Lab and cleanroom cleaning

Cleaning written into your procedures

In a lab or cleanroom, the cleaning crew is part of the contamination-control program. The agents, the order of rooms, the gowning steps and the frequency are set by your quality, EHS or lab operations team, usually in a written procedure. Continental Facilities turns that procedure into a room-by-room checklist and walks the assigned crew through it at your site before the first controlled-area visit.

When your procedure changes after an audit, a new product or a room reclassification, send us the revision and the checklist is updated to match. Supervisors make quality inspections against the current version, never an older copy.

Gowning in and working top to bottom

Crews put on gowns, gloves, hoods, shoe covers or full coveralls in the order your gowning room posts. Tools used inside a controlled room stay with that room: dedicated mops and buckets, low-lint wipes and HEPA-filtered vacuums, brought in through the route your procedure sets.

Inside, cleaning runs from ceilings and walls to pass-throughs, work surfaces, carts and finally the floor, moving from the cleanest area toward the exit with overlapping strokes. Every agent is given the full contact time written in your procedure, and crews record each completed room on the log your quality team keeps.

Moving between rooms of different cleanliness levels, crews follow your procedure for changing gloves, swapping tools and passing through airlocks, so nothing is carried from a less controlled space into a cleaner one.

Corridors, offices and shared amenities

Outside the controlled rooms, a life-science building looks like a polished office property. Lobbies, conference rooms, offices, break rooms, fitness rooms and restrooms are covered by our janitorial services, with day porters for buildings that run long research shifts. We stock restrooms with tissue, towels, soap and liners from our own supply, or from yours if you keep one.

Open ceilings above lab benches collect dust on ducts, cable trays and pipe runs. High dusting clears them on a cycle, usually during a planned shutdown so nothing falls on active work. Receiving rooms and loading docks handle pallets, packaging and cold-chain deliveries all week, so their floors are swept and scrubbed and the dock apron washed on a set schedule.

Screening, records and cost factors

Crews working in your labs are background-checked. Continental is insured and bonded, workers’ compensation covers each crew member, and your company is issued a certificate of insurance. Where your site issues badges or requires escorts, crews follow those rules on every visit.

The price of a lab program comes from the number of controlled rooms and their gowning level, how often each is cleaned, after-hours access needs, and the square footage of offices and common areas. Once we have seen the rooms and read your procedure, you get a written quote with each area on its own line. When a new controlled room comes online later, we read its procedure, walk the space and add it to the plan as a new line.