Chlorine Test Strips-Daycare Disinfection Checklist

You likely have your cleaning routine down cold and are using the right chlorine test strips. Most of the high-touch items listed in the checklist below can be found in a typical business. Use it as a primer/quick reference for your staff to follow so you can focus on the things you need to do to ride out the pandemic.

Chlorine Bleach Kills Coronavirus

If you need to clean even some of the items on the list several times a day, you need an economical disinfectant. Regular off-the-shelf supermarket chlorine bleach is cheap and effective for killing viruses and bacteria. Check out the image below or click on it to get a PDF version you can download.

Daycare Coronavirus Chlorine Cleaning Checklist

Click on the image to get a copy of this checklist. Why leave anything to chance?

How Much Chlorine Bleach Do I Need?

Bleach straight out of the jug is dangerous if ingested and is far more concentrated than needed for disinfecting the items on the checklist. Proper dilution ensures both effectiveness and minimizes waste.

The CDC’s Cleaning And Disinfecting Your Home lists ways to dilute chlorine bleach that comes in concentrations of 5.25% & 8.25%. Oddly, it does not mention the final ppm concentration these dilutions achieve. We entered their numbers into our free sanitizer dilution calculator and the results are in the table below. The calculator works in metric units but the American equivalents in mL (millilitres) are shown below the table.

What ppm Does the CDC Recommend?

In the table, you can see the top row, “Dilution Calculator Field”. There are the 4 data fields corresponding to – % concentration of undiluted bleach (1); final ppm of diluted bleach (2); and the water you mix (3) with the small amount of bleach concentrate is shown after you Calculate Field 4.

The CDC instructions are a little different since they skip Field 2 & give the results for Field 4 instead. That’s ok. The Dilution Calculator knows that Field 2 is empty and will calculate the desired ppm instead.

So, we entered both their choices for % concentration of undiluted bleach in Field 1. We left Field 2 blank since we don’t know the final ppm. We entered the amount of water to mix with the bleach in Field 3 & finally, the amount of bleach concentrate goes into Field 4. When you press “Calculate” the Dilution Calculator knows to return an answer in ppm in Field 2.

Gallon=~3800mL (or 3.8L); Quart=~950mL; Cup=~235mL; Fluid Ounce=~25ml; Tablespoon=~15mL; Teaspoon=~5mL. (Note: These are for US sizes; e.g. an Imperial Gallon=4.5L).

The calculator can prepare any quantity of bleach using any concentration. You normally enter numbers in fields 1, 2 & 3 but follow the instructions above to find out what ppm the CDC wants you to achieve.

Which Chlorine Test Strips Do I Need?

Health inspectors & government regulations recommend chlorine test strips to confirm dilutions are correct. Indigo™ strips are accurate for years and can also determine if the bleach has expired.

The calculations show the CDC is suggesting ppm values of roughly 1000ppm when using 5.25% bleach & just over 1500ppm when using 8.25%. You can safely use Indigo™ 0-1000ppm chlorine test strips & 0-2000ppm chlorine test strips respectively for these measurements. The 2000ppm test strip has a color bar at 1500ppm. Don’t be alarmed by the fact that the table shows higher. Test strips are semi-quantitative. What that means is that they are considered accurate within 10%.

Where Can I Buy Chlorine Test Strips?

Shop online securely at Indigo Instruments 24/7, 365 days a year. We don’t pad our prices so we can offer “free freight”. We charge shipping at cost and just 2 or 3 packs of the same or different sanitizer test strips can be delivered for less including freight than other firms that claim to deliver for free. If you find an instance where this isn’t the case, let us know.