Skin Infections From Gym Equipment: What to Do When Members Report Them

A Dublin cleaning contractor's incident response, cleaning specification and prevention protocol for gym owners and managers.

February, a Tuesday, just after 7am. The duty manager of a 24 hour club off the canal in Dublin 8 rang us. Three members in ten days had told the front desk they had been to a pharmacy about a ring shaped rash, two on the forearm and one on the shoulder.

The club had already doubled the number of wipe dispensers on the floor. We attended that evening. The problem was not the number of wipes.

What to do when gym members report skin infections

Record the report with the date, the equipment area and the changing room used, and ask the member to see a pharmacist or GP. Look for a pattern across recent reports. Take the implicated equipment, mats and wet areas out of service, deep clean them with a fungicidal disinfectant held for its full contact time, then document what was done.

• Record it: date, what the member described, where in the club they train, which equipment and which changing room.
• Ask the member, kindly, to see a pharmacist or GP. Do not attempt to identify it yourself.
• Look for a pattern: same equipment area, same class, same changing room, same week.
• Take the highest risk items out of service for a proper deep clean rather than a wipe down.
• Deep clean the implicated zone with a product that carries a fungicidal claim, at the labelled dilution, held for the full contact time.
• Write down what was cleaned, with what, at what dilution, by whom and when.

This article is operational cleaning guidance from a cleaning contractor. It is not medical advice. Anyone with a rash, sore or infection should speak to a pharmacist or their GP.

First, the honest bit: a report is not proof the gym caused it

Most of these conditions have an incubation period, which means the exposure may have happened days or weeks before anyone noticed anything. In that window a person may have been on a five a side pitch, in a hotel pool, in a household with someone who had it, or in another club entirely.

You cannot establish causation and nobody expects you to. Your job is narrower and more useful: respond well, and remove any contribution your building is making.

That said, some reports genuinely do point at the building. Three patterns should get your attention:

• Multiple reports from the same area of the gym within a fortnight.
• Reports clustered around the same class, the same time slot or the same mat space.
• Foot complaints coming from people who use one particular shower block.

What members actually pick up in gyms, and where it comes from

Ringworm and athlete's foot: dermatophyte fungi, not worms

The single most useful thing you can tell a worried member is that ringworm is not a worm. It is a fungal infection caused by dermatophytes, with the Trichophyton genus being the one that matters most in sport and communal settings.

The names change with the body part. Tinea corporis on the body, tinea pedis on the feet, tinea cruris in the groin. Same family of organism, different real estate.

HSE describes ringworm as a common fungal skin infection that is not caused by worms, and says it spreads through close contact with an infected person or animal and through infected objects such as bed sheets, combs and towels. HSE advice includes not sharing towels, combs and bed sheets.

On athlete's foot, HSE says it spreads by walking barefoot where infected people have been, including changing rooms and showers, and that it thrives on wet, sweaty or broken skin. HSE also states that athlete's foot does not get better on its own, and that a pharmacist can advise on antifungal creams, sprays or powders without needing a GP visit.

Translate that into your building and the list is short and unglamorous. Shared towels. Mats. Bench pads. Grips. And above all, warm damp changing room floors that people walk on barefoot.

That last one is why we spend more time on drying than most clubs expect us to.

Staph and MRSA: the one members fear most and the one most often misattributed

Staphylococcus aureus lives harmlessly on the skin and in the noses of a large share of the population, including, statistically, a good number of your members and staff right now. Its presence is not the problem.

The problem starts when it gets through broken skin. That is why shaved skin, friction burns from a bench or a bar, mat burn, blisters and small cuts matter far more than the bacteria being present at all.

MRSA is Staphylococcus aureus that has become resistant to a group of antibiotics. HSE's position is worth repeating to any worried member verbatim: healthy people are not usually at risk of MRSA infections, and MRSA spreads more easily in hospital settings.

There is one operator relevant point that no consumer page will tell you. HPSC's national guideline on the prevention and control of MRSA identifies clusters or outbreaks of skin and soft tissue infection, and cases in people involved in a gym or close contact sports, as warranting a report to public health.

So once the numbers climb, this stops being purely a commercial decision. That is not a reason to panic at one report. It is a reason to know where the line is before you get near it.

Verrucas and plantar warts: a virus, a wet floor and a soft sole

Verrucas, or plantar warts, are caused by human papillomavirus. HSE describes them as caused by a virus, capable of being passed from person to person, transmitted through skin contact or contaminated surfaces, with the risk increasing when skin is wet or damaged, and with symptoms potentially taking months to appear.

HSE also advises covering warts and verrucas with a plaster when swimming, and not walking barefoot in shared public spaces if you have one.

That months long lag is the operational point, and it is one nobody else makes. A verruca reported to your front desk in November may have been picked up in August.

Which means a verruca report is almost never a reason for an emergency clean. It is a reason to permanently change how your wet areas are cleaned and dried, because whatever the conditions were three months ago, they are probably still the conditions today. Dublin podiatry clinics see this pattern from gyms, pools and changing rooms routinely, and it is one of the most common complaints tied to communal wet floors.

Folliculitis, including the one that comes from the spa pool

Folliculitis is inflammation of the hair follicles, and it can be bacterial or fungal. Most of it is unremarkable.

The version worth naming for any club with a spa pool, jacuzzi or hot tub is Pseudomonas folliculitis. Dermatology references such as DermNet describe it as caused mainly by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, with symptoms appearing between eight hours and five days after exposure, presenting as red macules that become papules and pustules centred on hair follicles, and usually resolving on its own within about fourteen days. Anyone affected should still speak to a pharmacist or GP rather than self assess.

Here is the fact that changes what you do about it. These bacteria can survive in warm water even when it is adequately chlorinated, because of biofilm on the tub surface or within the pipework.

So a spa pool complaint is a plant room, water treatment and filtration issue. It is not a surface cleaning issue, and we will tell you that rather than sell you a clean that cannot address it. Prevention advice for members is simple: shower and change out of swimwear promptly after use, wash the swimwear, and keep the pool properly maintained.

Impetigo: the one with a clear stay away rule

Impetigo is bacterial and very contagious. It appears as red sores or blisters that crust over into golden brown patches.

HSE states that it is contagious until 48 hours after starting recommended treatment, or until the patches dry out and crust over if untreated, and HSE explicitly advises people not to go to the gym or play contact sports while contagious. A GP or, in many cases, a pharmacist can treat it.

That gives you the one unambiguous exclusion rule on this entire page, and crucially it comes from an Irish health authority rather than from club opinion. When you need to ask somebody to stay away for a while, that is a much easier conversation to have.

How to tell where it is coming from in your building

This is a building diagnosis, not a medical one. You can walk most of it in twenty minutes.

Walk the gym floor. Ten checks:

1. Run a hand under bench pads and feel for split seams.
2. Ask when the mats were last lifted, not last wiped.
3. Go into the changing room ninety minutes after peak and see whether the floor is dry.
4. Lift a drainage channel grating and look underneath.
5. Turn a duckboard over.
6. Look in the wipes bin. If it is full of wipes used on grips and dropped, your members are doing their bit and the system is failing them.
7. Follow the mop water. If the same bucket goes from the changing room to the studio, stop there, you have found something.
8. Check the sauna and steam room bench timber for soft or blackened areas.
9. Look at hairdryer and grooming station surfaces.
10. If you run a towel service, follow one towel from clean store to laundry and back.

Why wiping equipment down does not work, and what does

The contact time problem

A disinfectant's efficacy is not a property of the bottle. It is measured over a defined period, at a defined dilution, against defined organisms, and the surface has to stay visibly wet for the whole of that period.

Now picture a member wiping a cable handle. They apply product and remove most of it in the same pass. What is left evaporates in well under a minute, usually in a matter of seconds on a warm grip.

Professional disinfection regimes typically work to dwell times measured in minutes, not seconds. That gap is the entire story.

So a wipe is a courtesy and a sweat removal step. It is genuinely worth having, because removing soil matters. It is not a disinfection step, and it should never be described to members as one.

Back to that Dublin 8 club. The wipes were fine, and the members were using them conscientiously. The infection was living on the mats and inside the cable handles, and the club's cleaning product had never been checked for a fungal claim by anybody, including the people who sold it.

Clean first, disinfect second, and why sweat is the reason

Organic soil means sweat, skin cells, body oils and chalk. It physically shields organisms and it neutralises many disinfectant chemistries outright.

Two stage working is not optional on gym equipment, for the obvious reason that gym equipment is by definition covered in organic soil at the end of a trading day.

The sequence is: detergent clean, remove the soil, then disinfect at the correct dilution, then leave it for the full contact time, then air dry or rinse where the manufacturer requires it. Skip stage one and you have paid for a disinfectant that was neutralised before it started.

Porous surfaces are where the problem lives

Foam mats, tatami, vinyl pads with split seams, textured rubber grips, stitched upholstery, timber sauna benches and grouted changing room floors are all porous, or effectively porous once they are damaged.

A disinfectant tested on stainless steel tells you nothing about a split vinyl seam with three months of sweat inside it.

The practical rule is blunt: if it is torn, split or crazed, cleaning will not fix it. It needs repair, recovering or replacement, and any contractor who keeps cleaning it and charging you is taking your money.

The standards to ask your chemical supplier about

A log reduction is just a way of saying how much the organism count fell. A 3 log reduction is 99.9 per cent, a 4 log is 99.99 per cent, a 5 log is 99.999 per cent.

Now here is the part that matters most, and it is the part that complicates our own sale.

A product labelled yeasticidal has been shown to work against Candida albicans, which is a yeast. It has not been shown to work against moulds. And none of these standards' mandatory organism lists include the dermatophyte genus Trichophyton, which is what causes ringworm and athlete's foot.

Read that again slowly, because it explains a lot of frustrated gym managers. A club can be using a genuine, honestly labelled, properly EN tested disinfectant, applied conscientiously by people who care, and still have no evidence whatsoever that it kills the thing spreading on its mats.

Ask your supplier the direct question. What fungicidal claim does this product hold, at what dilution, at what contact time, and does the manufacturer hold any dermatophyte data at all?

Many quaternary ammonium based products in general cleaning use are strong on bacteria and weak or unproven against fungal spores. That is why a gym that upgrades its wipe strength and still gets ringworm reports has usually solved a problem it did not have.

What we use, and why the answer is not one product

There is no single chemical that is right for every surface in a gym, and any contractor who arrives with one bottle for the whole building is telling you something about their method.

A club realistically needs a small, deliberate kit:

• An alkaline detergent for soil removal, used first, every time.
• A surface disinfectant with a documented fungicidal claim for hard floors, changing rooms and wet areas. Usually a chlorine releasing product, or a peroxide based product where the surface allows.
• A milder, equipment safe disinfectant for machines and upholstery, chosen against the manufacturer's own published guidance rather than against a rep's recommendation.

The trade offs, in one line each. Chlorine based products are the strongest broad option and the ones most likely to damage equipment, corrode metal and bleach fabric. Peroxide based products are gentler on finishes but need correct dilution and contact time to earn their claims. Quats are convenient and equipment friendly, and are the ones most likely to leave you with a fungal gap.

Will this damage our equipment? Chemical compatibility, plainly

This is the second question every gym manager asks and almost nobody answers it.

Machine manufacturers publish approved cleaner lists and explicit prohibitions, and the wrong chemistry weakens powder coat on frames, discolours plastic covers and damages consoles and screens. Precor's published guidance, as one documented example, prohibits bleach, acidic cleaners at pH 4.0 or lower and corrosive chemicals at pH 11.5 or higher on its equipment, and instructs that disinfectant is sprayed onto a lint free cloth rather than directly onto the machine.

That last instruction matters more than it looks. Spraying directly drives liquid into console seams and bearing housings, which is how a hygiene programme quietly turns into a maintenance bill six months later.

A club manager in Dublin 2 had been told by a previous contractor to use one chlorine based product on everything in the building. It worked, in the narrow sense that it disinfected. It also took the colour out of the stitching on a full run of bench pads, which cost more than a year of cleaning.

Six rules that prevent that:

1. Pull the manufacturer's cleaning guidance for every equipment brand on your floor before you change chemical.
2. Never spray directly onto consoles, screens or upholstery seams. Spray the cloth.
3. Keep the aggressive chemistry for the changing rooms, wet areas and hard floors, where it belongs and where it does the most good.
4. Patch test any new product on a hidden area of upholstery and leave it 24 hours before you commit.
5. Get the compatibility position written into the cleaning specification, so if a finish does fail there is a documented decision behind it.
6. If a manufacturer's approved list genuinely conflicts with your infection control need, repair or replace the surface. Do not quietly use a prohibited chemical and hope.

The reactive deep clean: what we actually do on the night

This section is written so you can lift it into a tender and compare two Dublin quotes properly, rather than comparing hourly rates and hoping.

Sequence and set up

Work from cleanest zones to dirtiest, never the reverse. Separate equipment and colour coded cloths per zone. Fresh solution per zone, and never a bucket carried from the changing room to the studio.

Textiles bagged and removed first. Ventilation on. Signage up. And equipment tagged out of service, so nobody hops on a machine halfway through its contact time and undoes the work.

Free weights, machines, grips and pads

Two stage on every hand contact surface. Dumbbell and kettlebell handles, barbell knurling, collars, cable attachments and D handles, machine grips, adjustment pins and levers, seat and back pads, bench upholstery including undersides and seams, cardio consoles, rails, heart rate grips and screens.

Contact time observed, machine by machine, which is why this is an out of hours job.

One detail worth knowing: the underside of a bench pad gets touched far more than anyone assumes, because that is the part people grab to move the bench.

Mats, studio floors and matted areas

Mats are lifted, not wiped in place. Both faces cleaned, and the sub floor underneath cleaned as well.

Two stage, detergent then a fungicidal disinfectant at the labelled dilution, held for the full contact time. Then dried before restacking, and never stacked damp, because a stack of damp mats is the most effective fungal incubator in the building.

For tatami and jigsaw mats, joints get separated where practical, because the joint is the reservoir. And any mat with a torn skin or delaminated foam is a replacement decision rather than a cleaning decision, reported to you in writing rather than quietly cleaned around.

Changing rooms, showers and wet areas

Floors, and specifically grout, scrubbed mechanically rather than mopped. Drainage channels and gratings lifted, cleaned and disinfected underneath. Duckboards lifted and both faces done, undersides included.

Benches including undersides and fixings. Lockers, handles, latches and bench legs. Shower walls, trays and seals. Taps, controls, hooks and hairdryer stations. Toilets and wash hand basins to full changing room and washroom cleaning in Dublin standard.

Then the step almost everyone skips: drive the floor dry. A wet area that is still wet has not been decontaminated, it has been rinsed.

A corporate gym inside an office building in the Sandyford Business District had verruca reports start a few months after a shower refurbishment. Everything looked immaculate. The new drainage channel had a removable grating that had never been lifted once since installation, and the duckboards were being sprayed on top only, never turned. The fix was completely mundane, took one visit to correct and one line in the specification to make permanent.

Saunas, steam rooms and spa pools

Timber sauna benches are governed by the manufacturer's guidance, and most timber cannot take aggressive chemistry. The honest answers are frequent hot water and detergent cleaning, timber sanded and maintained rather than sealed with something that traps sweat, and replacement of any timber that has gone soft or blackened.

Steam rooms: seals, seating, controls and drainage.

Spa pools: hand this to your pool plant contractor. The issue is water chemistry, filtration and biofilm in pipework, and we will not pretend a surface clean addresses it.

Textiles, towels and everything soft

Club towels, class equipment covers, mat straps, boxing wraps and the gloves store, plus upholstery. Hot wash wherever the fabric allows.

Anything that cannot be laundered or properly disinfected is a replacement decision, not a cleaning one.

Say the towel thing out loud to members, because HSE advice on both ringworm and athlete's foot names towel sharing and separate towels explicitly. It is one of the few member behaviours where the clinical advice is unambiguous.

What you get back in writing

A record of every zone cleaned, the products used with dilution and contact time, times in and out, operative names, items flagged for repair or replacement, and a dated sign off.

That matters for two opposite reasons. If reports continue, you have evidence you acted, with dates. If reports stop, you know precisely what worked and can build it into the routine rather than guessing.

A real Dublin example: a matted studio that kept re infecting itself

A boxing and grappling studio off the North Circular Road, roughly 180 members, permanent matted floor. Three ringworm reports across a fortnight, all within one class group.

The club was cleaning nightly and doing it conscientiously. The mats were being cleaned every night, properly, by people who cared. There were two failures and neither was effort.

First, the product on the mats carried a yeasticidal claim only. There was no evidence behind it for the fungus actually in play, and nobody had ever asked.

Second, the mats were sprayed and mopped in place and never lifted, so the joints and the sub floor were untouched, and the mats were going back down slightly damp before the next morning's class.

What changed:

• A product with a documented fungicidal claim, used at the labelled dilution and held for the full contact time.
• A weekly lift and clean of every mat, both faces and the sub floor, joints separated.
• Forced drying before anything went back down.

We also flagged four mats with torn skins for replacement, which the club did. The club reported no further cases from that class group over the following months, and the weekly mat lift is now a written line in their schedule rather than something that depends on who is on shift.

What to say to the member, and what to say to everyone else

Nobody publishes this and everybody needs it.

To the member who reported it:

Thanks for letting us know, and I'm sorry you've had that. Can I take a few details, just when you noticed it and which parts of the club you usually train in? I'd suggest calling into a pharmacy or your GP, they'll be able to tell you what it is and what to do about it, which is honestly beyond me. On our side we're deep cleaning that area this week and I'll let you know when it's done. If you'd rather stay away while it clears, I can freeze your membership so you're not paying for time you're not using.

To the floor, if members are asking:

We carried out a full deep clean of the studio, mats and changing rooms on Tuesday night, including a lift and clean of every mat. We've also changed the products we use in those areas. As always, please use a towel between yourself and the benches and pads, cover any cuts or grazes before training, and wear slides in the changing rooms and showers. Thanks for your help.

To the member who should stay away for a while:

I know this is an awkward one to raise. HSE guidance for this is to stay away from the gym and contact sports until 48 hours after starting treatment, so it's not a club rule, it's the general advice. I'll freeze your membership from today so you're not paying while you're out, and just let me know when you're clear and I'll switch it straight back on.

What not to do:

• Do not post about it publicly.
• Do not tell a member it definitely was not the gym. You do not know that.
• Do not tell a member it definitely was. You do not know that either.
• Do not name conditions on signage.
• Do not ask members for medical information you have no basis to hold.

On records, keep it simple and keep it about the building. Your incident log should say what was reported in general terms, what you cleaned, with what, and when. It should not become a file about who had what. That distinction protects the member and it protects you.

When to handle it in house and when to call a cleaning contractor

There is a third option nobody mentions, and it is more common than either of the other two. Sometimes the right answer is a maintenance job. Split pads. Failed grout. Blocked drainage. Damaged duckboards. A broken extract fan in a changing room that has meant nothing has properly dried since spring.

A cleaning contractor who cannot tell you that, and who keeps selling you cleans instead, is not worth having.

Preventing the next one: a gym hygiene protocol that actually holds

Every day

• Changing room floors scrubbed and driven dry after peak.
• High touch equipment two stage cleaned.
• Drainage channels cleared.
• Textiles laundered.
• Bins emptied.
• Mats wiped between class blocks with a product that holds the right claim, not just whatever spray is nearest.

Every week

• Full mat lift and clean including sub floor and joints.
• Bench and pad undersides.
• Locker interiors and bench legs.
• Shower seals and grout attention.
• Duckboards lifted and both faces cleaned.
• Sauna and steam room detail.
• Equipment inspection for split seams and torn skins, with findings written down.

Every quarter, and after any incident

• Deep clean of wet areas including mechanical floor scrubbing.
• Upholstery and bench pad deep clean.
• Chemical review with your supplier, covering current claims, dilutions and contact times.
• Repair and replace list actioned rather than rolled forward.
• Protocol reviewed, re dated and re signed.

Then there is the half you influence rather than control. Slides or flip flops in changing rooms and showers. A towel between skin and every bench and pad. Cuts and grazes covered before training. Showering promptly and changing out of wet kit. Not sharing towels. Not training with an open or weeping lesion.

Frame all of that as something you provide for and signpost, not something you police. In our experience clubs get far better compliance from free clean towels and a genuinely good drying area than from any sign telling people off.

Cost, timing and what Irish guidance actually expects of you

How fast and how long

A reactive deep clean is normally scheduled outside opening hours. A single zone, such as a changing room block or a matted studio, is typically one overnight visit. A whole club reset takes longer and is usually split across two nights so the club never fully closes.

Equipment is out of service only for its own contact time, not for the whole night. That is the answer to the "we cannot close" objection, and it is why the tagging step in the sequence exists.

What it costs and what changes afterwards

We price on floor area, zone count, mat quantity, wet area size and how much repair and replacement work turns up once things get lifted. We will not put a figure on a web page, because the range is genuinely wide. See our breakdown of what drives gym cleaning costs for the main factors.

The more useful commercial point is this. A one off reactive clean rarely fixes a recurring pattern on its own. What fixes it is a permanent frequency change on two or three specific tasks, usually the mat lift, the wet area drying and the chemistry.

That is a modest ongoing cost instead of a repeated emergency cost, and we would rather sell you the small permanent thing than the big repeated one.

The Irish position

Your general duty to provide a safe place, under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work framework and S.I. No. 299 of 2007, applies to your staff as well as your members. Cleaning chemicals bring their own obligations around safety data sheets, training and PPE, and the Health and Safety Authority is the Irish authority on that.

HSE guidance is the reference for what individual members should do about their skin, and every member facing line in your communication should point at a pharmacist or GP rather than at club opinion.

HPSC's national MRSA guideline identifies clusters of skin and soft tissue infection in people involved in a gym or close contact sports as warranting a report to public health. So if reports keep coming, the correct move is to contact your local Department of Public Health rather than manage it alone. They would far rather hear from you early than late.

And if your club holds or is working towards the Ireland Active National Quality Standard, formerly the White Flag award, hygiene is one of the assessed domains. A written, evidenced, dated cleaning protocol is exactly what that assessment rewards, which means the document you produce for this problem earns its keep twice.

Frequently asked questions

Can you catch ringworm from gym equipment? Yes. Ringworm is a dermatophyte fungal infection, and HSE says it spreads through close contact and through infected objects such as towels and bed sheets. In a gym that means mats, bench pads, grips, shared towels and warm damp changing room floors.

What should a gym do when a member reports a skin infection? Record the date, the equipment area and the changing room used, and ask the member to see a pharmacist or GP. Check for a pattern across recent reports, take the implicated zone out of service, deep clean it with a fungicidal product for the full contact time, and document it.

Do gym wipes actually disinfect equipment? No. They remove sweat and soil, which is genuinely worth doing, but a wipe leaves the surface wet for seconds while disinfection claims are measured over minutes. Keep the wipes, keep encouraging members to use them, but do not describe them as disinfection.

How long can fungi survive on a gym mat or bench? Long enough to matter. Dermatophytes persist best on damp, porous surfaces in warm humid conditions, which describes an unlifted mat or a split bench pad precisely. Rather than counting hours, control the conditions: clean both faces, use the right claim, and dry fully.

Can you get a staph infection or MRSA from gym equipment? It is possible, but broken skin is the deciding factor rather than the presence of bacteria. HSE's position is that healthy people are not usually at risk of MRSA infections and that MRSA spreads more easily in hospital settings. Cover cuts and grazes before training.

Should a gym stop a member with a skin infection from training? For impetigo, yes. HSE advises not going to the gym or playing contact sports until 48 hours after starting treatment. For other conditions, base it on published guidance rather than club opinion, keep it about the treatment window, and offer a membership freeze.

What disinfectant should a gym use on mats and equipment? One with a documented fungicidal claim, not just yeasticidal, used at the labelled dilution for the full contact time. Ask your supplier which EN standard the claim comes from and whether any dermatophyte data exists. Use equipment safe chemistry on machines and stronger chemistry in wet areas.

Will disinfectant damage gym equipment? It can. Manufacturers such as Precor publish approved cleaner lists and prohibitions, and the wrong pH or bleach can weaken powder coat, discolour covers and damage consoles. Spray the cloth, never the machine, patch test new products, and keep aggressive chemistry for the wet areas.

Does the gym need to close for a deep clean? Almost never. Reactive deep cleans are scheduled out of hours, and individual items are tagged out of service only for their own contact time. A single zone is usually one overnight visit, and a full club reset is normally split across two nights.

Can you get athlete's foot or a verruca from gym showers? Both are associated with communal wet areas. HSE says athlete's foot spreads by walking barefoot where infected people have been, including changing rooms and showers, and that verrucas transmit through skin contact or contaminated surfaces, with risk rising when skin is wet or damaged.

Do I have to report skin infections at my gym in Ireland? There is no routine reporting duty for a single report. HPSC's national MRSA guideline identifies clusters of skin and soft tissue infection in people involved in a gym or close contact sports as warranting a report to public health, so contact your local Department of Public Health if reports persist.

How often should a gym be deep cleaned? Daily two stage cleaning on high touch equipment and changing room floors, weekly mat lift and duckboard lift, and a quarterly deep clean of wet areas and upholstery. After any incident, bring the quarterly forward and review the chemistry at the same time. See our gym cleaning checklist for staff for a day-to-day version of this.

Gym deep cleaning in Dublin, without the drama

When a Dublin club rings us about member reports, the job is straightforward. We attend out of hours, deep clean the implicated zone properly with the right chemistry and the full contact time, flag anything that needs repair or replacement rather than cleaning around it, and hand back a written record.

The more useful offer is the free site survey. We walk the club, review the products you are currently using and what their claims actually cover, check the equipment manufacturers' compatibility positions, look hard at drying and drainage, and produce a written gym hygiene protocol you can put in front of members, an assessor or an insurer.

If the clean is not right, we do it again at no cost. You get a named account manager and direct access to me rather than a call centre, and out of hours and early morning scheduling so you never lose trading time.

• Gym and studio deep cleaning
• Changing room, shower and wet area cleaning
• Mat lift and clean programmes
• Upholstery and bench pad cleaning
• Documented sign off after every visit
• Contract frequency uplift after an incident

Call 086 083 6141, email enquiries@premiercontractcleaning.ie, or book a free site survey. You can read more about our gym cleaning services and our commercial cleaning contracts across Dublin, or see what our clients say on our homepage.

Catalin Fatul

Catalin Fatul is the founder and expert behind Premier Contract Cleaning, dedicated to providing top-notch cleaning solutions and tips. With a passion for cleanliness and a commitment to quality, Catalin brings years of experience in the cleaning industry to help readers maintain pristine spaces. Whether it's offering the latest cleaning hacks or recommending the best products, Catalin's mission is to make cleaning efficient, effective, and enjoyable.