The best way to work with your commercial cleaning company while you maintain the appearance of your building’s floors – and control costs while doing it.
Scheduled (or Regular ) Floor Care
Those responsible for maintaining a commercial building are constantly balancing how good a facility looks with how much is being spent on up-keep, especially the floors. A well-planned Interim Floor Care Plan can make this easier.
Scheduled Floor Care is just what it sounds like, it includes everyday mopping and more aggresive cleaning high-traffic area cleaning at longer intervals.
Hard flooring is next. Why? If it’s going to be mopped? Wet mopping a hard surface floor that is covered in dust and dirt doesn’t clean it, it just smears the wet dirt around. Mopping a vacuumed floor goes faster and leaves you with better results.
Deep cleaning for carpets and stripping for waxed hard surface flooring
Both involve using a more aggressive solution to dig out the dirt. Machines are required to effectively apply the solution and then to remove the dirty water with suction. Both these types of scheduled cleaning take effort, scheduling and preparation. Plan to have it done periodically based on the traffic and environment of the building.
Both the regular cleaning and the deep cleaning share a common set of goals – keep your floors looking good for as long as possible while you prolong their usable life span.
Interim floor care
Between regular cleaning and scheduled cleaning lies interim cleaning…more art and observation than science. Interim cleaning will help you postpone a deep cleaning and use less aggressive methods, resulting in lowered expense and inconvenience.
Good records take the guess-work out of when to perform a full hard floor strip, clean and wax, or a deep-clean carpet steaming. To keep your floors looking their best, keep an eye on all parts of the building.
When the hard flooring in an area is showing wear, it is time for a touch-up. This could be spot cleaning, more aggressive mopping, and maybe a coat of liquid wax.
For carpeting, spot cleaning could be the answer, either with a hand-held appliance or a small carpet cleaning machine. Either can be done without rocking the building’s schedule. It is important to make a note of when you do this. Also, if spot cleaning leaves a "clean spot" in the middle of your carpet, it is probably time to have the whole thing cleaned.
Another floor maintenance factor that has emerged since the start of the pandemic is how building usage has changed. And, the changes vary greatly from building to building.
Obviously, companies with large numbers of employees moving to full or partial work-from-home status are dealing with less wear and tear. In buildings where staff is at or near capacity, the amount of traffic is often evolving more than decreasing/increasing. Everything from meal breaks to conference room meetings has a different pattern — and it all shows in your floors.
Here’s where the note-taking comes back into the picture. If you are in charge of the building’s maintenance, you should be making notes whenever you notice an area that needs care. These notes will save time in the long run, allowing you to quickly advise your cleaning staff or service on where to best spend their efforts.
If your building is in need of some TLC, give us a call at NLC Solutions Commercial Cleaning. Our cleaning services have been making business customers happy for 35 years. And yes, we are just as experienced in making your floors look great as well. Call us at (908) 753-3900.