In an office what matters most is contact surfaces and ventilation — and that the work must not stop the business operating.
In an office the person who orders is almost never the person who spotted the problem. The caller is the office manager, the administrator or whoever is responsible for facilities, and they need two things a private client does not: an exact time when the premises are usable again, and a document to hand to accounts. If the office is leased, the building's property manager sometimes gets involved too — especially where the question is ventilation, or mould on an external wall, which is not the tenant's responsibility.
In an office, transfer happens mainly through shared surfaces. In practice the ones most often forgotten are exactly the ones most often touched:
| Surface | Note |
|---|---|
| Door handles and switches | The most frequently touched surfaces |
| Shared desks | Especially with hot-desking |
| Kitchen area and coffee machine | Often left out |
| Washrooms | Standard treatment zone |
| Meeting-room equipment | Remotes, cables, table surfaces |
| Ventilation and air conditioning | A frequent source of persistent smells |
Ventilation and air conditioning deserve a separate mention. If an office has a persistent stale smell, that is often where it comes from.
Daily cleaning wipes desk surfaces; the smell and the problem are usually where the cloth never reaches.
It is worth separating two different office questions that often get confused. The first is a hygiene question: contact surfaces touched by dozens of people during the day. The answer there is regular surface treatment, and a one-off does little. The second is a smell or mould question: there is a specific source, and until it is found, treatment only buys time. The two call for different scopes of work and different prices, so at the inspection we first establish which one we are dealing with.
Building type changes the picture in an office too. In a converted pre-war building, offices usually have natural draught in the chimney flues; if those were built over during the refurbishment, moisture from the kitchen and the washroom stays in the rooms.
In a new build with mechanical ventilation the problem is usually the opposite — the system exists, but it is turned down to minimum or switched off outside working hours, and on Monday morning the air is stale, clearing after a couple of hours. That is a ventilation-regime question, not a disinfection one, and we say so.
Air conditioning is a special case. Moisture and dust build up on the heat exchanger and the condensate tray of the indoor unit, and that is where the characteristic sweetish smell comes from when cooling is switched on for the first time in spring. If that is the source, treating the room changes nothing — the unit itself has to be dealt with, and in some cases that is a servicing question rather than a disinfection one.
An office is one of the most flexible sites, because it is empty in the evenings and at weekends. In practice we usually work after 6 pm or on a Saturday. In larger offices with hot-desking it is worth checking whether anyone works late — nobody may be in the room during fogging.
The fire alarm is something we always agree in advance if fogging is planned. A smoke detector can react to fog just as it does to smoke, so before the work we need to know who disables it temporarily and how — usually the building's property manager or the security company, not us.
In an office most of what is valuable is precisely what must not get wet. Before the work we establish and agree:
For companies we prepare a contract, an invoice and a completion record. The record states the date, the area treated and the zones. Where treatment is regular, we keep a log of the work carried out — internal rules or the building owner often ask for it.
Offices, more than most sites, are better served by regular scheduled treatment than by a one-off. A contact surface stays a contact surface — treatment acts on what is on that surface at the moment of treatment.
We draw up a schedule to suit the number of staff and how intensively the space is used. More: regular disinfection.
We assess the floor area, how the space is used and the ventilation.
We settle a time outside business hours.
We cover equipment and agree the alarm and access to rooms.
We treat contact surfaces, and in wider cases the rooms themselves.
We air the space and tell you from when it can be used.
We prepare a record of the work carried out.
What most often goes wrong in offices: treatment is ordered for the open-plan area only and the kitchen, the washrooms and the meeting rooms are left out, though the footfall there is highest. The other typical mistake is ordering a one-off during an outbreak and treating the matter as closed — it is a treatment with a date on it, not a permanent state.
We do not clean the ventilation system throughout the building — we treat the accessible part of the ducting and the grilles, but cleaning a full system is a separate, specialised job. We do not do daily cleaning; we are not a replacement for a cleaner. We do not treat server or comms hardware. And we do not promise that nobody in the office will fall ill again — treatment acts on surfaces, not on people, and it is part of hygiene rather than a substitute for it.
Up to 100 m² — €1.20/m², 100–300 m² — €0.90/m², 300–1000 m² — €0.70/m², over 1000 m² — by quotation. For regular treatment we prepare a separate quote. All prices →
Yes — on commercial sites it is routine and usually the easiest option. We agree the time in advance so that treatment and airing are finished before the next working day.
For surface treatment, clearing the working surfaces helps. If we are treating the room with fog, documents and equipment are covered or removed.
Yes — a contract, an invoice and a completion record. Where we work regularly we also keep a log of the work carried out, which can be filed with your company documentation.
Describe the situation — we will tell you whether treatment is needed at all, and which one.
Fill in the form — we will call you on the number you provide, ask a few clarifying questions and propose a solution.
Thank you! We will contact you on the phone number you provided shortly.
