How Clean Is Your Floor?

Winter is trudging to an end, but the snow and slush left over could stick around – and mud from spring rainstorms isn’t far behind. “A clean floor speaks volumes about a business,” says John Engel, Director of Marketing at Cintas. “If the weather causes customers and employees to track in mud, rain and debris, the floors see the worst of it.”

It can be tough to foresee what type of cleaning your floors will need from day to day, but this checklist by cleaning provider Cintas can help you enhance your floor cleaning program to protect your customers and your flooring investment.

• Deep clean on a schedule. Deep cleaning involves cleaning chemicals, dwell time and high-pressure steam that sanitize your floors and remove built-up dirt and grime. Removing these layers of dirt improves the static coefficient of friction, making your surfaces less slippery to walk on.
• Install matting. You’ll have a tough time keeping your floors clean without entrance matting to catch dirt, debris and moisture. At least 6 feet of matting at every entrance can remove 40% of soil, while 12 feet can remove 80% and 36 feet can remove 99%, according to the cleaning industry association ISSA.
• Don’t neglect daily cleanings. In addition to periodic deep cleans, intermittent cleanings are needed intermittently throughout the day, as well as immediately after anything is spilled. Debris, accumulated dust and spills cause floors to become slippery or sticky. Try a mop with an on-board reservoir for cleaning chemicals to quickly deal with spills.
• Dilute your cleaning solutions correctly. Using the wrong chemicals or an incorrect dilution might result in floors that are sticky, slippery or simply not as clean as they should be. Make sure your janitorial and sanitation staff knows which products to use where and how to dilute them. Several manufacturers offer user-friendly chemical dispensing systems that ensure the right dilution is achieved.
• Investigate cleaning technology. If you can find room in the budget, a small investment in cleaning tools could pay outsized dividends. For example, microfiber cleaning tools generally perform better in both cleaning performance and infection control than traditional mops and towels. A dual-chamber mop and bucket system separates dirty mop water from the water with the cleaning chemical solution, which means you’re not mopping the same dirt back onto the floor.