Keeping Up Appearances

The winter months, just around the corner, can be tough for the professional cleaning industry. Snow, rain and sleet can play havoc on building floors and carpets.

For carpet cleaners, their business can come to a virtual stop during the cold winter months. This is because outdoor conditions, and their impact on the indoor environment, can be so bad that facility managers believe it is simply not worth it to clean carpets or strip and refinish floors. After all, they think, they will just get soiled again quickly and need to be recleaned.

This places an even greater burden on cleaning professionals. As carpets and floors become dirty, facility managers ask more of cleaning crews to do whatever they can to keep the unsightly soiling to a minimum. Added to this burden is the fact that the winter’s grit, dirt and contaminants are not only deposited on floors but become airborne as well, ending up on desks, counters, and surfaces high and low throughout the building.

It is estimated that for every 1000 people walking into a school, as an example, as much as 10 pounds of soil is walked in as well. Further, it is estimated that it costs about $750 to remove one pound of dirt from a facility. With more than 5.3 million school age students, you see how quickly this amount of traffic – along with soiling and cleaning costs – can accumulate. This means that these facilities will need more dusting and vacuuming during the winter months, all requiring more time – and adding to the workload – of cleaning professionals.

And winter’s cleaning burden does not fall just on cleaning professionals. It costs facility managers money as well. When carpet cleaning is delayed, for instance, it harms carpet fibres causing expensive carpeting to wear out sooner and need replacement. The more grit and grime walked on to floors, the more work and time to scrub, strip and refinish will be required when warmer months return.

The White Knight on the Floor
Although winter presents many challenges for cleaning professionals and the managers of facilities, we do not need to become victims of its cleaning wrath. Because the problem centres around the soil collected on the bottom of shoes, steps taken to remove or prevent this oil from entering the facility can help minimize the soiling and harm to carpets and floors, as well as reduce the workload of cleaning professionals.

In some countries they do this in a simple way: they remove their shoes at the door. This is common in Japan, Thailand, the Czech Republic and Sweden. In some New England states in the United States, hospitals and other large public facilities once had ‘mud rooms’ where building users could take off and leave their boots and galoshes. Mud rooms served as a barrier between the outside and the inside of the facility, preventing soils from being walking into the facility.

Although still common in houses, few public facilities have mud rooms any longer. Instead they now turn to high-performance matting systems to minimize the amount of soil and contaminants brought in from the outside. It is estimated that these mats, made using state-of-the-art technologies, can trap and capture 70 to 80 per cent of the soil on shoe bottoms, a significant reduction that help keep facilities clean.

What Are High-Performance Mats?
Many facilities, unaware of the importance of matting systems, rent mats or purchase low-performing mats, often at big-box stores. Although these mats can help reduce the amount of soiling in a facility, they are not engineered to trap anything near 80 per cent of shoe bottom contaminants. Additionally, these “standard” mats often require frequent cleaning, and this, along with the fact that they are not designed to have a long performance life, results in frequent replacement. Although they may cost less to purchase initially, astute facility managers soon realize they are not cost effective in the long run.

High-performance mats are engineered to be more effective at stopping soil at the door as well as to last for an extended period of time. One way they do this is through dual-level construction. With this system, soils, moisture and other outdoor contaminants are stored below shoe level, which prevents them from being transferred into a building. Mats without this construction can flatten out over time, and as soil is deposited on these mats, it can re-attach to the shoe and be tracked into the facility, completely defeating the purpose.

These mats may cost more than the standard mats mentioned earlier. However, a look at their warranties shows how cost effective a high-performance matting system can be. A standard or low-performing mat may have a warranty as short as three months, while a high-performing matting system may have a warranty that extends as much as six years. This also makes them more sustainable, reducing the amount of cleaning-related waste deposited in landfills.

The Rule of 15
High-performance mats are most effective as a system, using three different types of mats of approximately five feet each – scrapers, wiper/scrapers and wiper mats. These work together to prevent contaminants from entering a facility. This is referred to as the Rule of 15:

  •  Five feet of scraper mats are placed outdoors to trap as much as 50 per cent of all soils and contaminants from entering a facility.
  •  This is followed by five feet of wiper/scraper mats, typically placed in a vestibule between doors or directly inside a facility to gather dust and debris not captured outdoors.
  •  Wiper mats, again five feet long, are often referred to as the ‘final line of defense’ and are designed to capture any remaining soils and contaminants. 

The system is so effective it has become an integral part of Green cleaning. Many Green cleaning experts say they are about the best source-reduction strategy available to help keep soils outside. Often they suggest even more than 15 feet of matting be placed at key door entries.

There is little we can do about the weather, but fortunately, with high-performance matting systems, there are things we can do to help keep contaminants from entering a building no matter what time of year it is. As winter approaches, cleaning contractors should suggest that their clients invest in these more effective matting systems. Cleaning and related costs as well as workloads may be reduced, and it makes contractors a more vital part of their customers’ building operations.

- Patrice Dumas is vice president of sales and marketing for Mat Tech, a leading Canadian manufacturer of matting systems.

 Ten Reasons to Keep Shoe Bottoms Clean
  (1)  Carpets absorb dust from soiled shoes and can become breeding grounds for dust mites, causing asthma and allergies.
  (2)  On hard-surface floors, dust from soiled shoes will not be absorbed, will become airborne, and can be inhaled by building occupants.
  (3)  Clean shoe bottoms are healthier for a facility, whether the soil remains trapped in carpets or becomes airborne.
  (4)  Keeping shoe bottoms clean reduces cleaning needs and costs.
  (5)  If shoe bottoms are clean, carpets last longer, and hard-surface floors do not need to be scrubbed, stripped or refinished as frequently.
  (6)  Dirty shoe bottoms can scratch floors and stain carpets, creating a dingy appearance.
  (7)  Common soils on shoe bottoms, which can be transferred to floors and carpets, include oil, chemicals and pesticides, fertilizers, animal excrement, gum, soiled water and asphalt.
  (8)  Soiled shoes can make floors slippery, increasing the chances for a slip and fall.
  (9)  Keeping shoe bottoms clean increases the life span of the shoes themselves.
  (10)  If your shoe bottoms are clean, you don’t have to apologize for staining someone’s carpet.

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