Vacuuming 101: The Significance of Soil Removal

What are the three most important daily maintenance functions essential to any cleaning program? Vacuum, vacuum and vacuum. “As go the floors, so goes the building” in terms of user perceptions of cleanliness, and routine vacuuming is the most critical function you can perform daily for your customers.

Floors, whether soft or hard surface, are the largest horizontal surface within the building. That’s where everything that falls out of the air or gets tracked in collects.

But in order to be effective, vacuuming must be done properly with quality equipment.

What does ‘clean’ mean?
To achieve a clean building is to understand the meaning of “clean.” The definition of professional cleaning, according to the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration’s Standard and Reference for Professional Carpet Cleaning (IICRC S100):

Cleaning is the traditional activity of removing contaminants, pollutants and undesired substances from an environment or surface to reduce damage or harm to human health or valuable materials. Cleaning is the process of locating, identifying, containing, removing and properly disposing of unwanted substances from an environment or material.

Notice the emphasis on the importance of human health considerations above — certainly far above cosmetic or surface cleaning. In fact, while visually pleasing results are desired, the primary emphasis is occupant health and safety. Fortunately, these two objectives — visual results and human health — are compatible. When you clean for health, visual results follow.

The objective of vacuuming
Never forget that protecting your health, and that of your customers, is the primary objective of maintenance and cleaning. Always keep this objective in mind, no matter how many times the boss says, “Do more with less.”

The “Total Building Cleaning Effectiveness Study” sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1995 proves conclusively that proper maintenance and cleaning reduces commercial building airborne dust burdens by some 52 percent. And what was the primary cause of that airborne particle reduction? Well, in addition to entry mats trapping particle soils outside the building, maintenance staff was provided quality vacuum cleaners equipped with high-efficiency collection bags.

You know those cheap paper filter bags that most cleaning contractors use? They only filter particles down to about 7 microns. For another 50 cents or so per bag, you can get the double-lined spun poly filter bags that trap 99 percent of particles down to about 1 micron. The added bonus is that you spend less time dusting furnishings because you capture and retain far more particles that otherwise wind up on furnishings.

The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI)
In the last 10 years or so, the CRI has done all of us — commercial cleaners and consumers alike — a big favor that’s gone almost totally unnoticed. That favor came in the form of the CRI Green Label Seal of Approval vacuum-cleaner testing program.

For years, the CRI was hearing complaints about carpet being hard to maintain. So naturally, they did what any professional association would do; they began asking, “Why?”

Upon testing a few vacuum cleaners in a closed, stainless-steel chamber with carpet on the floor and a measured amount of soiling, they found that most vacuum cleaners didn’t harm the carpet, but neither did they trap and retain soil very efficiently. Many of those vacuums were removing soil from the carpet, where it was doing no harm in terms of human health, and were flinging it into the air where it became part of the airborne soil burden.

The CRI contacted the equipment manufacturers and told them what they found. The vacuum manufacturers — most of them — did the right thing by re-engineering their equipment to make it more efficient. Today, the CRI has a listing of Green Label Seal of Approval vacuums on their Web site.

Further, closed-chamber tests conducted by Lees Commercial Carpets demonstrates that using a CRI Green Label vacuum on carpet for only four minutes results in a 10-fold reduction in airborne dust burdens compared to a non-Green Label vacuum. Think about the implications of that statement — less dust to breathe and less dust spread over furnishings and fixtures that has to be removed. That’s a win-win situation for professionals.

Based on all the many tests conducted by independent associations and agencies in recent years, virtually no one with discernment would continue to suggest that dry soil removal is not an essential procedure to perform before wet cleaning begins. This remains a fundamental truth, regardless of what manufacturers of the bigger, more powerful extraction equipment may try to tell you.

Vacuum phases
Efficient dry-soil removal is accomplished in three physical-removal phases: entry-area vacuuming (removal of the destructive buildup of abrasive soil), overall vacuuming with quality equipment that’s properly filtered, and edge vacuuming to remove dust and soils that no upright vacuum seems to get efficiently.

All three dry-soil removal phases add only a few minutes to daily cleaning.

Entries — A substantial buildup of sand and grit almost invariably occurs just inside primary entry doors, so vacuum the first few feet of each entry area thoroughly. Use a crevice tool (or vacuum hose cuff), coupled with the airflow generated by a canister vacuum. Failure to remove this gritty, abrasive soil results in rapid wear on flooring materials in these entry areas, and when the entry area is worn-out, a much larger area of floor covering will have to be replaced.

Overall — Dry vacuuming of high-traffic and open areas is essential. On hard-surface flooring, use a backpack vacuum to trap and remove particle soils from the building envelope. On carpet, use an upright vacuum that incorporates brush agitation. The unit’s brush bar is designed to lift and separate the pile, to vibrate particle soil into the airstream created by the vacuum, and to comb out hair, lint and cellulosic soils, which are extremely difficult to remove with a canister vacuum. As a minimum, double-vacuum (fore-and-aft stroking) all traffic areas, with deliberate triple or quadruple vacuuming of entry areas.

Thorough dry vacuuming must precede any wet carpet or hard-floor cleaning method. Literally every square foot of flooring must be vacuumed at some point. Consider moving furniture and vacuuming underneath periodically. The majority of particle soils under furnishings are superficial and, therefore, are easily removed with minimal effort.

Edges — As mentioned, no upright vacuum efficiently removes dust that accumulates on carpeted flooring corners and along baseboards. Airborne soils stirred up by traffic are rendered airborne until they hit the nearest wall and fall on the edge of the carpet where they accumulate. They must be vacuumed by hand to avoid gray lines along carpet edges.

Let’s review
Vacuum entry areas daily, vacuum flooring overall and vacuum edges periodically. The payback is that customers will appreciate the housekeeping department for its thoroughness, for a clean, fresh-smelling building; and for a healthy indoor environment. In addition, the housekeeping department will earn a reputation for delivering professional, quality service.