It’s easy in a business setting to overlook floors. However, when your carpet, wood flooring, vinyl or even concrete start to show serious wear and tear due to heavy traffic, it can really pull the rug from under you as a commercial venture.
Health & Safety regulations won’t turn a blind eye when a customer complains of an injury from a sticky or slippery patch. And the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is clear that floors need to be in a sound condition and clean.
However, apart from your statutory obligations when it comes to cleaning, the cost of replacing floors can be prohibitive. Not only for materials and labour, but also due to business disruption, particularly if you have a lot of heavy equipment or complex technology to move around.
What can you do to keep your workplace floor up to scratch, and prolong its durability? Well, certainly invest in quality cleaning products and equipment – such as those from System Hygiene – and staff with the know-how for using them correctly.
Equipped for clean and durable floors
Using equipment that appears to be doing enough may be storing up problems. It could be creating minuscule scratches on hard floors or snagging carpet in an accumulative effective. If you aren’t sure, ask for expert help on getting the right equipment for your floor in terms of its structure and usage.
If you have carpeting, purchasing a carpet and upholstery cleaning machine means having the ability to remove staining and dirt regularly, and thoroughly.
There are different models to choose from, depending on the type of carpet you have and how much traffic it has to cope with. For example, if it’s carpet in a foyer with extensive dirt dragged in, a steam-powered professional carpet cleaning machine may be the only way of ensuring a satisfactory result.
If the carpeting is smaller and not so prone to dirt, a wet/dry vacuum cleaner is handy for regular cleaning and then periodically freshening up your workplace carpets.
Likewise, if you have a large area of hard flooring to maintain, then you may need to consider a scrubber and dryer machine to lift dirt thoroughly.
Smaller areas with less spillage potential could be cleaned with a simple sweep and mop routine. Modern engineering means you have plenty of choice in the sizes and types for these too, including spray mops, squeegees and sweepers of various widths.
Protecting vulnerable flooring
You can protect floors from the worst damage of high traffic, especially those near entrances, with matting. Make sure you select specially manufactured, non-slip floor mats.
Cleaning solutions – are in cleaning solutions
The substances you use on your workplace floor really do matter. Cutting the corners by using weak solutions is a false economy, and hoping one size fits all in terms of floor cleaning substances is a nonstarter.
Select the right cleaning product for each type of flooring, and make sure it has the right level of strength to do its job properly. Ironically, if you are random and always price-led on floor cleaning products, you may even end up with using substances that are too harsh for your flooring. In that case, each time you use a floor cleaning product, you can be stripping layers off the top, breaking down the carpet fibres.
Good workplace floor cleaning habits
Act quickly for spills and other accidents. Remove any residue with scrapers bought from a business cleaning supplies company (and therefore designed to do their job without scratches). Then spot clean with professional solutions as needed. Also make sure that thorough floor cleaning takes place regularly, even though it may not look like it’s needed. The substances and foreign objects that are not always obvious can do damage over time, such as small particles of grit.
Treat workplace floors with respect
Lastly, don’t forget to give your floor some TLC. There are products available to help maintain flooring and keep it fresh; various floor maintainers to suit a range of situations.
And remember. Seal and polish your floor as part of regular maintenance. Don’t forget what lies beneath, and concentrate solely on periodical machine refurbs.
