inside and out, not a full detail clean, but thoroughly. Where I clean the exterior—wash & dry, wiping everything down inside, vacuuming & cleaning the windows inside and out.
That Cleaning will take me 2 hours total. Since most people clean their car more often than their home, this analogy works well, so that they only need to think about the size of their car and compare that to the size of their home, and that will help give perspective. And if your space is really dirty, it will take even more time.
Time needed to clean a whole home comes down to a few things:
How dirty are the surfaces in your home/how long has the gunk been sitting?
Are daily cleaning chores being performed consistently?
How many people live in the home?
Age of surfaces?
Percentage of hard surfaced floors?
Do you have Kids? Ages?
Do you have pets?
For a client that I visit weekly or biweekly, I’m able to clean a medium full sized bath in about 15-20 minutes. More time would be needed if there are clear glass shower doors, or a garden tub—then it’s about 20-25 minutes.
Keep in mind the bathroom is cleaned regularly and I have a routine down because they’re recurring clients.
Half baths can be done in about 10 minutes, and kitchens take on average 30-40+ minutes to clean.
The baths and kitchen are the bulk of the cleaning, so the bedrooms and living areas should be just making beds, dusting, glass mirrors & floors.
If the house is kept fairly tidy those areas are pretty quick. I do have some clients with small children who I often need to pick up after before actually cleaning and that can stack the time on fast.
The more tidy you are in between cleans, the faster a housecleaner will be able to clean your home.
So, all that said, in general, a 2 bed one bath recurring client’s home will normally take about 1.5-2 hours to clean.
Ea bathroom added is about another 20 minutes and each bedroom about 8 minutes each.
Important to note here that those times don’t include pick up and tidying, linen changes, and doesn’t include doing dishes. Those things will add time for sure.