bidding & estimating Restrooms And The Bidding Process How to calculate labor, costs and cleaning times to guarantee satisfied customers and profit. By: William R. Griffin R Restrooms are an important and sensitive area in any building and must be maintained at high levels of cleanliness, sanitation and safety at all times to avoid complaints, liability and a negative impression on employees, customers and the public. Restrooms are unique in that they are often designed for clean-ing, with water and stain resistant surfaces that include vitreous china, chrome, stainless steel, ceramic tile, glass and other rela-tively easy to clean materials. Water connections, floor drains, ventilation and good lighting can also be part of the design that will facilitate and speed up the cleaning process. Production Rates Most restrooms are bid by fixture count, not square footage. The average time per fixture — sink, toilet and urinal — is two to three minutes each. Using this formula generally allows time to complete all the other tasks that need to be done in the restroom. This does not include supply, chemical or equipment costs. If you prefer to bid by the square foot, the production rate gener-ally ranges between 200 and 500 square feet per hour. A small two sink, two stall restroom that isn’t heavily used will take you about 10 minutes for light cleaning and about 12 to 15 minutes for once-a-week heavy cleaning. Pricing restrooms is normally done by the hour. Pay rates range from minimum wage to $20 per hour. Burdened billable rates range from $18 to $45 per hour. If you have less than one hour’s work, it would be best to establish a minimum charge per service call which can range from $45 to $65. What To Look For During the pre-bid walk through, you should closely inspect the restrooms and ask the contact about their current satisfaction with the services they receive in their restrooms. This will give you a better understanding of their concerns and provide insight with regards to where to you should provide em-phasis in your proposal. Even if the restrooms aren’t clean to your standards or that of the prospective customer, it is best to avoid making any negative comments about the level of service or the existing contractor. Costs Labor will run you 50 to 80 percent of the cost. Chemicals 2 percent, equipment 2 percent, paper and plastic 8 to 10 percent (percent of wages). Cleaning Options How you clean a restroom depends on a number of factors. The most common considerations include such things as size, condition, age, use level, facility type, customer and user expecta-tions, frequency, budget, process and products used. Other considerations include access to water and power, drain-age, resistance of materials to moisture, scheduling, frequency, ease of access and limitations on closure or staffing. An important issue when calculating costs relates to what is pro-vided by the customer and what supplies, chemicals and equip-ment will you provide at your cost. Staffing And Workloading If it’s a medium to large facility, it will generally be more productive to train and utilize restroom specialists to clean easily accessible or building core restrooms. When staffing for restrooms, the key is to find someone who enjoys, wants to clean and does of good job of restroom cleaning. In larger and heavily-soiled restrooms, if the surfaces and loca-tion will handle the moisture, a spray and vacuum system will be the most productive and effective. With odor problems, frequency and process can be the cause. Quality Control Restrooms should be inspected to assure quality service. Nothing gets complaints and cancellations faster than soiled and poorly serviced restrooms. CM William (Bill) Griffin is the president of Cleaning Consultant Services Inc. and president of the International Custodial Advisors Network (ICAN). ICAN is a nonprofit association comprised of industry professionals providing free con-sultation services through the Cleaning Management Institute (CMI) and their Ask The Experts page. Comments and questions about bidding and estimating are encouraged: (206) 849-0179 or [email protected]. Green And Sustainable Restrooms offer a number of options to implement green and sustainable cleaning processes; this includes such things as: ■ Green chemicals and sanitizers ■ Bucketless mopping ■ Spray and vacuum systems ■ Microfiber cloths and mops ■ Recycled content for towel, toilet paper and liners ■ Composing and recycling of waste materials. 22 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • October 2013
CMM – Archives October 2013: 22
