tending the life of the furniture and reducing its maintenance. The floor protectors also assure that the noise level is kept to a minimum. Changing the furniture arrangement for impromptu meetings at schools and of-fices or reorganizing tables and chairs at restaurants and hotels is easier and keeps the rooms quiet when floor protectors are installed. Two schools in Wisconsin recently experi-enced the benefits of installing floor protec-tors in their classrooms. Union Grove Union Free High School in Union Grove recently remodeled a science and technology classroom. They soon realized that the hard caster wheels on the rolling chairs were a very noisy distraction for students. Using a soft tire that covered the hard plas-tic wheels caused the classroom noise to de-crease dramatically. “The teachers are as happy as could be about it,” says Kurt Jorgensen, director of operations for the school. “By cushioning the rollers, the rooms are much quieter.” Indian Trails High School in Kenosha re-cently started using floor savers to decrease noise from chairs and music stands in their band room. “The difference was like night and day,” says Ken Weile, the school’s band instructor. “It made teaching my classes much better, because I do not have to talk over the noise of chairs and stands, and helped the kids fo-cus on their material. The chairs and music stands were just so noisy.” Protect Floors, Extend Maintenance A constant threat to hard surface floors is scratching, most commonly from furni-ture legs. Once the floor is damaged, most of the time it can be refinished or repaired, but it’s ideal to avoid this sort of maintenance as long as possible. Floor protectors applied to furniture legs are extremely helpful in extending the time required between major maintenance ac-tivities. The investment required to purchase floor protectors is recouped by reducing the fre-quency of significant maintenance as well as scrubbing and recoating. Even with eight coats of wax applied to a newly remodeled classroom at Union Grove Union Free High School, the floor was still be-ing damaged. “It took just two months for the students to go through the wax and begin scratching the floors,” Jorgensen says. “Without the floor protectors, we would have had to rewax the floor two to three maybe four times dur-ing the school year. Now, when you roll the chairs, there is no grinding.” All told, Union Grove Union Free High School estimates that they are saving ap-proximately $6 per square foot annually by adding soft covers to the hard caster wheels. Indian Trails High School also benefited from decreased maintenance in its band room when they started using floor savers. “Our janitorial staff noticed the first day they were installed, because moving the chairs around to clean can be a very noisy job,” Weile explains. “After installing the floor protectors with felt, they couldn’t be happier. The products will significantly in-crease the time between floor finishing, too. They have already reduced the frequency for polishing the floors.” Felt pads are now available in all sorts of shapes and sizes, for all types of legs. Standard peel back felt pads can be purchased for most applications and du-rable slip-on styles that don’t require ad-hesive are available for the harshest envi-ronments. There are wrap-around felt pads to use with chairs that have sleigh rails and soft vinyl covers that can be applied to rollers on chairs. All of them put a barrier between the po-tentially damaging leg or wheel and the floor. Furniture protectors are a solution any-where that it’s necessary to move furniture often. Restaurants and bars have constant move-ment with chairs and tables, as do class-rooms, offices and hospitals. Look for pads with a strong felt and du-rable construction, and you’ll have an af-fordable solution to protect floors in any environment. CM FREE INFO: Reader Service 213 or CMMOnline.com/freeinfo www.CMMOnline.com 37
CMM – Archives April 2014: 37
