ADAPTING YOUR WORK
Employees returning to the workplace need to feel confident that it’s a safe Ford, Specifications Manager with Altro, considers the pitfalls of some com
In these rapidly changing times, employers are looking for guidance as they seek to ensure a safe environment for staff, customers and visitors. The British Council for Offices (BCO) is one of the first to issue recommendations, saying: “Materials and finishes should be selected to be easily cleaned; they should be hard, smooth and resistant to appropriate cleaning chemicals. Surfaces should be free from irregular features (nooks and crannies) that may harbour contamination.”
You may have carpet or carpet tiles installed, paint on the walls and tiles on the walls or floors - all of which can fall short against the BCO recommendations.
CARPET VS VINYL FLOORS Looking first at carpet, the issues here centre around cleanability. Carpet tiles or carpets are designed to be vacuumed and not cleaned daily with the detergent required to clean viruses – you cannot vacuum up bacteria and viruses. Having vacuumed, you would need to wet clean the carpet or carpet tiles with detergent daily at 56ºC in order to kill any virus.
This daily process is required because the virus remains active for 24 hours on this surface. Cleaning therefore becomes more costly in terms of time and money, while requiring a long time, possibly several hours, to dry; this means your surface can remain damp for hours each day after cleaning, providing the potential for yet more ideal
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conditions for the growth of microorganisms, including bacteria and viruses.
Detergents can easily stain carpet, whilst over-wetting carpet tiles can cause them to curl, be prone to fast re-soiling, the growth of mildew and the occurrence of odours.
Steam cleaning is another option, but carpet tiles can take 12 to 24 hours to dry fully when steam cleaned and shouldn’t be walked on during that time.
Modern vinyl floors offer an ideal alternative to carpet and carpet tiles. There are many options now available with similar sound reduction properties to carpet tiles – 17 to 18dB, so there’s no need to compromise on in-room sound and transmission of noise. There is also the option to use an impact sound reduction underlay.
Comfort underfoot is also a key performance benefit of many vinyl floors, especially those which also offer sound reduction properties, so a switch from carpet to vinyl need not lead to a compromise on comfort.
And the biggest benefit of vinyl over carpet is on cleanability. High-quality vinyl floors can be cleaned at up to 60ºC; viruses are killed at 56ºC (US National Library of Medicine). No different detergent or process is needed when you already have the ability to spray, steam or power clean the flooring.
Dirt sits on the surface of vinyl flooring rather than penetrating the pile of carpet. So, vinyl floors are cleaned
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