A dental clinic needs two cleaning routines that never get confused: the clinical disinfection your dental assistants do between patients, following the practice's infection-control protocol, and the environmental cleaning a contractor does after hours on floors, walls, washrooms, reception and staff areas. The checklist below draws that line room by room, so your cleaning contract covers everything it should and nothing your clinical team is responsible for.
Start with a clear split of duties
Most problems in dental clinic cleaning contracts come from a vague scope. A crew wipes a counter in an operatory that the assistant already disinfected with a different product, or nobody wipes the light switches because each side assumed the other would.
Write the split into the contract:
- Clinical team: the dental chair, delivery unit, light handles, trays, countertops in the treatment zone, anything touched during a procedure, plus all instrument reprocessing. In Quebec, dentists work under the infection-prevention guidance of the Ordre des dentistes du Québec, and this work stays with trained clinic staff.
- Cleaning contractor: floors, walls, doors and frames, sinks outside the treatment zone, washrooms, reception, waiting room, offices, staff room, garbage and recycling, glass, and periodic deep work such as floor refinishing.
- Never the contractor: sharps containers, biomedical waste, amalgam separators, suction traps and anything in the sterilization workflow. Biomedical waste in Quebec falls under the Regulation respecting biomedical waste and goes to a licensed carrier.
A one-page duties chart posted in the staff room avoids most of the arguments later.
Operatories (after hours, contractor)
The treatment rooms get the most attention, but the contractor's part is the room around the chair, not the chair itself.
- Damp-mop the full floor with a disinfectant cleaner, moving mobile stools and carts and putting them back where they were.
- Wipe door handles, push plates, light switches and cabinet pulls outside the treatment zone.
- Wipe walls at splash height around the sink and the spittoon area if your team asks for it.
- Empty regular garbage only. Leave red or yellow biomedical containers untouched.
- Spot-clean glass partitions and windows.
- Weekly: dust vents, high ledges and the tops of upper cabinets.
Use a hospital-grade disinfectant with a Health Canada DIN (Drug Identification Number) and respect its contact time. Ask the contractor to share the product name with your office manager, so it does not clash with what the clinical team uses.
Sterilization room
This room is the most sensitive in the clinic, and the contractor's role is small on purpose.
- Mop the floor at the end of the day, dirty side to clean side, never the reverse.
- Empty regular garbage.
- Do not touch the autoclave, ultrasonic cleaner, instrument cassettes or packaging area.
- Report any spill or water on the floor instead of cleaning around equipment.
Many clinics prefer that their own staff mop this room. If so, take it out of the contract in writing.
Reception and waiting room
This is the part patients judge the clinic by, and it gets touched by everyone who walks in.
- Disinfect the reception counter, payment terminal surround, pens holder, chair arms and door handles every night.
- Vacuum or mop floors, including under chairs and around the entrance mat.
- Clean glass doors and the partition at reception.
- Wipe the children's corner, if you have one, including toys that are washable (or remove toys entirely).
- Dust frames, plants, magazine racks and window sills weekly.
During cold and flu season, a midday wipe of the counter and door handles by a day porter or by the front desk helps more than any extra night work.
Patient and staff washrooms
- Clean and disinfect toilets, urinals, sinks, faucets, dispensers and grab bars.
- Refill soap, paper and hand sanitizer, and log stock levels so the clinic can reorder.
- Mop with a disinfectant, paying attention to the base of the toilet and corners.
- Weekly: descale faucets, wash walls at splash height, clean vents.
Offices, staff room and lab
- Empty garbage and recycling, wipe desks that are cleared (never move charts or papers).
- Clean the staff room sink, counters, microwave exterior and fridge handle every night; the fridge interior once a month or when the team asks.
- Vacuum carpets, mop hard floors.
- In an in-house lab, wipe floors and garbage only, unless the lab technician gives a specific list.
Weekly, monthly and yearly tasks
Weekly
- High dusting: vents, light fixtures, tops of cabinets and door frames.
- Baseboards and corners in every room.
- Interior glass and mirrors throughout.
Monthly
- Wash walls in corridors and the waiting room.
- Machine-scrub vinyl or tile floors in operatories and corridors.
- Clean blinds and window tracks.
Once or twice a year
- Strip and refinish resilient floors (sheet vinyl, VCT) in a clinic that stays open late, ideally over a long weekend.
- Hot-water extraction of carpets in offices and the waiting room.
- Exterior windows.
Choosing products and training
Ask your contractor three things before signing:
- Which disinfectant they use, its DIN and its contact time.
- How they prevent cross-contamination, for example colour-coded cloths (one colour for washrooms, one for general areas) and separate mop heads for clinical and non-clinical floors.
- How their staff are trained on SIMDUT (WHMIS in English), the Quebec system for hazardous products in the workplace that CNESST oversees.
A good contractor also leaves a nightly log: rooms done, supplies low, anything broken or leaking.
How Simple Service handles dental clinics
Simple Service cleans clinics across Greater Montréal, including Laval, Longueuil and the North and South Shores. Our crews are bonded, CNESST registered, and we carry $5M in general liability insurance. We build the duties split with your office manager on the first walkthrough, then follow it every night. See our medical clinic cleaning service for the full scope, or get a ballpark with the pricing calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Should the cleaning company disinfect the dental chair?
No. The chair, delivery unit, light and treatment counters are disinfected by the clinical team between patients, under the clinic's infection-control protocol. The contractor cleans the room around them: floors, walls, doors, switches and garbage.
How often should a dental clinic be professionally cleaned?
Most clinics need cleaning every night they are open, with a weekly list for high dusting and baseboards and a monthly floor scrub. Clinics with long hours or heavy patient volume often add a short midday visit for washrooms and the reception area.
Can cleaners handle biomedical waste in a dental office?
They should not. In Quebec, biomedical waste falls under its own regulation and is picked up by a licensed carrier. Cleaners take regular garbage and recycling only and leave sharps containers and biomedical bins in place.
What disinfectant should a dental clinic cleaning crew use?
A hospital-grade disinfectant registered with Health Canada (it carries a DIN on the label), used with its full contact time. The product should be agreed with the office manager so it is compatible with the surfaces and with what the clinical team already uses.
Get a cleaning plan for your clinic
Tell us about your clinic, the number of operatories and your hours, and we will send a scope and quote built around your team's protocol. Request a quote.