hospitality case study Windsor Industries A soil prevention program can greatly reduce your cleaning and maintenance costs S Soil prevention is a critical component of a floor care program. Furthermore, sweeping is a vital, and often overlooked, part of inhibiting soil intrusion into a facility. Soil buildup increases hard floor mainte-nance procedures such as burnishing, strip-ping and finishing — all of which take pre-cious dollars away from your budget. On carpet, soil results in more frequent and intense vacuuming, more interim clean-ing and more extraction. Unlike hard sur-faces, damage to carpet is usually permanent. Prolonged soil buildup in high-traffic areas cause carpets to develop dull-look-ing grey areas called “traffic lanes.” Not only is this unsightly, but it, too, affects your budget. With the emphasis today on reducing costs and cleaning green, soil prevention needs to become the keystone of your maintenance program. Not only will it help to reduce your maintenance costs, but it will help you improve indoor environmen-tal quality (IEQ) and reduce your water and chemical usage. by implementing the sweeping pro-gram. When we annualized the soil intrusion and used the ISSA cost of $700 per pound to remove the soil, the total cost to remove the soil without sweeping was $40,040. Using the same calculation, the annualized cost to remove the soil brought in during the sweeping was $13,468. The yearly savings at the hotel would be approximately $26,572 for soil removal! How do you prevent soil from entering your building? By far, the most popular method for accomplishing this is through the use of matting. Another method often overlooked but that complements a proper matting system, is sweeping the soil so that it is not tracked into the facility. Sweeping walk-ways and parking lots helps to stop the soil before it reaches the matting. The proof is in the savings Recently, Windsor conducted a study to determine the effect of a sweeper program on the intrusion of soil into a local hotel in Denver. The study was conducted as fol-lows during the first week: • Matting was removed • Lobby area was divided into 3 equal sections and vacuumed daily • 12 feet from the door • 13-24 feet from the door • 25-36 feet from the door • Each area was vacuumed daily with a Windsor Flexamatic vacuum, and a new bag was used for each area every day • The bags were weighed before use and after to calculate the amount of soil removed from each area • Weather conditions and occupancy rates were tracked as well. The next week we began a sweeping pro-gram that included sweeping all walkways on a daily basis and sweeping the parking lot approximately 80 feet from the front entrance twice during that week. We then vacuumed everyday to deter-mine how much soil was entering the building. The results were dramatic. We achieved a 66 percent reduction in the amount of soil tracked into the facility Studies show that… • Up to 94 percent of the soil in a facility came in with foot traffic • It costs approximately $700 per pound to remove soil from your facility • As few as 1000 people per day, over 20 days, can track in 24 pounds of soil • Soil abrades the surfaces in a facility with the effect of 120-grit sandpaper • As few as 1500 people walking across a finished floor can remove 42 percent of the finish. A 66 percent reduction in soil intrusion affects your budget in many ways: • Finish lasts longer — less labor and chemical costs • Less burnishing — better indoor air quality (IAQ) and less labor • Carpet maintains its appearance longer — carpet purchases are generally a capital budget item, extending its useful life will have a positive impact on this • Lower expenditures on supply items such as vacuum bags — less soil coming in means less bags to capture it. Circle Product Information no. 152 This content was provided by Windsor Industries as part of a paid advertisement. For more information, please contact Windsor Industries directly at 1-800-444-7654 or www.windsorind.com. www.cmmonline.com 23
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