You know all about spring cleaning. But what about winter cleaning? Take it from us, you don’t want to ignore your building’s (or your home’s!) cleaning needs all winter, only to clean it in the spring. You’d be buried in slush, dirt, salt, and dust.
As we go through this snowy, rainy, slushy winter season in Southern Ontario, it’s important to keep your environment clean; you’ll be keeping everyone safe by reducing indoor winter hazards (such as slippery entrance ways), and healthy by eliminating the dirt and dust that can settle throughout the cold months.
The three indoor winter woes that you can avoid with regular winter cleaning are:
1. Slippery and Damaged Hard Floors
Your building’s hard floors suffer in the winter. The salt and water that people drag in from outside – whether it’s marble, tile, or wood flooring – pose the threat of damage. More importantly, if your entrance way is slippery, people can get hurt.
A proper winter program for hard floor care involves proactive and reactive components.
Put down quality, absorbent floor mats in the entrance way to soak up the slush before it has the chance to get on the flooring. However, do not use matting outside. When mats are outdoors they freeze up and become tripping hazards. Finally, make sure to change the mats regularly. If the mats are saturated in salty water, they are no longer able to do their job.
Inevitably, the floors will get salty and wet. A thorough and consistent cleaning schedule must be maintained to combat this problem. Hard floors must be washed before any high speed burnishing procedures are used. High speed burnishing will worsen damage to the floors unless the salt and dirt have been washed (either with a mop or automatic scrubber) first with the right cleaning products.
2. Dirty Carpets
If your building has carpeting, winter grime will find a way to nestle deep. Hot-water or steam-extraction, bonnet shampooing, and pile lifting are three carpet care methods that will return your carpets to their former glory.
Hot-water or steam-extraction provides the deepest carpet clean, removing entrenched salt and dirt better than any other method.
Bonnet shampooing dislodges even the toughest dirt as the carpets are scrubbed, and then the dirt is vacuumed away.
Pile lifting is important to restore carpets to a near-original appearance. After dirt particles are swept and vacuumed, the pile-lifter raises carpet pile to its initial condition.
If you’re still curious about these winter carpet cleaning methods, check out our previous blog dedicated to winter carpet cleaning for a more in-depth explanation.
3. Dust
Dusting may seem like an obvious cleaning task, but it is especially important during the winter. Buildings can become particularly dusty in the winter because the windows have been closed for months to keep out the winter chill, and the heating system makes the inside air warm and dry.
Winter germs can float around in the dust, helping to boost the illness rate among tenants, employees, students, and/or customers.
Therefore, the comprehensive dusting of buildings should not be overlooked. Light fixtures, ceiling fans, railings, and ducts cannot be left to collect dust throughout the winter. Dusting enhances indoor air quality – keeping buildings clean and people healthy.
>> Please do not hesitate to contact us for your winter cleaning needs.
