CM/Spotlight: Floor Care This deep level of cleaning goes beyond cleaning for appearance and helps create a certifiably healthy environment for building occupants and cleaning personnel. But the vacuum should also — when incorporated into an effective cleaning sys-tem — save you time and money. Increasing productivity has become just as important to the health of a company as achieving ideal IAQ. The challenge here is that so many vacu-um manufacturers claim to make products that increase productivity, so itʼs hard to know which ones truly do provide significant long-term cost savings — while at the same time providing a certifiable deep clean. Many factors contribute to cost-savings over time, some less obvious than others. For instance, extending the life of your carpets and floor surfaces is a cost-savings that comes from using the right vacuum that causes less wear and tear as it cleans. Make Long-term Decisions In choosing the right vacuum, getting the most for your money should be more emphasized than the price tag. To truly assess the long-term savings of your purchase, you almost have to start at the end and work your way back. There are a multitude of studies out there to help determine which type of vacuum and what manufacturer is right for you. According to an International Sanitary Supply Association (ISSA) study, quality backpack vacuums clean up to 10,000 square feet per hour when using a cleaning system, compared with tank canister vacu-ums which time in at 2,500 square feet per hour and single-motor upright vacuums which time in at 2,857 square feet per hour. The ease-of-use and ergonomic design of quality backpacks allow workers to vacuum more than twice the area in half the time. This enormous increase in productivity takes less than half the energy and effort that it does to clean the same area with an upright. As part of an effective Team Cleaning program, a quality backpack can increase productivity by up to 70 percent, all without adding staff. In fact, one 100,000-square-foot facility saved more than $52,000 in one year after switching from single-motor uprights to backpack vacuums. Other Options But what if using a backpack vacuum isnʼt practical for your cleaning needs? Quality speed canister vacuums can pro-duce the same deep clean while saving you ample time and money. Look for speed canister vacuums made with the same durability, quality and per-formance as leading backpack vacuums. These models should provide a sophisti-cated filtration system that keeps pollutants from leaving the machine — delivering equally improved IAQ. Circle Product Information no. 202 on page 34 36 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • April 2009
CMM – Archives Apr 2009: 36
