CARPET & UPHOLSTERY CARE Stick To Your Goals
Everyone always talks about the importance of having a schedule in place for cleaning your carpets, but just how easy is it to stick to? Mike Egerton, Managing Director at Host von Schrader, offers some realistic tips for healthcare facilities to stay on track with their carpet maintenance.
Rigorous, round-the-clock facility use is the maintenance challenge of healthcare facilities – be it hospital, clinic or nursing home. Success hinges, in part, on keeping virtually all furnishings (particularly carpet and tile flooring) in use on a 24/7 basis, available to residents and guests and available for turnaround and accommodation of incoming patients.
How do we keep carpet in service at all times, both in common areas and in individual rooms? And how do we maintain and keep this heavily trafficked carpet looking beautiful day in and day out? Facility managers and executive housekeepers under pressure from senior managers to deliver these benefits, deserve solid, practical advice on how to accomplish this objective.
Start With The Facts
1. The appearance or performance of carpet in common areas is often disappointing, particularly in lobbies, hallways and lower-floor entrances to lifts;
2. A build-up of odours, spots and stains is a constant consideration and challenge;
3. Turn-around time on emergency service areas, food service courts, individual rooms, and other guest/ patient spaces is critical;
4. Preventing mildew, mould and bacterial growth in rooms is crucial;
5. Often, the carpet is cleaned intermittently – after soil has built up and can be seen visually.
What To Do Cleaning the carpet once soiling can be seen won't solve the five problems
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above. We need to deal with the dirt as it accumulates and that means a programmed approach.
Because, in terms of sheer performance, we are asking a lot of carpet in healthcare environments, we also must be able to ask for proper cleaning and maintenance to ensure that performance.
Ask any cleaning operative how often they dust mop and wet mop the tile floors of any given room or common area. What makes us think that there is any less dirt in a carpeted area exposed to such traffic?
Then ask yourself where that quantity of dirt is. Carpet has the ability to hide the dirt so we don't see it until it is too late. Changing the flooring system does not change the amount of dirt that is brought into the facility. Acknowledging this critical fact will help you provide maintenance planning and schedules that achieve real, satisfying carpet performance.
So from a practical, day-to-day maintenance point of view, where does the cleaning manager begin? What should they do to keep carpeted areas clean and in constant service? Here are ten recommendations that will make a significant, immediate difference in keeping carpet clean and contributing to a healthy physical environment:
1
Trap Dirt Outside – By keeping parking areas, playgrounds and
pavements clean, less dirt ends up inside. More than 90% of dirt on indoor carpets is tracked in on shoes.
2
Use Walk-off Mats At All Entrances – These should have
pile, be at least 20 linear feet long, and be able to trap both dry dirt and
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moisture. It’s important to include these mats in the daily vacuuming activities, which will remove a great deal of the dirt being tracked in. The Host Liberator and Freestyle Machines do an excellent job of removing the tracked-in dry, gritty dirt.
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