The custodial effectiveness audit should be performed during a period of normal business operations (although it need not be performed during business hours), when occupant loads and activities are anticipated to reflect normal levels and patterns. The auditors should not perform their inspection during the day, as custodial staff have no control over things like occupants leaving a mess at lunchtime.

The following table outlines the levels (1–5) of cleanliness used to rate the components of each room (all taken from the APPA guidelines).

Conduct your audit using the forms provided in the Documentation Toolkit. 

After randomly selecting the spaces to audit, print out the same number of forms as rooms, and fill out a form for each space type. (See instructions in the Documentation Toolkit.) 

Randomly select spaces to be audited, and ensure that each space type is sufficiently represented. APPA requires that you audit a number of rooms equivalent to at least 10% of each space type, and at least 10% of the total floor area of each space type. For any space types with fewer than five rooms, include all five rooms in the audit. (See the APPA Audit Form in the Documentation Toolkit, second tab, “roster of audit spaces” to help you figure out if the rooms you've selected collectively meet the requirements listed above.)  

If you have space types in your project building that don’t fall into APPA categories, you can create your own and apply weightings to them. To create a weighting (each space type has elements such as floors, horizontal surfaces, and vertical surfaces that should be prioritized and “weighted” in the audit results), determine which components of the space type you clean most frequently  and determine what percentage of time you spend cleaning each one. The percentage you come up with for each space-type component is the associated weighting.

You are only required to include space types that are cleaned on a regular basis. If you have storage areas, mechanical rooms, or any other spaces that are not cleaned regularly, you don't need to audit them. Therefore, the total area included in your square footage calculations for required audit space does not have to match the gross square-footage value you provided for other LEED credit submittals. In the provided tracking worksheet, the non-audited space can be entered to ensure that your project remains consistent with your other credit submittals.

Determine the appropriate spaces to audit (such as offices, break rooms, and dining areas) and categorize the various spaces according to the APPA space types. If the APPA categories do not match your space, choose the listed category that is most similar. (See Figure 1, page 4, APPA Guidelines.) 

If you decide to conduct the audit through your current cleaning service provider or a third-party auditor, you are likely to incur costs that increase in proportion to your building's square footage and number of rooms.

Conducting an in-house audit requires staff time, and the feasibility of this depends on the size of your building. However, there should be no additional cost associated with this option.