Mon–Fri · nightly
What the cupboard holds, and how the shelf is read
Every building on contract keeps a consumables cupboard, and the cupboard is the thing that makes a washroom round work. Stock sits in the building rather than on a van, so the round never waits on a delivery and a dispenser is never left empty because the case was two miles away.
The cupboard is stocked in whole cases and drawn down in singles. What follows is the run of lines held on a standard contract, with the pack the line arrives in beside it.
- Hand towel, interfold16 sleeves to a case
- Toilet tissue, standard roll36 rolls to a case
- Toilet tissue, jumbo roll6 rolls to a case
- Liquid hand soap, one litre6 bottles to a case
- Washroom bin liners1000 to a case
- Urinal screens10 to a box
- Washroom descaler, one litre6 bottles to a case
- Mop heads, colour-coded for washroomsheld as singles
Colour coding runs through the cloths and the mop heads. The washroom set stays on the washroom trolley and goes nowhere else in the building, and a mop head is changed between buildings rather than between rooms.
Every visit
The round, in the order it is worked
The order runs from the dirtiest fitting to the cleanest, and then from the cleanest surface down to the floor. Working it any other way carries soil back across ground already taken.
Pans, urinals and seats come first, cleaned with the washroom cloths and left to stand where a product needs standing time. Cubicle handles, locks and the back of each door follow, because those are the surfaces every hand meets. Basins, taps and splashbacks are wiped and then dried, so that water leaves no mark on the chrome, and mirrors are finished dry.
Replenishment is a single pass afterwards: hand towel, tissue, soap, in that order, because that is the order the dispensers stand in on almost every wall. A dispenser found jammed is cleared, and one found broken is written on the visit record and reported to the office the same night.
Floors are mopped last, corners first, with the doorway taken on the way out so nobody walks a wet floor to leave. Where a washroom is in use during the round, the run is broken and picked up after, and the visit record says which cubicle was left.
Tue · count
Counting the shelf, not the issue
Stock is counted by what is left on the shelf, never by what was put out. The two figures drift apart within a fortnight, because dispensers are topped up rather than emptied and a half sleeve goes back on the shelf as readily as it comes off.
The count is taken on the Tuesday visit, written on the visit record, and entered against the building at the office the following morning. The order goes up on the Wednesday so that it lands before the Friday, which keeps the cupboard full over a weekend rather than into one.
Two buildings ran short on hand towel before Thursday last week. Both had been topped up nightly and both read full to the eye; the shelf count was what showed the shortfall, and the order went up the same morning.
Weekly and four-weekly
What else the round looks at
Cubicle partitions and doors are washed on both faces once a week, which takes the marks a nightly wipe leaves behind at handle height. Skirtings and the pipe runs behind the pans are taken on the same weekly turn, because a mop reaches the floor and not the six inches above it.
Descale runs over pans, urinals and tap outlets on a four-week interval. Milton Keynes water is hard, and scale sits on a rim and inside a spout long before it shows; four weeks is the interval at which it comes away without work. The interval is printed beside the task in the register on the front page, and the week it falls in can be read from the planner there.
Drainage is watched rather than worked. A basin slow to clear, a trap smell that returns after the floor dries, a urinal standing water — each is written on the visit record and reported the same night, because those are the building’s faults and not the round’s. Dispensers, hinges, locks and the door closer are looked at on the weekly turn for the same reason.