The Standard Chemical Kit and Surface Clearance SOP

Purpose

Every crew leaves the shop carrying the same five products, and every tech knows, for each one, which surfaces it is cleared for and which it never touches. Without this card, chemistry drifts crew by crew and the shop finds out from an etched vanity or a darkened aluminum filter. The second job is keeping acid and chlorine apart in the vehicle and the home, because together they release chlorine gas, and a closed van or bathroom is where that happens.

Scope

Covers the contents of the standard kit, its surface clearances, how it is loaded and carried, the clearance check before a product touches a surface, and the end-of-visit recount.

It does not cover: the cart and caddy layout, which belongs to 'Cleaning Cart and Caddy Setup Standard'; swapping in a product not on the card, which goes through 'Product Substitution and SDS Check'; mixing concentrates and labeling spray bottles, which follows 'Dilution Control and Labeling Standard'; and HazCom training and SDS access, which follow 'HazCom + SDS (Chemical Right-to-Know)'.

Roles and responsibilities

The kit card

The card lives laminated in each vehicle's bin and on the shop shelf. Dilutions are left off on purpose: each bottle carries its own label, and the product label governs dilution, dwell and contact time.

STANDARD CHEMICAL KIT CARD            REV 3
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1 NEUTRAL CLEANER (pH near 7)
  OK:    sealed stone and unknown stone,
         sealed wood, painted walls, fixtures,
         counters, appliance exteriors
  NEVER: X or S coded upholstery
2 ALKALINE DEGREASER
  OK:    stainless hood exterior and baffle
         filters, cool cooktop grease, trash
         cans, oven door exterior
  NEVER: aluminum, stone, wood, flat paint,
         any warm surface
3 ACID DESCALER
  OK:    glazed ceramic tile, vitreous china
         toilets and sinks, chrome, uncoated
         glass shower doors
  NEVER: any stone, cultured marble, grout
         as routine, brass, aluminum, coated
         glass unless its maker allows it
4 DISINFECTANT (quat, EPA registered)
  OK:    hard nonporous surfaces its label
         lists, AFTER cleaning
  NEVER: soiled surfaces, porous surfaces,
         food contact unless label allows it
5 GLASS CLEANER (contains ammonia)
  OK:    glass, mirrors, chrome finishing
  NEVER: tinted film, screens, stone
-------------------------------------------
CARRY: BIN A = 1 2 4 5    BIN B = 3 ALONE
CHLORINE (outbreak kit only): OWN SEALED BIN
NEVER BACK TO BACK: CHLORINE + 3 OR 5
UNKNOWN SURFACE: 1 ONLY, HIDDEN SPOT FIRST

Procedure

Step 1 - Check the kit against the card at the start of the shift. The lead confirms each bottle is a product on the current revision, with a readable label (product name and hazard information, as 29 CFR 1910.1200 requires on workplace containers), a working trigger locked off, and at least a quarter full. Acceptance: five bottles, five readable labels, five working triggers, card revision matching the shelf. What wrong looks like: a worn label, a product not on the card, or two of one product and none of another. Stop rule: an unlabeled or unreadable bottle is never used and never sniffed to identify it; it is set aside in the shop for the owner, and the lead fills a fresh, labeled bottle per 'Dilution Control and Labeling Standard' before the van leaves. A product that runs out mid-route is not replaced with a store-bought bottle: the lead delivers a refill or approves a substitute through 'Product Substitution and SDS Check' before it is used. Hazard: refilling from concentrate splashes to the eyes and skin, so eye protection and the gloves named in the concentrate's SDS section 8 go on before any cap comes off.

Step 2 - Load the bins so acid rides alone. Bin A carries the neutral cleaner, degreaser, disinfectant and glass cleaner. Bin B carries the acid descaler and nothing else. When an outbreak call adds a chlorine product, it rides in its own sealed bin. All bins sit upright in the cargo area, strapped or wedged so they cannot tip, never in the cab. Acceptance: acid in bin B by itself, chlorine (if carried) in its own bin, every bin secured, nothing chemical in the cab. What wrong looks like: a descaler tucked in bin A, or a chlorine bottle loose in the footwell. Stop rule: repack before the van moves. Hazard: a leaking acid bottle near chlorine releases chlorine gas in a closed vehicle; at any sharp or bleach-like odor in the van, the driver pulls over, everyone gets out upwind, doors stay open, nobody leans back in to find the leak, and the lead is called before anyone re-enters.

Step 3 - Read the job's surface notes before any bottle comes into the home. At the door, the tech reads the surface notes and do-not-use list recorded under 'The New Client First Clean Surface Notes SOP'. Any kit product on the do-not-use list stays in the van for this visit. Acceptance: notes read, excluded products left in the van. What wrong looks like: a recurring client with no notes, or "stone vanity" with no type. Stop rule: missing or vague notes mean every stone and every unrecorded surface gets the neutral cleaner only for this visit, and the tech tells the lead so the office can schedule the notes walk. Hazard: carry bins by their handles, not stacked, so a dropped bin does not split a bottle on the client's floor.

Step 4 - Clear each surface against the card before the product touches it. Before spraying, the tech names the surface and finds it on the product's OK line. A NEVER-line surface does not get that product, however well it would work. A surface the tech cannot identify gets the neutral cleaner only, after a hidden-spot test. Acceptance: every product application is on an OK line or on a hidden-spot-tested neutral pass. What wrong looks like: "the descaler is probably fine on this vanity," or degreaser on an aluminum mesh filter. Stop rule: if the neutral cleaner will not remove the soil on a surface the stronger product is not cleared for, stop at the neutral cleaner, note it, and tell the lead; do not move up to a product the card forbids. Hazard: the degreaser and descaler both splash to the eyes, so spray onto a cloth or at close range with the nozzle on stream, never as a mist at face height, and keep eye protection on when working overhead.

Step 5 - Clean before you disinfect, and leave the disinfectant wet for its full contact time. Soil blocks a disinfectant, so the surface is cleaned first with the cleaner the card clears, then the disinfectant is applied per its label and left visibly wet for the contact time the label states. Acceptance: surface visibly clean before the disinfectant goes on, and wet for the label's contact time, checked as in 'Disinfectant Contact Time Verification'. What wrong looks like: spray and wipe in one motion, or disinfectant used as the cleaner on a soiled seat. Stop rule: a surface that dries early is re-applied to stay wet, and the pattern goes to the lead. Hazard: quat concentrates and solutions irritate skin and eyes; gloves stay on, and a disinfectant left on a food-contact surface is rinsed if its label requires it.

Step 6 - Never use chlorine back to back with acid or ammonia on the same fixture or in the same small room. One fixture gets one chemistry family per visit: a bowl that got descaler gets no chlorine, and a room treated with chlorine gets its glass done with the neutral cleaner, because the glass cleaner contains ammonia. Before using the descaler in any toilet, the tech lifts the tank lid and checks for an in-tank cleaning tablet, and smells the bowl water from a normal standing distance, without leaning in. Acceptance: no chlorine within the same visit on a fixture that received acid or ammonia, and the tank checked before descaler. What wrong looks like: a bleach or blue tablet in the tank, or a bleach odor in the bowl water. Stop rule: a tablet or bleach odor means no acid in that bowl; clean it with the neutral cleaner and the disinfectant per label, and note it. Hazard: if a sharp or chlorine smell appears after any product goes in, everyone leaves the room, the door is closed, ventilation is turned up from outside the room where possible, nobody goes back in to flush or wipe, and the lead is called; see related: 'Mixing Cleaners and the Gases They Make'.

Step 7 - Recount and cap at the end of each visit. Before leaving the home, the tech counts five bottles back into the bins, locks every trigger, wipes any drips off the bottles, and confirms bin B still holds only the acid descaler. Acceptance: five bottles counted, triggers locked, bins as loaded in step 2. What wrong looks like: four bottles, or one left on a tub ledge. Stop rule: a missing bottle is found before the crew leaves the property; if it cannot be found, the lead calls the client before the end of the day, because a degreaser or descaler left within reach of children or pets is the worst thing a visit can leave behind. Hazard: none beyond carrying the bins by their handles.

Step 8 - Report at the end of the shift. The lead logs refills mixed, bottles flagged low or damaged, any NEVER-line stop from step 4, any step 6 stop, and any odor or leak event. Acceptance: kit log complete for the day. What wrong looks like: a stop rule that fired in a home but never reached the log. Stop rule: any incident where a product touched a NEVER surface, or a chlorine smell occurred, goes to the owner the same day, not in the weekly review. Hazard: none.

The record this produces

• Kit log, per vehicle per day: date, vehicle, lead initials, card revision, each product present and labeled, bins as card, refills mixed, bottles set aside and why. The owner reads it weekly and after any incident.
• Visit notes, per job: products left in the van, NEVER-line stops, step 6 stops, surfaces the neutral cleaner did not finish. The office updates the customer record from them; the next crew reads them in step 3.
• Incident report: any NEVER-line contact or odor event: what happened, who was present, what was done. The owner reads it the same day and decides whether the card changes.

Worked pass: crew 2, three homes on a Tuesday

Step 1 caught the only true failure before any product went into a home, at a cost of 12 minutes rather than a guess at a bottle's contents. Step 6 did what it exists for: descaler in that bowl would have released chlorine gas in a closed bathroom. The home 3 vanity is the case step 4 anticipates, where a few water spots are a note, not a reason to break the card.

References

• OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1200, Hazard Communication (labels, SDS access, training)
• See related: 'Mixing Cleaners and the Gases They Make'
• See related: 'Dilution Control and Labeling Standard'
• See related: 'Disinfectant Contact Time Verification'
• See related: 'Product Substitution and SDS Check'