Trampled Underfoot With floor care of any kind, effective matting should be more than just a maintenance remnant. By: Mike Sharlow O Often, facilities consider the application of floor matting for use only on hard floor surfaces — overlooking the importance of floor matting on carpeted surfaces. Floor matting on carpeted surfaces plays an important role in keeping facilities’ interiors cleaner. Choosing The Proper Mat The use of a permanent bi-level mat that effec-tively holds, hides and stores soil and moisture on hard floors will perform the same on commercial carpeted surfaces, preventing the soil and mois-ture from being tracked further into the building. Consider these facts: Up to 80 percent of dust, grime and dirt in a building are tracked in from the outside on peoples’ feet, permanently damaging floors and carpets One square yard of carpet can accumulate one pound of dirt a week — twice that in inclement weather It is estimated that the cost to find and remove a single pound of dirt from a building can run for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Floor Care . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Matting . Whether placed atop carpeting or a hard surface floor, an effective matting system will help reduce cleaning and maintenance costs by trapping soils and moisture at entrances. 24 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • August 2011 Image courtesy of The Andersen Company Mike Sharlow is region manager for The Andersen Company, manufacturer of high-performance mat-ting. Their newest products, Waterhog Eco and Enviro Plus, feature a 100 percent recycled polyester carpet reclaimed from plastic drink bottles and a rubber backing with up to 89 percent recycled rubber reclaimed from used tires. Sharlow is a Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) certified ISSA Cleaning Expert (ICE) with 27 years of experience in the cleaning industry — 12 years as a BSC. Sharlow can be reached at MSharlow@ AndersenCo.com. in excess of $600 dollars in cleaning costs As few as 150 people entering a commercial building can track in one pound of dirt in a five-day workweek, costing over $30,000 dollars annually to remove. This has a dramatic effect on improving indoor air quality and reducing carpet extraction frequen-cies, thereby saving labor and chemicals. Another important consideration for use of high-performance matting on carpet is to prevent prema-ture wear of the carpet fibers in high-traffic areas. Customers can literally save thousands of dol-lars replacing carpet that is worn prematurely due to not using mats simply by using the proper type and length of floor matting in these areas. Proper Length Many facilities I visit are “under matted,” meaning there simply is not enough length of matting in place to effectively capture soil and water. The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI) recommends a minimum of 10 feet to 15 feet of matting before a person walks onto a carpeted or hard floor surface.
CMM – Archives Aug 2011: 24
