House Cleaning Wet Work and Dry Work Explained

When doing house cleaning, wet work refers to the kitchen and bathrooms. Dry work is pretty much everything else. These phrases are mostly used in professional cleaning.

Most working folks tend to do housework on our day off, Saturday for me. There is joy involved when you have a partner to help you get it done quicker. I mean we would like to go do something fun on Saturday, right?

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One of you will do the house cleaning wet work and the other the dry work. Let’s say your home is a 3 bedroom, 2 baths with living, dining, den and eat-in kitchen. From all outward appearances the person doing the wet work will only have 3 rooms to clean, while the dry work cleaner will be doing 6 rooms plus possibly a foyer and the laundry room.

Don’t fret; amazingly you will somehow finish at or near the same time. If, however one of you finishes first, the other will show some team spirit by pitching in to help, usually with the floors.

Based on the size of your home and the filth factor involved, the dry work person may also be the floor person for the entire house which does include mopping. It really doesn’t take a long time to dust furniture and vacuum floors in a bedroom. Cleaning tubs, showers, toilets and cluttered bathroom counters is quite time consuming.

House Cleaning Supplies

Cleaning cloths, I use these
Small household ladder, to reach bathroom mirror if you’re short like me
Swiffer duster, my favorite way to dust
Broom, my favorite broom
Dustpan
Vacuum with attachments
Mop
Mop bucket, I use this one from Walmart
Tray with handle, like this one for carrying cleaning supplies from room
Cleaning products (My bathroom favorites)
Paper towels
Trash bag(s)

Cleaning tray with cleaning products — Wet work cleaning tray

Wet Work

The Wet work includes the kitchen and all of the bathrooms. While there are less rooms, they tend to need a lot more work.

What to clean in the bathrooms

Tub
Shower (tub and shower are often separate)
Toilet
Sink and counters
Mirrors
Floors

What to clean in the kitchen

Washing dishes is not listed because that is a daily chore. We are discussing weekly or bi-weekly house cleaning tasks. I hope we are all wiping down the stove and counters daily as well. But we like to give our kitchen a ‘good cleaning’ at least once a week.

Counters
Sinks
Exterior surfaces of appliances
Inside the microwave
Floors

How To Set Up A Speed Cleaning Kit — Dry work cleaning products and tray

I keep a handy little tray filled with my dry work cleaning products. This is also called my Speed Cleaning Kit. See my Speed Cleaning Tips.

Dry Work

The Dry house work includes cleaning the living room, den, dining room, bedrooms, foyer and any other bonus rooms or office you may have in your home. Dry work is basically everything else which isn’t wet work.

Dusting
Sweeping
Vaccuming
Mopping
Making beds
Straighten throw pillows on sofa

Again, keep all of your cleaning products in the tray or bucket you have for that purpose and carry it with you from room to room. Always keep your cleaning tray or bucket next to you as you work your way around the room. This cuts down on time wasted walking back and forth. Remember your goal is to get this job done as quickly as possible.

Dusting furniture

My favorite way to dust is with the Swiffer duster because it picks up the dust rather than moving it around. However, about once every couple of months, I use a furniture polish on all of the furniture to keep it shining and clean looking.

You can buy Pledge or Endust much cheaper at the Dollar General than the grocery store. I sometimes get Endust on Amazon for a good price.

Cleaning Floors

Clean the floors last for every room. Either mop or vacuum your way out of the room by beginning on the far side and working back towards the door.

Also see; Floor Cleaning Tools, Tips & How-To

Wet Work Tips

Cleaning tray

Set up a cleaning tray like the one pictured above for your house cleaning wet work. Fill it with the cleaning products of your choice. These are my favorite bathroom cleaning products. Carry the tray with you from room to room and sit it close by at all times.

Sweep first

I recommend when cleaning the wet areas that the first task is always to sweep the floors. More often than not, you will splash some water on the floor during the cleaning process. It is just plain annoying to try to sweep a bathroom floor with wet spots.

In the early days of my cleaning business, people would often ask me if I charged to clean bathrooms, my standard response became, “only if you want it cleaned.” The two dirtiest rooms in the house are always the primary bedroom and it’s adjoining bath.

For some strange reason, everyone in the house prefers to use the master bath. The shower will take more time to clean than any other thing in the entire house. I once had a helper to completely clean an entire kitchen in the time it took me to clean a master shower! That one was pretty dirty.

Trash

Carry a trash bag with you from room to room. Use it to dump the trash cans into. Most bathroom trash cans are small. You can empty them into one large bag. Keep your big trash bag sitting right outside the door of each room as you are working in it.

Dry Work Tips

Carry a large trash bag with you to empty all the cans into. Simply leave it sitting outside the door of each room as your enter. Of course you will empty the big trash can in the kitchen and replace the bag with a new one.

Dust first or vacuum first, that is the question. What is your answer? That is really a personal choice. As a professional cleaner, I always do floors last.

If the floor is carpeted, I vacuum from the far side of the room backward, working my way out of the room. The purpose of this is to create a freshly vacuumed pattern into the carpet with no footprints. Regardless of the floor surface, always work your way from the far side of the room backwards and out the door so that you are not stepping on the freshly cleaned floor.

Teamwork

Always complete one room prior to moving onto the next room. If one of you finishes first, go help your partner. Floors are always the best area for teamwork. If you see, you’re going to finish first, go ahead and let your cleaning partner know that you will be taking over the floors soon. Again, you should be able to get your basic cleaning completed in about 2 hours. If it is taking you longer, make that your goal. If you’re getting it done in less time, woo hoo!!

House Cleaning Wet Work and Dry Work Explained

House Cleaning Supplies