Home Ratings Guide

Table of Contents

Dream Clean's Pricing Breakdown

With there being so many cleaning companies in the valley that all have different pricing structures we wanted to explain how our service works. Transparency is important to us and so we want to make sure that all of our new customers understand what they’re getting when they book with us. 

Flat Rate + Condition

We’re primarily a flat rate company. This means that all of the items listed below all have a set price based off the information provided. Here’s what it looks like on the website:

Our algorithm has been perfected over the last five years and when given the correct information it’s about 97% accurate. Which is very impressive considering that we are not coming out to look at your home. Companies that use the in person bid method can get a good idea on the condition, by looking at it, but the issue becomes you cannot know how long something will truly take to clean until you are doing the work. 

Condition Factor:

Which is a perfect segue to the most important piece, the overall condition of your home. When you book with us, either online or over the phone, you’ll be asked to rate your home or office. We have a sliding scale from: 1 (extremely dirty), 5 (average) and 10 (spotless) which helps us to get an idea on the amount of work that’ll need to be done, the amount of people that we’ll need to send and to ultimately get the bid as close as possible. Nobody likes getting a surprise that costs them more, which is why we have all of this information on our website, as seen here:

The problem becomes trying to define something that is completely subjective. There is no standardized idea of clean, but we can get pretty close or have a good idea of what that looks like. 

Anything lower than a 5 drastically increases the amount of work that goes into the cleaning, which is why the condition is part of our cost structure. So in an effort to make this process easier for some, or to, at least understand why we do it here are some photos.

*These images may induce a triggering effect for our OCD friends. You have been warned :)*

Bathroom - Ratings

The main areas that take the most time are bathrooms and kitchens, and so you’ll see a lot of photos from those places. However, other areas if they are bad can collectively pull down the overall average of the home. It really is, an art over a science but when in doubt maybe rate your home or office lower rather than higher :).

For now we’ll start in the bathrooms. This was a recent photo from one of our own team member’s guest bathrooms. They’re a family of 5 and so the tub/shower is a high traffic area. 

Showers and Bathtubs - Ratings 5 & 6

You’ll notice some hard water on all the metal areas, but nothing crazy. So, the chances are this is something that’s somewhat maintained. This is something that would be like a 5 or a 6. 

Here is what the rest of the tub looks like. The walls and shelving areas are really clean. We’re not seeing a lot of soap scum or hard water and so we’d still say it’s about a 5 or a 6 for the rating. 

Showers - 3 Rating

 This next shower we would rate as a 3 – Dirty 

Shower Rated as a 3

This shower is rated as a one. Notice the dirt on the walls of the shower and you can’t see through the shower door. 

Dirty Shower
Shower Rated as a 1

Here is a shower faucet that we would rate as a 3 – Dirty. It has hard water stains that would take a little time to scrub but not a lot of time or product. 

Faucets - Ratings 5 & 6

Now here is a countertop (before we cleaned it) in a master bathroom that we recently cleaned:

Faucet - Rated at a 5

This would be rated as a 5 because there’s a little hard water on the base of the faucet and around the ring in the sink that needs to be cleaned but doesn’t have a lot of build-up. 

We understand life gets busy and nothing can be near perfect which is why we have the rating system that we do. Which really is for our customer’s benefit because it allows us to get the bid as close as possible. 

Showers - 1 Rating

Here is an example of a shower we would rate a 1 – Extremely Dirty. 

Master Shower - 1 Rating

It’s easy to see the extra hard water buildup on all of the metal areas. You can also see the orange-ish discoloration around the metal. This will take substantially longer to clean and with more product required. 

Below is what the tub and shower looked like after our team of professionals got after it: 

It looks amazing, right?! We try very hard to make things appear to be good as new, but sometimes an item will not come any cleaner, especially after years of neglect. 

Kitchen

Now, let’s talk about the kitchen. Here are some photos from our team members.  

Stovetops and Ovens - 5 &6 Ratings

Stovetop - 5 or 6 Rating

If you don’t consider the scuff marks on the stovetop we’d look at this as a 5 or 6 rating, as it’s pretty clean. Hopefully, with some Bar Keepers Friend, a scrubber and some elbow grease some of those marks will come off. 

Stovetops and Ovens - Rating 3

This is also example of something that we’d rate as a 3 because as you can tell this is going to take a lot more time and product for this to clean. 

It’s hard to really see all the detail in this photo, but this is an example of something that we’d rate as a 4. We would normally expect to see food and stains on the stovetop here and there on a 5 rating, but this just has more work that’s required. You can look back to the photo of our team member’s stovetop to compare. 

This is an example of something that we’d rate as a 2 or a 1:

It can be hard to pinpoint the exact rating. What I can tell you is that we’ve seen worse than this and that is why it could be a 2. This will take considerably more work than that of the stovetop that we rated as a 5. 

Microwaves - 5 Rating

Looking inside their microwave this is what you would expect with an average rating. We can see there are a few food stains that need to be cleaned-up,  but it doesn’t look like a food bomb went off :).

It would need to be a bit worse to transition into a 4 rating. We’d expect to see more food on the walls, door and on the rotating plate. 

Microwaves - 1 Rating

This microwave would be considered a 1 rating.

This is an example of something that we’d rate as a 1. As you can tell this is going to take a lot more time and product for this to come clean. 

Now below here are some examples of ratings of kitchen sinks:

Kitchen Sinks - 5 Rating

This sink is a 5 – Average (does not have build up, but needs cleaned)

Kitchen Sinks - 2 Rating

This Sink is a 2 – very dirty ( it has a lot of build-up and a lot of scrubbing and cleaning will be required)

Extras

 

Now, let’s talk about baseboards. Here are two photos of some baseboards that we would rate as a 3 because it is going to take more time and product to get this baseboards clean.

Now just because these items are rated lower that doesn’t mean that your overall house will be rated that way. It just means that these areas, which take the longest anyway, will take longer than they should and that could make the bid off. 

If you took anything away from this, even if it’s not how to rate the condition, please understand the rating system is not there to pay a bill. We understand that we’re already not the cheapest cleaning service in the valley and we really dislike having to call someone to tell them the cleaning is going to cost more. It’s not an easy or fun conversation. This is why we are putting this information together in the hopes that it can help people understand the amount of work that goes into cleanings with lower ratings, and to help us get the bid as close as possible upfront.