Clean, well maintained floors say a great deal about your facility, but poorly maintained flooring says even more. Think about it, which company would you think is more professional and reputable, the one with grimy, poorly serviced flooring or the company with clean, well polished flooring? Regardless of how true these assumptions are, perception is always going to play a huge role in potential customer’s decision making processes.
Grimy, dull flooring that has clearly seen better days can be very off, putting no matter how uncorrelated it might be to the level of service you provide. That being said, keeping your facility’s floors clean and well cared for is certainly not your only or most pressing concern. Similarly, there are always budgets to consider and with so many things on the to do list, floor cleaning and maintenance can get put off.
So Facility Managers are often in a position where they are looking to stretch the time between deep floor cleaning and carpet cleanings to try to save money and stretch their maintenance budgets. Ahead we look at which floor cleaning practices make the most financial sense and what ways you can optimize your commercial floor cleaning experience to meet your many goals and obligations so that your building and flooring looks great without breaking the bank.
Hard flooring can be a Facility Manager’s best friend. Not only is it fairly easy to repair and clean, it can maintain its good looks with minimal servicing for a long time. That being said, if you completely ignore your hard flooring, it won’t look its best and it will wear out well ahead of schedule leading to costly and frequent replacements as well as posing additional safety risks through slips and falls. While it is durable, hard flooring requires periodic cleaning and servicing to keep it looking its best. This includes but is not limited to floor stripping, sealing, waxing and buffing depending on the specific type of flooring you have.
By stripping away the old sealant and reapplying it, you can help prevent dirt and grit from scuffing and scraping away at the floor underneath. Not only does this drastically extend the life of the floor, but also it keeps it looking new for much longer. After all, replacing the sealant and rebuffing the floor to your preferred shine is much cheaper and easier than repairing or replacing flooring. As an added bonus, the majority of professional floor care services offer slip-resistant finishes to help protect your tenants, staff and visitors from falling, all while shielding your floor from scuffing, water damage and general wear and tear.
Hard flooring is often the go-to for its durability and longevity, but carpet can add a much needed feeling of warmth and richness to a facility. Carpet is also significantly better at reducing slippage and dampening sound as people or things move across it. Because it has a shorter lifespan the hard flooring, you need to be sure you can max out its usage for it to be a good investment. As you might have guessed, the best way to get the most number of years out of commercial carpeting is regular maintenance by an experienced industry professional carpet cleaning company. So, what exactly makes a commercial carpet cleaning company an “industry professional” anyway? Here are a couple of things to look at:
Do they take advantage of the latest innovations in carpet cleaning? If the carpet cleaning company you utilize is still using the Bonnet cleaning method instead of hot water extraction or something similar, it is time to move on. Do they use outdated equipment? If so, you are most certainly not dealing with an industry professional. They should be familiar with and utilize modern industry best practices like truck mounted hot water extraction, moisture encapsulation carpet cleaning and the Whittaker carpet cleaning method instead of older techniques which cause more problems than they solve.
Keeping costs low is always going to be important, but skimping on flooring maintenance and cleaning is going to cost you more in the long run. If your carpet or flooring looks dirty before you decide to do a deep cleaning, the damage has already been done. When dirt is allowed to accumulate on hard flooring, it scrapes through the protective sealant damaging the floor beneath it. In the same way, allowing dirt to grind into a carpet’s deep fibers destroys these fibers that hold it together significantly reducing its lifespan.
It can be easy to convince yourself that a little dirt won’t do any harm, but if you look at grit and filth under a microscope, you’ll see that it's razor sharp edges are perfect for cutting through sealants and fibers. Regular cleaning not only helps maintain the integrity of carpet’s fibers, it helps prevent staining and high traffic areas from looking faded and worn. It simply doesn’t make financial sense to skip out on regular carpet and hard flooring maintenance even if it saves you money in the short run.
If you are looking to extend the lifespan of your important assets or simply want to get started with a regular maintenance plan there is an easy first step that you can take. At Stathakis, we provide a reasonably priced effective hard flooring maintenance and carpet cleaning service. Regardless of what type of building you have here in south eastern Michigan, we can build a carpet or hard flooring maintenance program around your building’s unique needs and budget.
By taking advantage of the latest innovations in carpet cleaning technologies, we can help you squeeze those extra years out of your carpet and save you money that would normally get put towards replacing carpets. We offer everything from truck mounted hot water extraction for your carpets to a professional floor resealing and waxing for your hard floors to help max out your investments and keep your floors looking their best. Whether you are interested in hard floor cleaning or a subscription based carpet cleaning service, we are ready to help. For more information please contact us at #800-278-1884.