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ESSENTIAL MAINTENANCE


Entrance matting installations must be maintained in good working order says Mike Egerton, MD of Host UK Ltd.


As specialist carpet and flooring maintainers we were interested in how entrance matting could be kept looking its best, working at maximum efficiency and therefore not becoming an unsightly and expensive burden. We were able to review current practises at a number of sites and then to look at how dry extraction cleaning and, specifically the Host system, could keep these mats working well and looking good.


There is already a wealth of information regarding entrance matting citing statistics about soil removal, costs of soil removal and costs of slip and fall accidents. Everyone we spoke to commented that the case for installing matting was well researched and proven beyond doubt. It was effective in stopping soil, preventing internal hard floors from getting wet, saving money on internal cleaning and preventing slip and fall accidents.


Our concern was that, all too often, these mats were not being maintained, were in poor condition and as a result fairly useless. What is clear, in many cases, is that companies are spending around £150 to £250 per square metre on entrance matting while not getting the correct use or life expectancy from them.


We carried out field trials at a major UK shopping centre. The mats here


30 | FLOORCARE & MAINTENANCE


were maintained using upright ‘brush type’ vacuums on a regular basis and apart from some high traffic areas looked reasonable - we then performed extensive trials using the Host system.


One of the biggest problems faced by these premises was that the cleaning time frame was limited to a night shift. It took some time to convince managers that the matting would be clean and more importantly, dry immediately.


The first vacuuming or extraction phase means removing loose soil but with the Host system this can be combined with a brushing or agitation phase. The brush has a large diameter and gets right down into the mat to loosen embedded dry soil for immediate removal.


During the vacuuming and brushing stage, we established the best method including which direction to brush in and how many passes. The first night of cleaning became a restoration clean with subsequent weeks aimed at maintaining the standard set after restoration. We recorded that the vacuuming extraction phase decreased from 2 hours to 45 minutes over the six-week trial period. Also, the dry soil removed was a staggering 4kg in week one, but by week six this had fallen to 1.5kg, which we estimate to be the weekly loading to the mat.


Importantly at the 4kg load the mat was full and this means that dry soil would be tracked into the facility as the mat had ceased to work


Even after week one we could see that the visually soiled area had reduced dramatically as the dry soil had been removed. This meant that we could concentrate our chemistry where it was needed.


During week one we used normal Host sponges applying chemistry to approximately 80% of the area, on which we used 7 kilos of product. By the end of the trials we were applying Host to 40% of the area and using under 3 kilos of Host sponges. The colour change of Host sponges proved that apart from huge amounts of dry soil there was significant water and detergent soluble soil.


The importance of testing out the method wasn’t lost on us and should be carried out as precursor to finalising the cleaning method.


Overall the time taken to clean with the Host system reduced from four hours to two hours and the mat was dry immediately. Additionally, the matting looked much better and, as it was cleared of soil, would also work as the manufacturers intended.


www.hostvonschrader.co.uk twitter.com/TomoCleaning


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