tech tip Programs By: Joe Versluis Today, property managers are asking cleaning professionals to tackle a variety of building services that were once farmed out to other vendors. The good news: This can prove to be a lucrative new direction for cleaning professionals. The, shall we say, more challenging news: Cleaning profession-als need to know everything about these added duties — including how to properly perform them — before they take on the respon-sibility. This is especially true with carpet care. Because an operation is cleaning a customer’s facility every night, the facility manager most likely would prefer the same ser-vice also handle carpet care. This way, the facility does not have to give building keys and alarm codes to another vendor to perform these tasks. Here are a few tips to help cleaning operations when taking over carpet care programs at commercial facilities. Tips For Carpet Care Best practices to boost the performance of new or existing carpet cleaning systems. Carpet Care Tips Identify The Fibers Vacuum Vacuuming removes dry soils, as much as 80 percent, according to some studies. While not all areas of a facility need to be vacu-umed every visit, heavily trafficked areas definitely should be. Lift Pile Lifting pile is a service that is not performed as frequently as in the past. But, depending on the type of carpet installed, using a pile lifter pulls carpet fibers up so that vacuuming is more effective. Further, if traffic lanes are an issue, this may help minimize the “matted down” look that can develop in those areas. 16 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® August 2014 Image courtesy of Jupiterimages/Goodshot/Thinkstock Just as different types of hard surface floors — stone, tile, cement, wood and so on — may have different cleaning needs and require the use of different types of cleaning products, so do carpets. While most of the commercial carpets installed in the United States are nylon, there are other fibers used such as olefin, polyester and acrylic. Additionally, in some cases, these different carpet fibers are combined. While there are ways to identify what type of carpet is installed, the first step should always be to sim-ply ask the client. More likely than not, he or she will have some information about the carpet from the installer or the original pur-chase receipt, which might help identify the carpet. Image courtesy of severija/iStock/Thinkstock
CMM – Archives August 2014: 16
