How to Clean a Bounce House Between Rentals

Clean every unit after every rental, deep clean monthly, and do a full clean, dry and inspect before the off season. Magic Jump tells owners to clean after each use, and the CDC gives the same advice for any shared equipment that touches bare skin.

A commercial unit is PVC coated vinyl weighing 175 to 250 pounds for a 13x13 to 15x15 bouncer, according to Tent and Table, so it is cleaned in place on a tarp. Cleaning supplies are one line in the budget in how to start a bounce house rental business.

The weekly row is operator practice rather than a manufacturer rule: mold on a rolled unit is invisible until you unroll it.

The most valuable cleaning happens before the unit leaves the customer's yard. Removing water and debris while it is still inflated takes minutes, and decides whether you dry a damp unit at the shop or rescue a wet one. The order follows Tent and Table's drying guide:

1. Clear the unit and confirm nobody is inside.
2. Keep it inflated and push pooled water off the roof, the mesh and the pillars with a broom, a squeegee or a leaf blower.
3. Towel the inside, starting with the water traps: corners, the seams where walls meet the floor, and zipper ports.
4. Sweep or blow out debris before you deflate. Grit rolled into vinyl scratches it.
5. Deflate onto a clean tarp, fold it in half lengthwise and wipe the underside, which collects the wet grass and mud.
6. Log damage now, against the booking.

The takedown order, deflating before you pull anchors, is in bounce house safety. A tear found during this wipe goes to bounce house repair before it goes back on the shelf.

At the shop, reinflate the unit, vacuum it, then wash every surface riders touch with mild soap and warm water and a soft brush. A standard bouncer takes 30 to 60 minutes depending on its size and how dirty it came back, according to JumpOrange.

Magic Jump lists the kit: a shop vacuum, clean rags, a cleaning solution, a disinfectant and a slide lubricant, with one condition: both products must be safe for inflatables.

1. Inflate the unit on a clean tarp. If it arrived wet, let it air dry first.
2. Vacuum the inside, into every corner where the floor meets the walls.
3. Wash with mild soap and warm water, 2 to 3 tablespoons of detergent per gallon according to Ginflatables, with a soft brush, sponge or microfiber cloth. Work top to bottom, inside then outside.
4. Focus on touch points: the entry step, the bed, handholds, the slide lane and anywhere faces land.
5. Rinse with a garden hose, not a pressure washer, unless your manufacturer approves one.
6. Disinfect, then dry, the next two steps.

Mild dish soap, diluted white vinegar and cleaners labeled safe for vinyl inflatables are safe on commercial PVC. Household bleach, solvents and abrasives are not, unless your manufacturer says otherwise in writing. The sources below disagree on two points, bleach and pressure, and the table shows both sides.

The CDC lists household bleach among the products that remove MRSA from surfaces, which is why operators reach for it. The manufacturers worry about the vinyl. JumpOrange says bleach weakens and discolors the fabric over time, and Tent and Table says it strips protective coatings and weakens stitching. The way out is an EPA registered disinfectant your manufacturer has approved in writing.

Cleaning removes dirt and disinfecting kills germs. They are separate steps, in that order, because the CDC says dirt makes it harder for the disinfectant to work. The common mistake is wiping the disinfectant off before it has had time to work.

Contact time, also called dwell time, is how long a disinfectant has to stay on a surface to kill what its label claims. The CDC says the surface should stay wet for the entire contact time, and the EPA adds that this may mean applying the product again. The CDC's disinfection guideline notes that most EPA registered hospital disinfectants carry a label contact time of 10 minutes, and that by law the label instructions must be followed.

1. Pick the product. It must be EPA registered, labeled for the surface, and approved by your manufacturer. For staph, the EPA keeps List H, products registered against MRSA.
2. Spray the touch surfaces: bed, walls to head height, entry, handholds and slide lane.
3. Keep them wet for the full label time, spraying again on a hot day if they dry early.
4. Wipe or rinse if the label says to. Some products need a rinse on surfaces children touch.
5. Never mix products. The CDC warns never to mix bleach with ammonia or any other cleaner.

Drying decides how long a unit lasts, because vinyl rolled up wet grows mold, and mold in the seams is expensive to fix. Budget 2 to 3 hours of drying on a good day, up to 6 after heavy rain.

Get the standing water out first, while the unit is still inflated: push it toward the low corner with a squeegee or a leaf blower, open any drain vents, then towel the corners, seams and zipper ports. Deflate, wipe the underside, and reinflate somewhere ventilated to dry.

Those figures come from Tent and Table, which says to keep the unit inflated in a ventilated area with the blower running for at least 2 to 4 hours, or 4 to 6 hours if rain has reached the internal chambers. It also warns that mold can take hold within 24 to 48 hours of moisture being trapped in rolled vinyl, which matches the EPA's general rule that materials dried within 24 to 48 hours will, in most cases, not grow mold.

It is dry when the seams, the underside and the inside of the pillars are dry, not just the flat panels, and it smells of nothing. Store it on pallets or shelving, not bare concrete, in a space kept below 50 percent humidity with dehumidifiers and fans, per Tent and Table. A unit that cannot be dried tonight stays inflated tonight.

Scrub surface mold off with a vinyl safe mold cleaner or diluted white vinegar and a soft brush, somewhere ventilated, then dry the unit completely. Surface mildew comes off. Mold that has spread into the seams and stitching is a question for your manufacturer.

1. Protect yourself. The EPA recommends an N-95 respirator, gloves that reach mid forearm and goggles without vent holes for mold cleanup.
2. Work outdoors or somewhere ventilated, inflated if you can, per Tent and Table.
3. Treat the spots with a mold cleaner made for vinyl, or white vinegar diluted 1 to 4 up to 1 to 10. Ginflatables suggests hydrogen peroxide left for 10 minutes on stubborn spots.
4. Scrub gently with a soft brush. Hard scrubbing removes printed artwork faster than it removes mold.
5. Rinse, then dry completely, and find the cause. Mold means a unit was stored damp or a storage space is too humid.

Do not reach for bleach here either. The EPA's mold guidance says chlorine bleach is not recommended as a routine practice in mold cleanup, and to scrub hard surfaces with detergent and water instead. It puts the do it yourself limit for a home at about 10 square feet. There is no published figure for an inflatable, but spotting along several seams or darkened stitching needs the manufacturer's advice before the unit goes out again. Ginflatables adds that green algae film means the unit stayed damp, so mold is likely growing somewhere less visible.

A water slide is washed with the same soap and brush, but the pool, the wet baffles and the longer dry need their own routine: see inflatable water slide care.

A realistic turnaround is about 1 hour for a dry bouncer that was wiped on site, 2.5 to 7 hours for a unit that came back wet, and the rest of the day for a water slide after a humid event. The time is set by drying, not washing, and your booking calendar has to know it.

The trap is the Saturday double booking. A bouncer picked up dry at 2pm can go out again at 5pm. A water slide picked up at 2pm cannot, and a calendar that treats both the same will sell the slide to a 4pm party anyway, leaving you to deliver a damp unit or cancel on a customer.

The fix is to reserve the cleaning time as part of every booking. In Rentopus each item has its own Cleaning time between rentals, set in minutes, hours or days up to 48 hours, and the calendar keeps the unit unavailable for that long after its pickup window ends, so booking that counts turnaround time never offers it back to back. The default is one hour, which suits a dry bouncer and is too short for a slide. For a longer job, a unit being treated for mold for example, you can take it out of service for a date range instead, and customers cannot book it on those days.

Set the buffer by unit type rather than one number for the fleet, and keep Sunday and Monday for the backlog, because a busy Saturday all comes back at once.