Vacuuming Hard Floors To Capture Loose Soils

In the context of floor care, dry cleaning processes means the removal of loose soil from the floor by mechanical action from brooms, mops, vacuums, or scrapers. The traditional approach is to use sweeping and dust mopping to remove loose soil. Recent studies performed at a university suggest that there can be significant labor savings and improvement in cleaning results from vacuuming resilient floors when utilizing the correct floor tools. If you think about it for just a moment this is intuitively clear.  

Sweeping and dust mopping moves the loose soil around while capturing some grains in the fibers. It does not necessarily remove it effectively. Of course, you pick it up at some point in a dust pan and throw it out. But what about the small particles that become airborne as you sweep and dust mop?  They settle right back down on all the horizontal surfaces in the building including floors where they grind away at any finish or even the original floor. So, why not take them out of the atmosphere permanently? Using a high filtration vacuum cleaner with a quality hard floor tool accomplishes this quickly and efficiently.

A great development in vacuum technology is HEPA type vacuum cleaners with quality floor tools for hard and soft floors. Vacuums depend on airflow to move loose soil. Traditional vacuums with beater bars and cloth bags tend to stir up dust and lose suction. You can remove particles down to .3 microns (HEPA) and eliminate dust mops, brooms and other tools that become obsolete with this system.  This type of vacuum has many advantages. Most pertinent is its ability to remove, rather than just move around, very small particles of loose soil from the environment. It allows you to pick up dry soils on hard surfaces, including rest room tile floors reducing mold and mildew at its source before it has time to grow.

Consider the advantages of reducing or even eliminating dust mops and simply vacuuming up the soils into a HEPA type bag.  Less dust, less grit, less wear on the floor can save considerable labor over a large enough area over the space of a year or more.  

Your comments and questions are always welcome.  I hope to hear from you soon.  Until then, keep it clean…

Mickey Crowe has been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He is a trainer, speaker and consultant. You can reach Mickey at 678.314.2171 or CTCG50@comcast.net.