Cleaning

How Long Would It Take a Robot Vacuum to Clean a Palace?

By Lindsey Benson
3 years ago
In Cleaning

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There’s no denying that the humble vacuum cleaner is one of the hardest-working devices in our homes. For those of us with busy work and social lives, we may even leave an autonomous robot to scoot around our floors while we are out, tidying up the dust and dirt off the carpet ready for when we get home. That got us thinking – surely there’s no one with a busier work or social event life than members of royalty? There’s certainly no one with a larger home floor space. Could a robot vacuum cleaner become an essential for palace life?

Robot vacuum cleaner reporting for duty, ma’am.

Our cleaner of choice

Weighing in at just 3.2kg, we’ve opted for Miele’s Scout RX2 Home Vision as our robot of choice. With an impressive two-hour performance every charge, this little vacuum is in it for the long haul and can cover a whopping 180m² before needing to recharge. Before its battery completely drains, it’ll return to its base and recharge for around 180 minutes before being able to set off again.

With the average UK home’s floor space being around 68m², the Scout RX2 Home Vision would have no trouble cleaning the whole floor space with plenty of juice to spare.

Of course, a royal home has slightly more floor space than average, and our trusty cleaner ain’t leaving until the job is done!

Buckingham Palace

Floor space: 77,000m²

Time: 856 hours of cleaning | 2,139 hours total incl. charge time

Did you ever wonder why Buckingham Palace is called, well, Buckingham Palace? It was named after the Duke of Buckingham, a Tory politician named John Sheffield. He had the building made as his rather opulent London home, and truthfully, “opulent” feels like an understatement.

With 775 rooms, one small robot vacuum has its work cut out to get this place spick and span for Her Majesty coming home. The little guy would be cleaning for 856 hours, clocking a total work shift of 2,139 hours to account for charging breaks. That’s a little over 89 days, meaning it would take one solo robot vacuum cleaner just shy of three months to finish cleaning the whole palace.

Royal Palace of Madrid

Floor space: 135,000m²

Time: 1,500 hours of cleaning | 3,750 hours total incl. charge time

While Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has 775 rooms to entertain guests of high society at Buckingham Palace, King Felipe VI has a staggering 3,418 rooms at his official residence, the Royal Palace of Madrid.

We’re sending in the robot vacuum cleaner to give the janitors a well-needed helping hand. With an eye-watering 135,000m² of floor space, it would take just over 156 days to finish cleaning the carpets and recharging to do so. That’s just over five months of dedicated floor-cleaning time – of course, many hands make light work, so perhaps we should send in a fleet of Scout RX2 Home Visions for this job.

Still, while the Scouts are dealing with the floors, that frees up plenty of time for the cleaners to crack on with the building’s 870 windows!

The Forbidden City

Floor space: 150,000m²

Time: 1,667 hours of cleaning | 4,167 hours total incl. charge time

Holding the world record for “most visited palace”, the most up-to-date figures available showed that the Forbidden City welcomed 17 million visitors in 2018. That’s a lot of footfall, so surely those carpets need a good vacuuming every so often!

For one robot vacuum cleaner on its own, it would take 174 days of cleaning and charging to finish the floors across this lavish palace. That’s just under six months which, given the diminutive device, is rather impressive!

Istana Nurul Iman

Floor space: 200,000m²

Time: 2,222 hours of cleaning | 5,555 hours total incl. charge time

The official home of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the 29^th Sultan of Brunei, the Istana Nurul Iman holds the world record for the “largest residential palace”. Its 1,788 rooms, including a banqueting hall that can house 5,000 guests, must certainly take its staff a while to clean, so the Scout is heading over to help out!

Covering a mind-blowing 200,000m² of floor space, our 35.4cm hero would need 232 days to finish cleaning the floors here. That’s just under eight months of constant cleaning and charging to keep this extravagant residence clean with just one robot hoover. One per room might be a better idea – dividing that huge floor space across 1,788 rooms, we’d estimate each room to have around 111.85m² floor space, so a single Scout could finish that in one charge cycle!

Palace of the Parliament

Floor space: 330,000m²

Time: 3,667 hours of cleaning | 9,167 hours total incl. charge time

As the Palace of the Parliament has never been used as a royal residence, it misses out on the Guinness World Record’s acknowledgement for any “largest palace” titles. Still, with a jaw-dropping floor space of 330,000m², this palace is undeniably enormous – it’s over four times bigger than Buckingham Palace!

It would take a single robot vacuum 382 days to clean the floors of this massive building – yes, over a year of non-stop vacuuming and charging!

Will we see a royal appointment of robot bagless vacuum cleaners in the future? It’s definitely a task for more than one, but these dedicated little workers could be zooming across royal floors soon enough!