How To Keep Your Coach Clean

How to Keep Your Coach Clean?

When we’re on the road every day, a question like how often to clean your coach really is unnecessary. There is however a key aspect to having both a clean coach AND saving the most time you can on cleaning. It’s also common knowledge that your coach won’t be the same after driving a school trip than it will be after driving retirees from the cruise ship.

Today’s blog post will cover the ins and outs of cleaning your coach in the best possible way, where you, your passengers and your boss will all be happy. Your coach is at least 10 and most probably over 12 metres long, and I get it – it takes time. Some companies have cleaning staff. A lot don’t, and you can’t just take out your card and happily drive home. This post is for the rest of us unlucky bastards.

There is quite a lot of components on your coach and while some of them you should clean every day (or even several times a day), others require either a weekly check or depend on the circumstances for your coach to remain in top condition. Let’s go over the first one, which would be:

The Trinity of a Clean Coach

These three components of your coach are the basics of what your coach needs cleaned to be clean, at least at first sight. These things should be cleaned daily and even multiple times a day.

They are windows, sweeping the floor and getting out the trash. This is the least you can do daily to have a clean vehicle without any complaints coming your side. If you have some downtime, I advise you to clean it inbetween your rides, and YES, even if you’re driving the same group all day long.

Why?

Doing a quick sweep of the floor and wiping a window or two does miracles. More often than not, it psychologically affects your passengers, usually without them knowing it.
If they were leaning their head on the window for most of the ride, they’ll definitely see a big, greasy stain they just left. When they come back to the bus after a while, they’ll just lean right back on it. However if they see someone was working hard enough to clean that greasy window, and to sweep the crackers they crumbled beneath their feet, it will get them to think and to be more careful.

This doens’t seem like much, but think about the time you can save. If you clean in your downtime and only save 10 minutes of cleaning after your last ride at the end of each day, you’ll be saving one hour every week. That’s 52 hours a year – over 2 days of your life saved that otherwise would have been spent on cleaning.

Instead of me just throwing out some woowoo advice which may be something most of you already know, let me share a few practical tips on the trinity of the clean coach.

Getting rid of the trash

The first thing to do is to get rid of larger pieces of trash. These are your plastic bottles, paper cups, sandwich raps and pretty much everything else too big to just be swept. Carefully look in all the nets, tables and in any crevices large enough for something to fall in them. Don’t forget to check out behind the rear bench as well as the overhead compartments.

You don’t want to empty the trash bins until after you’re done with cleaning the windows and sweeping up as you have to throw away that in the rubbish too. If you’re in a country where you can return plastic bottles and cans and get money for them, collect them separately as even just a day’s worth of bottles can buy you a coffee!

Something I really recommend when driving school trips is to place a trash bag after every 2 rows of seats. Kids have a lot of snacks and whatnot with them, and most of the time they are too lazy to save something for a trash bin and will rather just drop it on the floor or sneak it between the seat. Also don’t forget to check if the bags are full because they’ll never tell you they need a new one.

Cleaning Windows

If you’re finishing the drive at night, windows are the toughest to clean properly as it’s really easy to miss greasy spots, even with lights on. Come back and do it tomorrow (if possible at all). If it’s not possible, just make sure you use the flashlight from your phone or exit the bus and look from the outside to see spots you’ve potentially missed.

Always give extra attention to the low areas and far sides of windows. Lower areas are easy to miss but tend to be the most dirty as this is where most people lean their elbows not even thinking about it. Far sides are easy to miss as they’re usually hidden behind curtains and people also leave finger stains when trying to pull curtains towards them.

Paper rolls are the way to go. While microfibre cloths take less space, don’t forget you have to take good care washing them and wash them often for them to be in the best condition for cleaning). Paper rolls don’t leave any streaks or smudges if you did the job right, which leads me to the last point.

Make sure you start cleaning from a clean spot onto the grease, so you don’t smudge the grease all over the windows.

Sweeping the Floors

Start from the back of the bus to the front, and sweep below the seats first before you sweep the hallway and steps. Never forget to sweep under the radiators as that’s where most of the filth is (+ the fact that most vacuum cleaners are too large to fit under them).

Use disposable gloves for cleaning the floor. You’ll find used bottles, food remnants and chewing gum in the best case, and dirty diapers and used condoms in the worst case. You can get more diseases from a dirty bus floor than from a lady on a truck stop in Germany.

When you’re done sweeping, I recommend doing a quick vacuum clean to get rid of the dust. If you have carpets, definitely vacuum them as that’s the only thing that will clean them up properly and get rid of the excess hair.

If you have a few muddy patches but not enough to get the mop and water out – just use wet wipes and see it become as good as new.

Don’t forget the staircases. While they may be pretty easy to sweep or vacuum, it’s also a good idea to dust the carpets outside before you do so. To wipe the actual staircase I recommend spraying some plastic restorer and wiping it with a microfibre cloth as these things always get mud and other residue on them.

It looks like there is a lot to remember just about the basics of cleaning a coach. What about everything else?

Cup Holders and Foldable Tables

After every ride, I find cup holders to be full of crumbs and at least one foldable table has a bubble gum stuck onto it. To start with the cup holders you’ll either want a vacuum cleaner with a narrow extension or just a wet wipe to pick up all the stuff you couldn’t be able to get out otherwise.

You really should check each foldable table after every ride as more often than not passengers will leave all sorts of trash inside. Disinfecting them is a hassle but necessary as people touch these a lot. If you’re struggling with chewing gum, it’s always smart to carry a scalpel for stuff like this, and don’t forget – the fresher it is, the easier you’ll get rid of it. When you’re done with the hygienic part, you can use some more of that plastic restorer to get it all nice and shiny.

Footrests

No doubt the most annoying and unnecessary part of the bus is a footrest. Other than getting in the way when cleaning the floor, footrests are just there to be another thing we have to waste time cleaning. I’ll be honest with you – If you see one that is really dirty, sure give it a wipe but otherwise I recommend wiping them once every week or even every two weeks. It really depends on whether you’re driving in an area where there’s lots of rain and mud or not.

Armrests and Hand Rails

The responsible side of me would tell you to disinfect these daily but the no BS side of me never touched these. It’s not covid time anymore so I suppose you could give them a wipe once a week, or even once a month, but to be honest I don’t even see passengers using armrests or using the on-seat rails to hold on.

Mopping the Floors and Wiping Radiators

While we sweep or vacuum the floors daily, mopping them isn’t necessary to do as often. If your passengers didn’t walk over a sandy path and if the weather is dry outside, you most probably won’t need to mop. When cleaning floors it’s always a good idea to check out the radiators. Sometimes people put their feet on them and they get muddy. The good thing is they’re pretty easy to clean and require just a quick wipe.

When it comes to mopping the floors, there’s a few tools you can use. The industry standard would be a mop, a bucket of water and some floor cleaning solution. While this does the job, it takes ages and I hate having to replace the dirty water and squeezing out the dirty wet rag.

If you want to save time and nerves, I recommend getting yourself a Vileda 1-2 Spray Mop just like I have. If you’re in the US it’s called an O-Cedar Promist Max. All you have to do is fill it up with water and a few drops of your favourite floor cleaning solution. Other than the factory rag, you can also use pretty much anything on it to clean the floors. I’ve been using the thing for almost a year now and it is a LIFESAVER.

Overhead Compartment

The overhead compartment usually requires the least work of all, however I’ve found a fair share of bottles and the occasional bubble gum. Funny thing is – the area above the front seats is usually the messiest. Use this as a reminder to check out the overhead compartments and clean up some unnecessary stuff from there. I usually have some lost and founds from school rides or some papers from previous rides.

Dashboard and Steering Wheel

Use a dashboard liquid and a clean microfibre (one you use ONLY for this area) to wipe dust off your own area of the coach. Don’t forget giving a good wipe to the indicator and retarder stalks, as well as using cotton swabs to clean all the little crevices from time to time.

Coach Refrigerator

I had a colleague who was OBSESSED with spicy, homemade food. Homemade sausages, pickles and all the other local food was in his fridge every day. And since I got a girlfriend from the countryside, I enjoy having some of this food in the refrigerator too. Having this stuff for a while of course leaves its mark if you don’t clean the coach refrigerator. You could imagine my face when I opened it after the fridge was turned off for a week. I recommend just emptying it once a month and cleaning it with the window cleaning liquid and a paper towel.

These Are Really Easy To Miss

You’d think this is everything, but no. There are a few places I didn’t mention which are incredibly easy to miss but require just a weekly dust. Nobody ever sees these places except for your boss. You guessed it. It’s the top of the door frame, the top of the TV and the top of the interior rear view mirrors – both the one in the front and the one in the back. Clean these spots and impress everyone at work!

That’s it! Cleaning the interior of your coach explained from A-Z. I can’t wait to show you more tips and tricks in the future, as well as awesome cleaning products which helped a lot in saving hours every week. See you next Monday!