As usual, it is going to be a very snowy and cold winter for the Philadelphia area. This means more ice melt on the sidewalks, more salt on the roads, and more grime and dirt that will be tracked in and on your floors.

Generally speaking, your office cleaning company does a wide variety of services for your building, but one aspect of commercial cleaning is vitally important, and that is floor care. Regardless of the flooring types you have in your building, regular and total floor cleaning solutions from a reputable commercial floor cleaning service, like ServiceMaster, will go a long way toward keeping your employees and guests safe, and your floors looking great for years to come.

The cleanliness of your facility has a large impact on the image you wish to project to employees and clients, as well as the perception of quality for your business as a whole. When it comes to first impressions, the quality of your floor maintenance program can have the greatest impact on perception as this is what people initially see upon entering your space and throughout your facility.  One big indication that a facility is not being maintained at the highest standard possible is when people encounter hallways with dust bunnies, scuff marks, or various pieces of debris littered about.  Adequate floor care is especially important in healthcare, education and industrial facilities as contaminants can compromise your building’s safety as unkempt floors are a hazard and add potential for injuries. It is critical to monitor and clean your building’s floors throughout each day, especially in high traffic areas. Maintaining floors in large scale facilities requires focus as daily cleaning can be monotonous, time consuming and difficult to achieve accountability.  For this reason, many companies seek outside help. Hiring an experienced company who can get the job done both efficiently and effectively is important to consider in order to save your business from excessive costs.  One of the most important tools for maintaining flooring in large scale facilities is the automatic floor scrubber, commonly known as the auto-scrubber. Auto-scrubbers require less physical labor and time commitments than the traditional mop and bucket approach and easily cover massive amounts real estate.  

In an age where robots are being used to make coffee and perform more and more automated industrial tasks, robotic vacuums are beginning to stand out as a safe and dependable product. Today’s robotic vacuums can remember the layout of a space, avoid staircases, and even be voice controlled. Some are Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled, allowing them to be programmed or controlled from a smart phone. Today’s blog will explore how coming advancements in robot cleaning technology will begin to create cleaner facilities in the future.

Hard-surface floor maintenece requires the use of a mop. Maintaining hard-surface floors can be done with a flat or string mop. Both options are effective and capable, but each has a specific purpose. 

Vinyl Composite Tile (VCT) floor is commonly found in businesses because of its durability and ease to maintain. Proper floor care not only helps to preserve its appearance but can help extend its lifespan as well. ServiceMaster TBS Division specializes in commercial floor cleaning for VCT and other Vinyl Floors. 

This is what happens when a floor in an industrial warehouse is neglected for years. Black carbon becomes embedded on the floor and forklifts make matters worse by further compacting the grime into the concrete.  What you are left with is super-hard dirt that can only be removed with chemicals and the force of a rotary floor scrubbing and pressurized water. This is not a job for the power washer because the contents of the warehouse could be damaged by the ricochet of water and dirt. 

Extraction carpet cleaning is one of the most thorough and comprehensive carpet cleaning methods available.  This method combines cleaning detergents which are pre-sprayed into the carpet and then extracted with hot water or steam. This process loosens any dirt, grime and stains. A high-powered vacuum extracts the dirt-filled cleaning solution from the carpet.

Stripping and waxing floors is a tedious and extremely dirty job and that goes without saying.  If you've ever seen or smelled the floor cleaning process you know it can be quite challenging.  Usually one or two guys are sliding around a vinyl floor that's soaking wet with stripper and emulsified wax man-handling a 75 pound rotary scrubber that moves side to side and a wet-vac that sucks it all up.  Is it any wonder that insurance premiums are sky high for this type of work?  Not at all!

When we strip a floor for a new customer its often after it hasn't been touched for quite some time. Wax and dirt build up over years and become a mottled blend of dirt and grime that barely shines without adding another coat of wax here and there.  The problem with this methodology is that the quick coat before parent's night or when that special guest is coming, add up to triple and quadruple the amount of floor finish that's actually supposed to be there. 

We recently provided restorative tile and grout cleaning in the restrooms of one of our Thorofare, New Jersey clients. The before image represents about a 6.5 out of ten on the "level of funk" scale. This tile hadn't been mechanically cleaned for quite some time and after a while it becomes hard to tell just how dirty the flooring actually is. Most of our clients, just like these wonderful people, forget that the original grout is a light sand or grey color and don't realize that it can be turned back from black. How does our specialty floor cleaning turn back the hands of time, you ask? We utilize the ServiceMaster TBS four-step make the floor so clean you can eat off of it process. It smells good when we are done, too!