Church and hall cleaning around services and groups.

A church or community hall is used differently from an office. The sanctuary needs to be ready on Sunday morning. The hall is hired out on Tuesday evening, the kitchen is in use at the weekend, and the toilets are used by everyone from toddler groups to funeral parties. There is rarely a quiet moment, so the clean has to fit around the diary rather than the other way round.

Many of these buildings are old, and some are listed. Wooden pews, tiled floors, stone and plaster each want different treatment, and the strongest product is almost never the right one. We look at the building at the site visit, you tell us what is fragile, and that goes into the written scope.

We clean Ottery St Mary URC Church, a listed building in regular use, and we work around its services and congregation. The same small team attends wherever we can manage it, and access is agreed in writing, so whoever holds the keys is not left arranging it afresh every week.

Cleaning here is also about people. Churches are cared for by volunteers who give their time, and a contract cleaner should take weight off them, not add to it. That means turning up when we said, leaving the building ready for its next use, and being easy to reach if something changes.