The Causes Of Flooring Failures

This article was originally published in Cleaning & Maintenance Management.

Flooring, whether it is hard surface or carpeting, is typically one of the most costly capital investments a building owner makes in a facility, and when something goes wrong, it can be another costly investment to repair it. A good example of this is when individual floor tiles or entire parts of a floor start to loosen from the floor backing (or substrate) or begin to buckle.

When this kind of flooring failure occurs, it is often blamed on poor installation. However—and unfortunately—the methods used to clean and maintain the floor can also play a role. And as floor installers turn to more environmentally friendly adhesives, which typically produce fewer volatile organic compounds (VOCs) than more conventional adhesives, these problems may actually increase.

Often, moisture, soil, contaminants, oils, salts, acids, small particulates and floorcare chemicals and chemical residues make their way down cracks, pores and grout areas, eventually reaching the bottom of the floor. As these build up under the surface, they can cause either the concrete or the adhesives securing the floor to break down. When this happens, tiles loosen and flooring failure problems begin.

A lot of this can be prevented by ensuring there is proper protection—a sealant along with adequate coats of finish—applied to the surface of the floor when it is first installed. However, this protection must be maintained because over time it typically wears away. And today, because many facility managers are choosing not to apply finish to floors, whether for cost or environmental reasons, flooring failures can be the result.

Check back next week to learn about various causes of flooring failures.

Five Cleaning Activities That Impact Health And Safety

This article was originally published in Clean Link.

Improving the health and safety of the public is one of the primary missions in custodial operations. This recent article on Clean Link identifies the top five activities cleaning workers can do to impact health and safety of the public. 

1. Train and re-train Hygiene Specialists (custodial workers) that their role is not cleaning for appearance sake, but for health’s sake. Workers should be trained on the science of cleaning and disinfecting.

They should understand that the custodial department performs both the clinical function of removing and inactivating/killing pathogens that could cause a preventable HAI (Healthcare Associated Infection). Workers also must understand the practical function of cleaning (no dust, no spots, no smudges, no smells all equals clean).


2. The cost of not performing their job as directed could cost the employer millions of dollars by way of lawsuits. Our patients enter our facilities worried about germs and about getting an infection. We can impact patient satisfaction by allaying those fears while communicating, “While I am here today, I am going to disinfect all the high touch surfaces in your room and then disinfect your restroom before I leave.”

The Hygiene Specialist can also impact HAI rates by doing a good job of providing a safe, clean and disinfected facility that could save their employer millions.


3. Train those who clean that there is a pattern for cleaning. That is, clean the room from top to bottom, and from the cleanest part of the room to the dirtiest, leaving the restroom for last. When cleaning the “patient zone” (the 3-foot area around the patient’s bed, including the bed rails), use a new, clean cloth. When done performing that task, ask the patient, “Is there anything I missed?”


4. Never double dip a cleaning cloth. Set up a clean bucket of properly diluted disinfectant at the beginning of the shift and then add 10 to 15 microfiber cloths to the solution. When it comes time to disinfect hard surfaces, merely reach into the bucket for a clean, disinfectant-charged cloth. Fold the cloth in half and then half again. As a surface is cleaned, unfold the cloth to the next unused portion. Keep doing this systematically until all eight sides have been used. A good microfiber will “catch micro-soils, but not release them."

Never return (double-dip) a soiled cloth into the clean solution because the disinfectant will become contaminated and less effective as time goes on. By utilizing this method, the same properly diluted disinfectant could last an entire 8-hour shift without having to be changed.


5. Using a quaternary ammonium disinfectant with retired cotton cleaning cloths (such as surgical towels, terry cloth towels and washcloths, T-shirt material) and cotton, string mops is counter-productive and dangerous. Unfortunately, this quat and cotton combination is used in most hospitals and hotels.

Cotton inactivates quat disinfectants by binding the active ingredients to the cotton rather than releasing them to the surface. This happens within 5 minutes of introducing cotton wipers or mops to the bucket of properly diluted quat disinfectant. In fact, you might as well be using water after 5 minutes because the ppm (parts per million) of active ingredients in the quat disinfectant is out of specification and in violation of US federal law.

Clarke Vantage 14 Scrubber [Video]

Combining innovation, reliability and performance, the Clarke Vantage 14 marks a breakthrough in daily scrubbing for small area cleaning. Never skip those hard-to-reach areas again. The Vantage 14's integrated rotating deck enables complete scrubbing in both forward and backward directions, allowing operators to easily clean under and around obstacles. Simply push the machine forward; then when needed, easily flip the machine up to allow the deck to quickly rotate for reverse scrubbing operation.

Hard Floor Cleaning Practices to Consider: Minimizing Building Disruptions

Equipment noise level is important. Regardless of the facility, using low-noise equipment enhances operator safety without disturbing building occupants.

Finding equipment that operates with low noise is preferable in many settings, especially in schools, hospitals, religious facilities and other noise-sensitive and high-traffic areas.

By utilizing such equipment, facility managers can thoroughly clean floors during business hours. This ability increases safety, since puddles, soil, spills and other potential hazards can be cleaned without disturbing building occupants.

Going Beyond Appearance

Given the cleaning industry’s technological advances, changing safety regulations and increased facility management standards, today’s maintenance practices go beyond improving a facility’s appearance.

By selecting the proper equipment, facility managers can ensure that modern hard floor cleaning values — promoting long-term floor life and meeting the immediate requirements of providing a healthy, safe environment — are being met.

Green chemical solutions, working to prevent accidents and minimizing facility disruptions are practical ways to exercise those values.

Hard Floor Cleaning Practices to Consider: Slip And Fall Prevention

Some automated cleaning equipment utilizes vacuum technology that cleans a floor with water or chemical solutions and then immediately dries the floor surface.

This prevents water and solution from seeping into a floor’s base materials, which can lead to long-term damage.

It also improves safety as reducing slip and fall incidents has become a serious concern.

As it has been reported, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), has even revised itsWalking and Working Surfaces regulations, requiring that facilities have an effective cleaning process and incorporate more stringent oversight.

To help ensure that the proper precautions are taken, the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI) — one of several groups that help identify key criteria that should be considered when selecting cleaning chemicals, equipment and procedures — offers independent product testing for equipment and product manufacturers.

One of NFSI’s tests evaluates products’ slip resistance, and incorporating the slip resistance test results with the product makes purchasing decisions easier for end users.

With the aid of such information, facility managers can select the proper equipment and ensure that the most stringent safety measures and guidelines are met.

Check back next week to read about minimizing building disruptions.

Hard Floor Cleaning Practices to Consider: Green Chemical Options

To reduce chemical waste and excessive water use, some floor cleaning machines include an onboard detergent dispensing system, eliminating the need for manual pre-mixing of detergent and water.

Equipment with onboard chemical mixing systems can provide multiple mixing options ranging from chemical-free, water-only cleaning to detergent solutions that meet the high standards of industries such as healthcare and education.

Typically, floor scrubbers dilute chemicals at a ratio of 128 parts water to 1 part detergent, which is appropriate for heavily soiled floors. However, facilities that are cleaned on a routine basis often do not require the use of these strong detergent ratios. Some floor scrubbers have an ultra-low mode that reduces detergent usage significantly to meet regular cleaning needs.

Proper chemical mixing not only promotes environmental and individual health, but it also prevents long-term floor damage and helps maintain floor appearance. This also minimizes operator exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.

Another equipment innovation, random orbital scrubbing, excels at both daily routine scrubbing and deep scrubbing that is capable of removing floor finish with water only, rather than using stripping chemicals.

These chemicals are some of the most caustic solutions that cleaning professionals use. The orbital scrubbing provides two simultaneous pad motions, a macro scrubbing motion and an orbital micro scrubbing, to accomplish streak-free clean using less detergent and water and fewer chemicals. This option reduces potential slip-and-fall injuries, chemical exposure and environmental impact.

Check back next week to read about slip and fall prevention. 

Hard Floor Cleaning Practices to Consider

Though there are many types of hard floors and a variety of building environments and sizes, there are a few common elements when it comes to modern hard floor cleaning.

The keys to current maintenance practices are promoting long-term floor life while meeting the immediate requirements of providing a healthy, safe environment.

To meet these principles, common practices include using green chemical solutions, minimizing wet surfaces for slip and fall prevention and minimizing any facility disruptions during cleaning processes or restorative maintenance.

To incorporate these values, facility managers must consider multiple variables when developing a contemporary maintenance plan, including staff experience and training, specific facility needs and equipment.

Enhancing Floor Appearance

Stripping and refinishing, among other project-based maintenance activities, are understood to preserve and enhance hard floor appearance, quality and durability.

However, current hard floor cleaning practices incorporate regular, routine maintenance to sustain long-term floor quality.

Although a mop can be useful for cleaning up isolated spills or for maintaining small areas, it can be difficult to meet the increasing health and safety standards using this traditional tool.

Thus, more advanced or automated equipment may be worth considering.

There are specific considerations that should be analyzed when selecting any piece of equipment that is intended to help meet modern cleaning practices.

Check back next week to read about green chemical options.