Maintain Floors By Increasing Cleaning Frequency

To combat winter’s damaging conditions, BSCs need to keep sidewalks meticulously clean, free of ice melt and sand, by sweeping them off or shoveling them regularly; double the amount of matting used in building entrances; and beef up cleaning frequencies.

This can be completed by upping the frequency of dust mopping and damp mopping, Griffin says. Though this frequency is largely determined by the traffic coming into the facility, he says BSCs interested in keeping soil from getting tracked throughout the building should dust mop, damp mop and spot mop near the entrances and exits several times a day.

“You can catch the soil by the entrance using a shovel or a mop to pick it up, or you can let it get tracked throughout the building and use a tweezers to pick it up,” says Griffin.

Mats need regular maintenance and cleaning, just like floors do. Mats should be vacuumed regularly and changed out when saturated with salt, sand and water. The removed mats should be pressure washed or extracted.

“I like to hang them up against a wall and pressure wash them from top to bottom then let them drain and dry,” says Griffin. “It’s much more effective than vacuuming.” The frequency for this cleaning largely depends on how much traffic is coming in each day, he adds.

Josephs also recommends inspecting the mats and removing those with tears or sides that curl up.

“Those are slip and fall hazards that are very dangerous especially in winter weather,” he says. “The better quality the mats the more likely the edges will lay flat.”

Keep Floors Clean

Keeping facility floors clean is just as important as having a proper matting system in place. Josephs advises adding a neutralizer to the daily mopping, especially on those days where there is a lot of ice melt coming in.

A neutral floor cleaner designed to remove hard water build up and ice melt residue should be part of the floor cleaning program.

“Some neutralizers might not say ice melt residue removal on the label, but anything that will take care of hard water build-up will take care of ice-melt,” Griffin says. “If it’s neutral it will be safe to use on floors.”

Josephs recommends increasing the frequency of mopping with a neutralizer during the winter.

“We recommend that you make sure you use this neutralizing product for several days after ice melt is put down,” he says. “Even if the ice melt removes everything and the weather is better, it does take a couple of days for the salt to remove itself.”