Hand Sanitizers

Hand sanitizers have become, for want of a better word, epidemic.

OK - there is a better word - pervasive.

Basically there are two kinds - alcohol based and not alcohol based.

Alcohol kills most of the stuff we are interested in killing instantly.

Alcohol will also give you very scaly lizard like skin. Which can also be painful.

If you can use alcohol use it - if you are having trouble with skin reactions to the alcohol go find some of the water based variants. I haven't done the research (yet) - but I doubt they are as effective. Basically the 'instant kill' feature of alcohol means that you don't have to do prolonged hand washing with it. If using a water based sanitizer - read the instructions for how long it has to be on the hands to be effective.

The same cautions apply to sanitizing in commercial cleaning applications as to hand washing (prior post) tho - the minute you touch a contaminated surface, your hands are no longer pathogen free. No point in sanitizing if the next thing you are going to do is wipe your nose or touch a doorknob.

Bob

How to pick the right Ice Melters

We got our first ice storm since I started this blog, so it's time for this one.

First, if you want the whole story I recommend the Peters Chemical website - peterschemical.com. I pulled a great write up down from there.

They list 10 different active ingredients for their various purpose ice melters, as do several of the other manufacturers' web sites. hence they make money no matter what you chose and have no axe to grind re the different formulations.

Morton salt, on the other hand recommends sodium chloride (for obvious reasons).

Most commonly used are sodium chloride (table salt, rock salt, water softener salt, kosher sea salt, etc), calcium chloride and magnesium chloride.

Regular salt has two advantages:

1) It's cheap. (Well - it's cheap on a per pound basis)

2) If you forgot to buy ice melter it's on your table, in your water softener salt bag, etc.

It has two disadvantages -

1) It's expensive - if you are salting a large area some of the other formulations will actually do a better job with less salt - on a per square foot basis or as used basis - then sodium chloride. They are so much more effective that the higher per pound cost is more than offset by the higher productivity.

2) Kills your grass. Some of the other formulations don't.

The local TV station put their gardening guy on the other nite and recommended that you buy magnesium chloride formulations for this reason. Who am I to disagree ?

Not that it matters much but I learned researching this that ice melters don't so much melt ice as they undercut it.

What happens is they melt a small amount of the ice. The melt (salt brine) then spreads out underneath the rest of the ice and melts the layer adjacent to the pavement or sidewalk underneath the ice. It then becomes easy to scrape the ice, now detached from the pavement off to the side.

Cool huh ?

Bob

Odor control - daughter's cat

Ok - time to put my money where my mouth is - daughter's fiance is allergic to her cat. Worse, the cat finds the fiance's lap more comfortable than the daughter's, compounding the problem.

Bought two of the Newaire ozone generators for her apartment for a "cat christmas present". They are rated at about 500 square feet per install - basically a room sized appliance.

I'll keep you posted on whether it solves the problem or not.

I also hit on the idea of putting them on timers and only running them noon to 5 pm so that the level of ozone when daughter and or fiance are present is further reduced.

Supposedly you can run them 24 / 7 with no health effects, but if it'll sufficiently knock down the allergens / dander with no ozone exposure to humans whatsoever, why not do it ?

If it doesn't work they can always add hours incrementally until they completely eliminate any allergic reactions.

Bob

H1N1 - After the first round / hand washing

There was an article in the paper last week about the LACK of H1N1 outbreaks shutting down day cares. While expected to be the worst affected, so far, anecdotal evidence suggests that day cares appear to have had a similar or even lower incidence of H1N1 than schools, workplaces, etc.

The explanation given was that they did what everyone recommended and made sure the kids washed their hands thoroughly multiple times per day.

Cool.

Follow advice / read the instructions - no ?

There were multiple articles on exactly how to wash your hands in various popular press periodicals, as well as our janitorial trade periodicals.

The one I clipped said "do what mother told you", I.E.

- Thoroughly lather your hands with soap - soap is apparently preferable to alcohol based cleansers, but they are effective too.

- Wash for 20 seconds. 20 seconds is a VERY long time. The article I clipped describes this as singing "Happy Birthday" completely twice.

- Try to shut off the faucet with a paper towel so as not to recontaminate your hands at a high frequency touch point.

Remember also the talk about the flu having "peaked" current at this writing does not mean that flu season is over - usually there are multiple outbreaks, mutations to new strains, etc.

Keep washing.

Bob

ABM and the immigration raid.

First of all if you missed it ABM Janitorial had to discharge 1200 or their 4000 or so employees in this market last weekend because of their illegal status.

I assume the cross match of their social security numbers on ABM's payroll submissions triggered some sort of flag at the INS. ABM gave everybody the opportunity to correct any errors then discharged those who didn't.

First, ABM was 100% in compliance with the law. The law is an "honor system" for the employee - a contract cleaner can take the employee at his word that the identity documents being submitted when we fill out their I - 9's are legitimate. At this time there is no obligation on the employer to do a background check that might (or might not) verify that the documents were in fact "real" and not forgeries.

Second, the operative word is background check. At Coverall we do a high quality (i.e. expensive) background check on all new janitorial franchisees. Where merited or required by customers we require the janitorial franchise owners to do background checks on their employees as well.

It's been years since a franchise candidate investigation has turned anything other than a non - security related issue (we do get the occasional DUI - but unless a franchise owner will be operating a customer vehicle that poses minimal risk to the customer) but occasionally a franchisee employee candidate will get flagged for illogical or fraudulent immigration status and be disqualified from employment.

I have no opinion on the right way to proceed with the global issue of immigration reform, enforcement etc. From my standpoint, working exclusively with "legal" people, we are obviously at a cost disadvantage competitively to a variety of small competitors who aren't as scrupulous - but the big significant players like ABM are operating on the same playing field as we do, so we can deal with it.

However, if they claim they are doing a background check, it is obviously not as thorough as the one we get.

I pay about $100 per candidate to a company called "Orange Tree" - I recommend them to anyone, competitor or no. We have tested them against the (numerous) solicitations we get and so far they have been able to find some fairly tricky non security related transgressions better than anyone we have tested.

Of course, there are people out there who would "prefer not to know " aren't there ?

Bob

H1N1 - how long does it live outside the body ?

Up to 24 hours on dry non - porous surfaces.

Up to 72 hours in select moist situations. (Per Dr. Charles Gerba - Link )

This came up in the technical sessions of our franchisee meeting this week.

What is kind of interesting is we've done a number of top to bottom decontaminations of day care centers and educational institutions with flu epidemics - at considerable cost to the customer.

But if you can stay closed for 24 hours a lot of the H1N1 is gone. If you can stay closed for 72 hours it will all be gone.

While that sounds like a non - starter, if your facility closes for the weekend at 5 PM on Friday, and reopens at 8 AM Monday, that's 63 hours - almost enough for a complete die off.

If you shut down at noon on Friday, it's almost 72 hours.

And if most of your people have the flu, might as well ?

Cool huh ?

Until the first person sneezes on Monday and recontaminates the place ?

Which is why staying home if you have H1N1 is the best thing you can do for you employer.

(Never thought I'd hear myself saying that.)

Bob

Odor control bathrooms, etc.

Visited the Newaire people at the ISSA janitorial supply show last month.

Saw the whole product line - specifically an ozone generator designed to be wired right into a wall to run intermittently 24 / 7. It's about the size of a 4 plug electrical outlet.

Very cool idea.

They claim you could put it in a bedroom or other area where people spend long periods of time with no risk from the ozone - because of the tiny dose.

I wouldn't - plus it's probably unnecessary in those type of situations - not that much odor - usually.

But it would be great in bathrooms, kitchens, over a cat box or pet bed - areas that often generate odor.

Especially in an office or plant bathroom, this is a great idea - lots of people use those rooms - lots of odor generation - but nobody (we hope) hangs out in there for 24 straight hours - so absolutely minimal inhalation of ozone by any one individual - but it's working all the time to destroy odors.

Their car cigarette lighter ozone generator (similar to the old Sharper Image one) is probably a good idea if you travel with smokers - while a little more exposure to ozone would result, I'm guessing the ozone would be less risky than breathing in the second hand smoke organic solvents it neutralizes.

For more data on how ozone works, see my original post on ozone generators.

Bob

Carpet cleaning - how to deal with wicking

Wicking is pretty common in situations where the original stain involved a high volume of liquid. The liquid evaporates, but the color (coffee, soda, juice or some beverage usually) penetrates the underlayers of the carpet and spreads far wider than the visible entry spot.

Note the words high volume - a full glass of soda or a full cup of coffee - not a little splash.

We then clean the visibly spotted area - successfully remove the stain from the visibly spotted area - but leave the residual dyes, soils, etc all around the surrounding area.

The frustrating (but also kind of neat) thing is that when the underlayer soil gets moist again - often from ambient humility - it returns to the surface thru the entry point - not directly above the "well" of stain / source - and reestablishes the stain in the exact same spot and size.

Has something to do with the chemistry of the carpet - I've never seen an explanation of exactly what the process is - but I've seen the problem way too many times.

Now you repeat the cleaning of the stain - visible area only. It gets wet again at some later date. Process repeats.

Commercial cleaning crew frustrated - customer unhappy - not good.

Only solution I've been able to come up with is total war. Instead of cleaning just the spot, you:

A) Clean a wide radius around the spot.

B) Saturate the area with many times as much water as you would normally use.

C) Agitate aggressively with a carpet brush or bonnet (other posts) to emulsify / bind the soil to the detergent / carpet cleaning chemical.

D) Extract multiple times - possibly continuing to add more water - until the intake water no longer shows any color whatsover from the soil.

That said - 2 observations -

1) Water is bad for carpet. It's ok to put a lot in - as long as you take it all out. Well maintained carpet cleaning equipment with good water lift and multiple extractions are necessary to avoid damaging the carpet.

2) This whole time consuming and expensive process could have been avoided. If the minute the spill occured someone started blotting and kept soaking up the fluid with towels, cloths or paper towels and removed the majority of the fluid by blotting, it wouldn't have spread out thru the neighboring underlayer. Also, less total soil would remain in the carpet to be removed. Thus one or two treatments of the stain would suffice to restore the carpet to pretty close to clean.

Bob

Lunch rooms - how to choose the right type of floor.

Most people put either carpet or tile in a lunchroom.

From a commercial cleaner's viewpoint, the best situation is a little of both.

The "high spill" areas - the 2 feet or so around food preparation counters, microwaves, sinks etc should be tile - preferably ceramic. These areas will never look good with carpet as there are too many incidental spills to keep up with.

Unless the clientele spills a lot (small children, very disgruntled employees) the area under the chairs and tables should be carpet, as it's easier to maintain and has a lower probability of a slip and fall accident if there is a small spill.

Vinyl tile should never be used. Tough to keep a finish on it. In the "spill zone" the constant acid bath from food acids will strip the finish off the tile, hence my preference for ceramic. In the seating area the chair feet and table feet will strip the finish in a few days in most situations, also leaving an undesirable appearance, hence my preference for carpet, or failing that ceramic tile.

Ceramic tile is more expensive to install - but in a lunchroom the cost to maintain vinyl tile at a reasonable level of appearance is prohibitive.

Bob

Carpet cleaning - spot cleaning - general

You could probably write a book on this.

The first thing to remember is that spots don't get better with age. The sooner you attack them the less effort to remove them, and the better the results.

Ideally, the person doing the spill would grab a paper towel immediately after the spill and blot the fluid gently. Similarly, any food dropped on the carpet should be picked up or vacuumed up immediately before it can stain the carpet.

(By the way, few things annoy me more than seeing one of my operations guys drop food on the floor and then cluelessly ignore it - I haven't fired any of them for this - but I've been sorely tempted. More than once, I might add.)

Failing that, it depends on the size of the spot. I have separate posts for red dye and iron removal. Pretty much anything else can be removed with a general purpose spot cleaner or, if too large or too long set, carpet cleaning techniques.

For small spots - follow label instructions - which in general say spray the spot with the spot remover, give it a few minutes of dwell time for the spot cleaner to attach to / emulsify the soil, and blot with a clean white (no dye to stain the carpet) cloth. Paper towels are usually ok too - but a cloth is a little better.

If the spot contains too great a volume of soil for a general purpose spotter escalate to any of the appropriate carpet cleaning techniques I describe below.

(We do use a briefcase sized extractor for larger spots. It functions exactly like the bigger extractors - very little set up time compared to full sized equipment tho.)

You may also find that when you have cleaned the spot, you have the original color where the spot used to be, and darker, soiled carpet all around it. This means you waited too long to clean the carpet, and now it's time to extract the whole area.

Wicking is a separate topic I'll handle in a separate post.

Bob

Carpet cleaning - How to schedule - how often to do ...

It depends.

The first question is, how dirty does it get ? On the residential side, we have never worn shoes in my house, kids weren't allowed to eat in carpeted areas, no pets in residence and we vacuum pretty thoroughly - the carpets aren't dirty and don't need to be cleaned - never have been in 24 years. (They are however a very unfashionable '80's beige and pile)

In commercial cleaning world tho most people let their employees wear shoes, drink coffee at their desk, and so on tho, so eventually the carpets have to be cleaned.

Not all shoes are equally dirty however.

If employees walk in from a foundry, brick factory, metal bender, construction site, parking lot etc with oil, soot, dust, snow and mud on their shoes the carpet will get dirty quicker and need cleaning more often. Similarly in retail situations where thousands of people might walk in from a parking lot covered in snow, ice melting compounds, slush, or rain the carpet will get dirty faster.

That's why Target stores have tile floors in the high traffic areas - carpet near the entries would get impossibly dirty within hours of opening.

That's why factories, trucking companies, and so on also usually use tile floors or sealed concrete floors in areas close to doors used by production employees.

That's also why we use entrance matting (see separate post).

So the first answer is - don't even have carpet in situations where you are going to have to clean it frequently if you can avoid it - the appearance of the building and your costs will be better with some other type of surface.

Second, not all areas of the building get equally dirty. Hence the high soil areas need to be cleaned more often than the areas farther removed from entries and other sources of soil.

So the second answer is that you should schedule the cleaning of different parts of the building at different frequencies.

Third, winter is dirtier than summer in our corner of the world - so if you have a budget to clean the carpet twice a year you might do it in January and April (midwinter and end of winter) rather than in June and December (mid year and end of year.)

Once you get these concepts, the rest is just details.

For instance, in class "A" office buildings we often see a carpet cleaning program something like monthly cleaning of main floor lobby carpets during the winter, quarterly in the summer, weekly cleaning of any carpeted elevators where soil tends to get concentrated, monthly cleaning of any lunchroom carpets, quarterly cleaning of remaining common areas, traffic lanes cleaned once per year in the interior of the building, and on call or annual cleaning of offices and areas outside the traffic patterns.

A typical program for a single floor single occupant "B" building might be three cleanings of the lobby and lunchrooms in the winter, one or none in the summer, and a three year cycle for the office areas. The savings realized by only cleaning the low soil areas every three years pays for the more necessary and frequent cleaning of the high soil areas - a much better outcome than using the entire budget to do a once per year 100% cleaning for instance.

One can further modify (complicate ??) the schedule by adding less expensive "dry" or "bonnet" cleaning options in place of extraction for some of the interim cleanings. (see posts)

Just as an aside - I've never been able to satisfy myself that the extra carpet life you get from frequent cleaning of the less dirty areas saves you more money than it costs by delaying replacement of the carpet. Clearly the highly soiled areas need to be cleaned frequently for appearance reasons. Also soil is basically "gritty" or abrasive, and if not removed will tear the carpet fibers, accelerating wear.

Note also that frequent - daily or more than daily - vacuuming to remove the gritty stuff does more to prolong the carpets life than the annual "deep cleaning", but once the grit gets to deeply imbedded for the vacuum to remove, "remedial" or "restorative" carpet cleaning is necessary.

Bob

Back Pack Vacuums - how to test vs uprights.

There is all kinds of test literature telling us that back pack vacuums, besides being faster, also do a better job of lifting soil from carpets than upright vacuums in commercial cleaning environments.

Noone believes it - no beater bar ! - can't be true !

Including my janitorial operations staff - until ........

I split our lobby in half one winters day when there was plenty of sand in the carpet.

I vacuumed (had them vacuum actually) 1/2 with the back pack and the other 1/2 with the upright.

Then I went over each of the two just vacuumed areas with the OTHER vacuum.

No sound of sand being picked up by the upright - the back pack apparently got it all.

Lots of rattling in the back pack tho - apparently it was picking up stuff the upright had missed.

Lesson learned and operations staff convinced.

Bob

Microfiber

Actually I got my first microfiber cloth at least 15 years ago from a French 3M chemist that was visiting headquarters and tied in a sales call to my janitorial supplies distributor.

Was invented in France apparently - was kind of a product in search of an application for quite a while - assume it is off patent the last few years since all manufactures now make or source microfiber mops, dustcloths, etc.

For about the first 10 years the applications were limited to eye glasses cleaners - which worked nicely - I think I still have my original one from that meeting 15 years ago.

Turns out because of the topology of the fibers microfiber cloths pick up and retain something like 99 % of the dirt they touch.

This turned out to have application in the commercial cleaning.

This is way better than conventional dusting cloths, mops and dustmops.

Hence a janitor can get better results with one pass of microfiber than you can with multiple passes of conventional rag cleaning apparatus'.

This either gives you a cleaner building or a higher productivity from not having to repeatedly clean the same surface.

We've been standardized on microfiber for these reasons for over 2 years.

Only real issue is logistical (and financial) - standard operating procedure is to brush or wring out conventional rag cleaning mops and cloths. Microfiber won't release the soil unless you run it thru a washing machine. You have to either have on site washing machines you can use (not time effective anyway) or a lot of inventory in microfiber so you can go for a week or so, take them home, run a lot of them thru the washing machine together, and still have extra microfiber left at the cleaning customers' sites for that nites cleaning. After a short time tho, the higher productivity more than pays for the up front investment in extra cloths.

You are also seeing these in consumer versions in Target, supermarkets, drugstores, etc. Buy them - they work as advertised.

Bob

Windex, 409 and other houshold cleansers

Nothing wrong with them.

In fact, they are pretty much the same stuff as the commercial cleaning stuff we use.

Expensive tho. We buy glass cleaner concentrate for about $9.00 per gallon - dilutes out to 7 gallons ready to use - $1.42 per gallon or $0.35 per quart.

A short quart (28 oz) of Windex will run you about $1.50 at Target.

The math is even more compelling when you look at janitorial industry margins - a normal mainstream mid sized commercial cleaner runs a pre tax profitability of about 7 % of sales - and chemical and equipment costs are about 2.5 % of revenues. Quadruple your chemical costs and you are out of business.

(Cleaning Management Magazine and other trade periodicals publish these janitorial industry operating cost ratios from periodic surveys.)

For a variety of reasons our janitorial franchisees run (at least the data they are showing me) much higher ROS's - but the math is still pretty compelling.

That said, we can't convince everyone of this, so we put Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS sheets) for Windex and 409 in every building we start. You can get MSDS sheets for most such products at the manufacturers web site if you find something else you really like to use, by the way. Target however will just give you a puzzled look when you ask for an MSDS sheet.

And, since if you screw up your planning, realize you ran out of glass cleaner at midnite, further realize that the commercial chemical janitorial supply distributors all closed at 5 PM, and need to get some door glass cleaned, you can always go to Cub and get an emergency supply. So there is a legitimate need for these MSDS sheets.

Bob

Flu season - schools

Obviously schools and day cares are festering pestholes of infection.

Just kidding.

But the average office building has about 200 square feet per person.

I think in Minnesota you need about 80 feet per child in a licensed day care - about 2 and 1/2 times the density in an office building.

My parish school, is as I recall 24,000 feet or so for 320 or so kids. About 75 feet per person - again more than twice as congested as the environments where most of us spend our days.

Add in that half of this space is unused at any given time (gyms, lunchrooms, special purpose rooms / non - classroom space) and you can see that these kids are in pretty darn close proximity.

Thus, even with good hand washing discipline (unlikely) and repeated cleaning of "touch points" (see other posting ) there is still going to be a lot higher chance of contagion than in the rest of the world.

Probably the only place more congested is .........

..........drum roll..........

............... a medical clinic waiting room ?

There are studies tho that show a 30% to 50% reduction in absenteeism in schools that do a daily desk cleaning in addition to touch point cleaning with one of our strategic partner's (Kaivac) Kaifly horizontal surface cleaning tools.

Ooops - not in the budget - we're talking janitorial labor costs of $10 - $20 per classroom per nite - $4,000 per month plus for the school mentioned above - unless you get free labor - ? make the kids do it ?

Bob

Studies were done in Ohio - and they have been replicated elsewhere.

Flu season - touch points

You will read plenty of stuff about washing your hands frequently in the press - which is probably the number one thing you can do to avoid getting and transmitting the flu.

If there is a serious outbreak, I'm thinking of giving my employees those little fabric type surgical masks that Japanese tourists wear when they go to third world countries (like Minnesota - saw a bunch of them in the airport wearing 'em the last time I picked someone up - didn't realize this town was so dangerous.)

(Subsequent development = I just saw that H1N1 is too small for the cheapy masks pores - you have to buy the $5 mask instead of the $.50 mask to get pores small enough to catch this virus. That said, the pores are big enough to catch things like moisture particles from sneezes (in bound or out bound) that contain and spread the virus. Limiting access to the substrate that contains the virus can't hurt, so I'm leaving the above remark in the blog.)

Beyond that tho, our "Cleaning For Health" training protocol emphasizes focusing on "touch points"

-Doorknobs

-Towel holders - those laser towel dispensers are a great infection control idea,

-Faucets

-Flush toggles

-Light switches

Additional touch points are microwave and refrigerator handles, coffee pot handles, shared phone headsets, handrails and elevator buttons.

A) As a commercial cleaner these are things we want to wipe 100% of the time - whether cosmetically necessary or not.

B) As a user you may want to use elbows, paper towels, toilet paper, etc to avoid touching with your hands. Be especially careful not to put hands to eyes, mouth, nose, etc after touching "touch points" if we do get into a serious flu epidemic. This is one situation where those desk top hand sanitizer dispensers make a lot of sense.

C) Don't get too paranoid tho. These are "non - porous" surfaces in almost all cases. Most infectious agents can't live real long on a non - porous surface because of the absence of moisture and / or food.

HIV dies just about instantly outside the host. E Coli a few hours or a day or so later. Flu (the title topic) can live for several days tho, and hepatitis for long periods of time.

Bob

How to remove iron/ rust stains in carpet.

The most common place I see these is around metal chair or table feet that have been placed on wet carpet or had water spilled on the carpet near them.

The normal carpet cleaning options and chemicals won't pull iron out (or red dye - separate post) so you need to get a specialized iron removal chemical. janitorial supply distributors will have them, maybe some drug stores and carpet stores as well.

1) Follow label instructions.

2) Note with special care the instruction for removing or neutralizing the residual chemicals you don't extract with the stain. Iron removal requires acid. Acid strong enough to destroy your carpet. Unless you completely remove the chemical you risk permanent damage to your carpet. We are forced to use "hot" acids to remove iron stains from toilet fixtures and sinks - while not as aggressive as these acids, this stuff still doesn't belong in your carpet long term.

Bob

Hydrogen peroxide cleaners

I've seen a lot of data and have one acquaintance who owns a janitorial supply distributor and dumped all his other chemical lines in favor of hydrogen peroxide - simpler, safer, greener - etc.

We called several distributors in our market and they were all to lazy to work with us - and our collective spend is one of the largest in our market, oddly enough.

We finally found someone hungry enough to work with us and are testing some commercial cleaning products.

Bob

Red Stains in carpet

Normal carpet cleaning chemicals work pretty well on everything except red stains and iron stains (rust from the metal feet of a chair or table that was placed on moist carpet would be a common source of rust stains)

Red stains are of two types :

- Organics like fruit juices, red wine (probably most common) and tomatoes

- Non - organics like red dyes (including dyes added to apple juice to mike it look like a more expensive juice ) and medicines.

A ) Get a specialized red dye spotter targeted for whichever type of stain. janitorial supply distributors, many carpet stores, possibly Home Depot or Menards, and many better hardware stores will stock these.

B) Follow label instructions.

C) I'm told that the old "steam iron and a clean white cotton cloth" means of wicking the dye out of the carpet is no longer absolutely necessary - but that it still helps a lot. Any application of heat will speed up the action of most carpet cleaning chemicals, and the instructions may suggest a variety of ways to apply heat.

Bob

Wood floors - and bamboo - how to maintain them.

We don't clean a lot of wood floors. Generally, in commercial buildings they are in low traffic areas (tho some restored older buildings downtown have them thruout) like VP offices.

Usually we only need to mop them with clear water. Sometimes we add a little vinegar or some very mild form of acetic or citric acid if the floor is a little dirtier. I don't know any reason why you can't use detergents instead of acids except that I suspect the ph of wood finish is different than the ph of vinyl floor finishes and ceramic floors. My understanding is that this chemical inconsistency leads to streaking, hence the acid wash. Might also strip the finish over time.

Bob

Hepa - filter vacuums - defined.

High Efficiency Particulate Air - = HEPA

Rated at or better than 99.97 collection of particles down to .3 microns in size.

Not going to get virus' out of your indoor air - but will take the allergen level down a bunch - captures most molds, yeasts, and bacteria.

We are standardized on HEPA filter vacuums going forward - they are about 30% more expensive than standard commercial cleaning vacuums, but this is the way the industry is going so we might as well get ahead of it. We still have a lot of " legacy" older vacuums out there - but new accounts will get the HEPA filters, we require it for all medical facilities and areas where there might be compromised immune systems.

Since carpet tends to hold allergens, regular vacuums can at least theoretically degrade the indoor air quality by pulling the allergens out of the carpet, not catch them in their filters, and push them out in the air for us to breathe. Which, if you've ever walked behind a poorly maintained commercial vacuum will be no surprise to you. I'm not normally very sensitive to dust, but that will do it for me - sneezing fit ahoy.

If you are really serious about particulates - say in a manufacturing clean room or a surgery room janitorial project - you can also move up to ULPA filters - 99.99 % effective down to .2 microns. These will actually capture some virus'.

Bob

Carpet Cleaning - Time, Heat, Chemical and Agitation.

These are the 4 variables in cleaning a carpet.

The more time a chemical has to emulsify or encapsulate soil the higher the percentage of the soil will be transferred from carpet to chemical and removed from the carpet.

The more agitation, the more likely the chemical is to actually meet up with the soil and have a chance to emulsify or encapsulate it.

The more heat, the shorter the time it takes for emulsification and encapsulation to happen.

Similarly, very hot water can work in moderate soil situations with no chemical at all

The more chemical, the more soil that can be captured and removed with some combination of these 4 variables.

Dry methods use agitation, time and chemical in small amounts.

Extraction uses chemical, agitation and time.

Truck mounts often use only heat, but can use chemical and agitation in highly soiled situations.

Bob

Carpet cleaning - Shampooing, detergents, and resoiling

No such term as "shampoo" is in current use in commercial cleaning.

Generally, old time carpet "shampoos" were detergents.

We use both detergents and solvents.

Solvents are volatile and evaporate - so if you don't extract them completely - no harm.

Detergents must be thoroughly extracted to remove all residue as the residue will hold any dirt that gets tracked on afterwards - "resoiling " - the carpet.

Your daily vacuum cleaning won't break this bond so the dirt will stay in the carpet with the chemical and you will have defeated the purpose of cleaning the carpet in the first place.

Bob

In house employees versus contractors - how to decide.

Commercial cleaning really got started about 50 or 60 years ago. Before that almost all buildings were cleaned by janitors who were employees of the building owner.

Some still are - hospitals most notably, nursing homes usually, some specialized type buildings also still employ their own janitors.

Overwhelmingly tho, commercial buildings are cleaned by independent cleaning companies like ourselves.

Not for the reasons most people think. The perception is that commercial cleaner wages are so much lower that this is a pure cost of labor outsourcing decision - similar to sewing garments in China or Mexico.

Rarely true - for some big companies the hourly rates would be way above the rates contractors pay janitors - but hardly the majority.

The main reason for using a commercial cleaning contractor is supervision. A building owner must create a separate supervisory and purchasing and recruiting competence to deal with a separate janitorial workforce working a different shift performing a function that is outside their core competency.

First, cleaning is most efficiently done when the building is vacant - hence the need for a separate supervisory and recruiting architecture.

Second, cleaning is a repetitive, but not quite assembly line manufacturing process - namely it requires decision making about what needs cleaning and what doesn't to be performed efficiently - unlike an assembly line where every work element is handled exactly identically. Janitor work is more like construction - and one of the reasons those construction trades get paid a lot is that they have to make decisions as well as have strong backs.

Reinforcing the need for dedicated supervision - not just adding janitorial to the supervisory duties of a manufacturing foreman.

We've converted perhaps 1000 in house crews to Coverall accounts over the last 20 years - and on average we've seen a 40 % reduction in labor hours - 60 % plus increase in efficiency with contract supervision.

Usually with better outcomes / cleaner buildings - always with at least equivalent outcomes.

The cost savings come predominantly from efficiency.

Ecolab, 3M, Advance and Tennant are all companies in my market that have substantial expertise in cleaning (they manufacture the cleaning equipment and cleaning chemicals we use). They all use commercial cleaning contractors - does that tell us anything ?

Security is the other issue we frequently hear.

In house employees actually appear to commit more crimes than contract cleaning employees.

Repeat - using your own employees reduces security - doesn't increase it.

In 20 years I haven't seen a violent or property crime committed by a cleaning contractor employee severe enough to make the papers. Not one. I've seen at least a dozen committed by in house employees - and remember there are probably 3 times as many contract cleaning employees as in house janitorial employees.

I've seen two such instances - one an embezzlement - in the last 60 days by in house janitorial employees.

By the way - which is usually easier to fire - an employee or a contractor ? We have a situation with a customer in Prior Lake as we write this where one of their employees slipped thru their screening process with a prior rape conviction. Litigation is expected to take months. And lots of legal fees.

Enough on the security issue.

Finally "control" - I hear that having your own janitorial employees gives you more control. You either have much better control of your employees than I do, or are delusional. Probably delusional - refer back to my discussion at the beginning of this piece on the issues with supervising employees outside of your core competency on a shift where you generally don't have a lot of management people present. In theory this may be true, but my office isn't in theory - it's in Bloomington.

'nuff said,

Bob

Floor finish - when to finish - when not to finish.

Most people look at a shiny floor and think that the shine is the reason we finish (wax) floors.

Not true. Finish is an outer layer - the "hard chocolate outer shell" (with apologies to M and M's) that protects the relatively soft under floor from abrasion / wear.

Thus we only actually need to finish floors that are either :

A) Soft - vinyl, wood, etc that are subject to being worn thru by constant foot traffic.

B) Porous - concrete that is subject to staining when spills penetrate thru the surface and discolor permanently. We sometimes seal (finish) grout lines on ceramic floors for the same reason.

While you don't normally notice wear even on unfinished floors, it does eventually show. The most common example in the commercial cleaning business is a plant manager or security guard's desk on a vinyl floor with no chair wheel protectors under the chair. Eventually the wheels will grind right thru the vinyl to the concrete sub floor below.

This would take many more years on a floor that wasn't constantly abraded by wheels, but high traffic situations would eventually start to wear thru. Think of how many shoes with sand and grit in the soles go thru a Target or Wal - Mart store in a year for instance. Each of those is a little piece of sandpaper grinding off a little of the floor - or a little of the finish, if the floor is protected.

For the ultimate example google "Bernoulli" - Bernoulli's principle was derived from observing wear patterns in (unfinished) stone stairways.

As an aside, I've been told - but haven't seen the data - that an unfinished floor is MORE slippery than a finished floor. This makes sense - if you were a finish manufacturer (Johnson's Wax is the biggest) you wouldn't want to be selling a product that increases the liability for slip and fall liability suits.

When should you not finish the floor ?

When it doesn't need it - ceramic floors, some sheet vinyls in low traffic situations that come with substantial factory finishes (medical exam rooms) and most types of stone floors (separate post)

In fact if you do atempt to finish most ceramic and stone floors you will usually be disappointed in the appearance - finishes in general do not adhere well to ceramic floors. They flake off - after a short period of time the floor looks like it has the aftermath of a bad sunburn - mottled with little white loose pieces of "skin" shedding.

Nobody ever gave me a straight answer on why this is - my two theories are that the ph of stone is a little different than the ph of vinyl so there is a chemical reaction that delaminates the finish and, alternatively, that the finishes are resilient (like vinyl) unlike ceramic - so that foot traffic compresses and decompresses the finish on top - but not the underlying ceramic, so they separate. Doesn't really matter why tho - finish will separate from a ceramic floor, and you won't get the appearance you would like.

Bob

Floor finish - it's plastic, not "wax"

This really isn't all that important - commercial cleaners never use wax anymore - but purists will correct you from time to time.

Wax is used exclusively on wood - and even a lot of wood floors (gym's, laminates, etc) have plastic based finish rather than a true wax.

If you've ever tried to maintain a shine on a high wear surface (floor or table) you'd understand why - it is a massively labor intensive and frustrating process - the first foot to walk over the surface can blemish days of buffing.

I'm not a chemist - but the most common description of finish I hear is "metal interlock plastic finish".

That it's plastic does have some different maintenance problems (covered elsewhere) - but they are trivial compared to trying to maintain a wax surface.

Bob

Floor finish - when to strip and rebuild

Ideally you should never have to strip and completely rebuild a floor's finish - IF you do complete interim maintenance - including rebuilding the finish frequently with additional coats to replace the finish walked off.

And don't spill anything that can penetrate the finish and discolor parts of it.

And don't turn on the lights - UV light turns finish brown - eventually.

Since this never happens in real life commercial cleaners eventually have to strip all the old finish off - just like you would with paint or an old finish on a piece of furniture or molding in your house - and rebuild the finish.

The process is similar - the chemicals are different.

A lot of different things will strip the old finish off - alcohol (any organic solvent), high alkaline degreasers and "strippers" (the traditional option), very hot water (which is why janitors do their daily mop and autoscrub with room temperature water, not hot water) - but the best option is a "stripper" formulated by the same manufacturer as the finish, specially formulated to react with and break down the finish.

Did I already say I'm not a chemist? - I can't give you a whole lot about the chemistry involved - but I can tell you that spending a little more on finding a stripper especially formulated for the brand of finish you are trying to remove is going to save you so much labor that a little research in finding the right product is time well spent.

The process, once you pick the product is to thuroughly clean the floor.

Mop the stripper on.

Let it work for 5 minutes or so - to start dissolving the finish.

Agitate with a low speed floor machine.

Vacuum up the finish and stripper with a wet vac.

Rinse / vacuum up rinse water.

Apply new finish.

The process to rebuild the finish before it needs to be stripped is similar - scrub the floor clean - but skip the the stripper / agitation piece and go right to applying new finish.

Bob

Marble, Granite, et al - how to maintain and clean.

Marble and granite are both harder versions of limestone.

Granite is the adult stage - marble is the pupae - and limestone is the larval stage - if you want to think of it that way.

Granite is much older, much denser and thus much more resistant to foot traffic - thus it does not need finish and won't stain. Makes a great floor - expensive tho.

Marble is hard - but will eventually wear down - and certain types of soil will penetrate and stain it.

Limestone is much softer - don't see much of it in floors - mostly in walls.

Sand (silica and quartz), oddly enough, is much harder than both - hence the wear. There is something called the Moh's scale (named after a German Geologist) rating the relative hardness of these surfaces. Silica and quartz are a 7 - marble and granite are 3.5 to 5. Hence the harder sands abrade / wear down the softer marble and granite..

Marble can be restored by grinding with a diamond grit polishing pad (diamonds are a 10 on the Moh's scale) under high pressure when it does wear down - but it's an expensive process.

Ideally you'd like to have the stone visible on the borders or lower traffic areas and the granite and marble covered with mats or area rugs in the high wear areas to reduce wear and reduce the need for expensive restoration processes.

Bob

Carpet Dyeing - it actually does work.

OOOPS !!

Posted my (brief) remarks in the comments section below - not here.

Early post.

Disinfecting, etc.

All commercial cleaners "use disinfectants."

Almost no janitor truly "disinfects" tho.

Disinfecting requires wet dwell time - usually in excess of 10 minutes. If you see a janitor wiping a surface with a disinfectant soaked cleaning towel or spraying a disinfectant on and immediately wiping it off, it is unlikely that the surface was actually disinfected.

Because the disinfectant didn't ( and must) remain wet on the surface for 10 minutes - required to actually kill all the pathogens.

Disinfecting also requires use of multiple disinfecting agents - how many time's have you seen someone wipe a surface (even assuming they left it wet for the 10 minute dwell time) with one sort of disinfecting agent (say a quaternary ) and then followed immediately with a second disinfecting agent (say a phenolic) also allowing it to dwell wet for 10 minutes or so ?

Try never.

It's no problem to do this - that's NOT why it isn't happening, by the way.

It is a problem to get commercial cleaning customers to pay for it - you'd double or triple your cleaning budget - and the only places willing to pay for the required janitorial labor are surgeries where they actually cut into the body and very dirty procedure rooms like say procto rooms.

"oh my goodness - we're not perfectly disinfecting everything every day - then why aren't more people dying?? "

A couple of reasons.

1) Disinfecting means killing down to a very low level (near 0% ) of residual pathogens. Getting to 1% is not technically disinfecting, but it is 99% better then doing nothing. It's not, however, good enough with immune compromised patients such as cancer chemotherapy folks.

2) Most pathogens need food. We do almost as much to reduce infection with non disinfecting cleaners that are highly effective at removing the organic soils that pathogens live on (and the pathogens at the same time). Again - not necessarily good enough for the

immune compromised tho.

In fact, if you are not going to allow the necessary dwell time there is at least an argument that you are better off using a highly effective non-disinfecting cleaner than improperly using a true disinfectant that leaves more soil.

3) We are dying from this. After tobacco and obesity, hospital acquired infections are supposedly now the third leading cause of death in the US. Not as many varieties or as much severity of pathogens in the average office - remember who's using hospitals - so not as big a problem in most situations we see in our customers.

4) On a personal note - never be the last patient of the day in an out patient surgery. My old man went partially blind from an infection he picked up as the 8 th cataract surgery of the day - I'm pretty sure the other 7 didn't - and while we'll never know for sure that he wouldn't have been infected if he'd gone in at 8 AM, how would you bet it ?? Pretty profitable day for the surgeon tho ??

More to the point what time of day are you going to schedule your next procedure ?

I'll expand this to cover terms like "sanitizing" that are equally misused at a later date.

Bob

Why do Target Stores have pretty floors ?

Short answer = burnishing

Long answer = big budgets for shiny floors.

I don't know what the cleaning budget for a Target store is these days - but it used to be 200 or so janitorial hours per week. About double what a second class appearance like a Wal - Mart used to do - tho Wal - Mart's are looking a lot nicer these days, so I suspect their budgets are closer to Target's now.

Target stores will:

-Completely sweep and scrub all floors every nite with a machine called an "autoscrubber" - a kind of mini Zamboni that scrubs and vacuums up the mop water at the same time.

- Hi speed burnish (polish, buff - similar to a monster version of the rotary buffer you use on your car) every night.

- Replenish the finish worn off with daily traffic :

-Daily with a product called a "restorer" applied by the autoscrubber
-Weekly, monthly, as needed with mopped on finish in higher concentration.

We do some variant of all these on any hard surface floor - but Target is kind of the "frictionless example" in that they have a high need for this sort of effort because of the high traffic counts wearing off their finish every nite, and a willingness to spend money on janitorial labor to look "brand new" every day.

The more traffic, the more expense to achieve any level of appearance, including the high level of a Target store.

Cusomers with less need for "new look" floors and less foot traffic do exactly the same operations - just less often.

Bob

Carpet Cleaning - Dry Methods

Basically everything I say about bonnet cleaning applies to dry methods. Some of them are higher productivity than bonneting tho.

You will hear brand names like Host, Chem Dry, Whittaker and a bunch of others instead of "dry" tho - so when you hear a brand name it probably really means some form of dry carpet cleaning.

Extraction - either self contained or via a truck mounted rig will usually be referred to as extraction, or, improperly as shampooing.

The one difference is that while bonneting, properly done, uses almost no water and leaves the carpet dry in a couple of hours, dry products use no water at all and the carpet is dry immediately.

You first vacuum the carpet to pull as much dirt as possible out (also true with bonneting) spread a powder that "encapsulates" dirt - similar chemistry to the emulsification of a solvent or detergent carpet cleaner - and then agitate it with a brush system to get the soil to adhere to the "capsule".

You then vacuum up the chemical - dirt attached.

My bias is that this has a higher probability of leaving more chemical in the carpet, thus having a higher probability of resoiling than bonneting - but properly done with no overuse of chemical both should give about the same result.

Bob

Carpet Cleaning - Bonnet Cleaning

I happen to like bonnet cleaning.

I especially like it as an additional procedure to a normal extraction.

Bonnet cleaning involves putting a cotton pad on a low speed rotating floor machine and buffing the carpet just like you would burnish (see other post) a tile floor.

You prep the carpet by putting a traffic lane spotter on the soiled areas of the carpet and keep the pad wet so the friction of pad on carpet doesn't bring the process to a dead stop.

The knock on bonnet cleaning is that it's an interim process - it makes the top of the carpet fibers clean, but doesn't do anything for the soil trapped in the lower layers and pad (if any).

True.

So what ?

The procedure can be done very quickly with equipment that is available in most buildings and leaves the carpet dry so it can be walked on the next day.

It's also a good way to immediately remove spots.

The only real negative is that if you use to much chemical you will make the restorative procedure (extraction) a little more time consuming, and can lead to the same "browning" you get if you use too much chemical in an extraction.

Too much detergent will also lead to "resoiling" - since the detergent attracts soil to itself as a necessary part of the cleaning process, it will also continue to attract soil when left in the carpet.

As an additional procedure in an extraction, it's an excellent way to get "agitation" - one of the four variables in successful carpet cleaning without having to use a more abrasive carpet brush. A good bonneting will thoroughly mix the emulsifying detergent or solvent with the soil we are trying to remove - improving the outcome of the extraction without having to either oversoak the carpet or do repeated passes with the extractor to attain the same degree of emulsification.

Bob

Carpet Cleaning - Extraction

This is the restorative method of cleaning or "deep cleaning" of carpet and what most people think of when they think of carpet cleaning.

Basically you completely saturate the carpet and pad with water (and usually detergent or solvent carpet cleaning chemicals) to get chemical in contact with ALL soil anywhere in the carpet, emulsify it and vacuum or "extract" it.

Dry methods generally only get surface and near surface soil - not the stuff deep down in the backing and pad.

It is critical that the extractor be properly maintained and / or multiple extractions be done to make sure you get (almost) all the water out of the carpet. Leaving too much water in the carpet will rot it, delaminate it from it's backing, loosen the glue that holds it to the floor, stretch it , lead to mold, and all sorts of other bad things.

Do not leave the job until the carpet is dry enough to finish drying completely in a couple more hours.

If you have used a "Green Machine" from late nite infomercials you have used carpet cleaning equipment similar to most self contained extractors. They also put water and detergent down with a spray nozzle, agitate with a brush and vacuum up with a vacuum attached to the other end of the machine.

Commercial machines go from sizes similar to a "Green Machine" all the way up to self propelled units about the size of a small asian automobile - machines that can clean 15,000 feet per hour versus a few hundred for the "Green Machine" and a thousand or so per hour for a small commercial unit.

There are also options to do all three operations separately with heavier duty single purpose equipment - a good choice for extremely heavily soiled areas - similar to my reference to using a bonnet cleaning in addition to normal extraction.

Finally the alpha equipment is called a truck mount unit. Usually instead of chemical these use heat and are sometimes called "steam cleaning". Same result - heat is as effective, properly used as chemical at loosening and removing soil adhering to carpet fibers.

(It's not steam however - even when it leaves the heater it isn't steam, and when it gets to the end of the hose it's a long ways below F212/C100 - but it's still plenty hot enough to do the job, and to burn you - be careful. The suction hose used to extract water thru 300 feet of hose has one heck of a lot of suction too - you do not want to get your shirt, hand, etc anywhere near the intake - if you don't want to lose your shirt, hand, etc)

Bob

Carpets - Browning

Browning happens when you over clean a carpet and change it's chemical composition.

Detergent based carpet cleaning chemicals are alkaline - some heavily alkaline. Carpets are a little on the acid side of neutral. And, carpet dyes are a little on the acid side of neutral - otherwise they wouldn't work with the carpet fibers. If you leave the alkaline carpet cleaner in the carpet ( i.e. you don't rinse enough ) the dyes become inactive and what's left is usually something between a beige and a coffee colored carpet.

Best (worst case) example I ever saw was a large manufacturing company in the western suburbs that prided itself on it's ( large and expensive) in house cleaning crew. Every foot of carpeted corridor in the place had 6 inches or so of original color (some version of blue I think) along the walls and a uniform brown thru the middle of the aisle.

A soil pattern, by the way, will NOT be uniform - it will be darkest in the middle and progressively cleaner as you progress out to the edges (thank you professor Bernoulli ? ).

Told the facilities guy the answer -

1) Neutralize the carpet with a mild acid product. You can buy such "neutralizers" at your janitorial supplies distributor to run thru your carpet cleaning equipment. The old fashioned option would be to mist it with a mild vinegar solution. This should immediately acidify the dyes and fibers and restore the original carpet color.

2) Henceforth clean with just water - no chemicals - a few times. There was enough soap residue in that carpet to stop buying chemical for years.

He did. It worked. He got rid of the in - house crew and hired a cleaning contractor - not me unfortunately. C'est le guerre ?

Bob

Citrus cleaners

Citrus cleaners are one of the few "magic" things in our industry.

When you see the "Orange glo" infommercials on television, there is more than a grain of truth to their claims for efficacy on multiple surfaces and multiple soil types. There are also plenty of more concentrated versions and more targeted versions at your local janitorial supply distributor, Graininger, etc.

It's also about the only thing that will dissolve and remove adhesives - handy thing to know if you ever strip up tile or glued down carpet.

They also have the advantage of being pretty innocuous - I wouldn't drink them, nor would I recommend it, but they are one of the least toxic cleaning agents available. More importantly they are less likely to damage carpets or other surfaces than alcohol or detergent based cleaners.

Also recommended for any type of oil and grease stain in carpets -

Bob

Plant Cleaning - the "Billy Goat"

I ran into these when I was cleaning Federal Express' facilities years ago. It's a vacuum cleaner of sorts - looks kind of like an old Royal vacuum - after it's been on steroids and in the weight room for about 10 years. One brand is made by the "Billy Goat" company, but I think it's called a "billy goat" because it's big enough to gobble up tin cans. (Aside -- goats don't really eat cans - they eat the labels off the cans because they like the taste of the adhesive) Also used for small parking lot sweeping jobs, it's about a 24 to 36 inch wide vacuum with a mouth big enough to take in large debris, and a huge bag to hold the debris. Most of the ones I've seen were gas powered, so you can only use them in well ventilated areas. Although I think I've seen a smaller cheapie version at Home Depot recently that was cord electric - not sure exactly what you would use the little one for - maybe your garage at home?

Most of the battery sweepers we use really aren't designed for big heavy debris - or for irregular surfaces. They work best on sand, dust, road salt etc on a smooth concrete surface. But every once in a while you get a really nasty sweeping job and you need a "billy goat".

Bob

www.billygoat.com is one site

(for some reason my Mac doesn't want to paste it in as a live link - looks like you'll have to google it)

Entrance Mats - how to evaluate ....

3m can say it much better than I can - and have been for the 20 plus years I've been in this business.

That said, I've cleaned hundreds of buildings - by proxy anyway - and toured thousands in my job as sales manager. I've seen negligent, good and great approaches to matting entry ways.

The best investment you can make in the appearance of your building is a first class and sufficient floor matting system. For a few hundred dollars per entry you can potentially save yourself thousands of dollars of janitorial expense and flooring wear, tear and replacement.

And don't forget that a warehouse or plant entry, incompletely matted, can be more detrimental to the cleanliness of the building than an external entry.

US 3M Commercial Care: Entrance Matting

Bob

Odor control - Ozone Generators

These require a little more thought than most odor remediations - and a little more investment - ours are about $800 a copy.

They work great tho - you just have to understand the process.

Ozone is that fresh clean smell you get after a lightning strike in a thunderstorm. O3 to the chemists, it is three oxygen ions vs the 2 in O2 - the normal form of oxygen.

It is highly unstable in O3 form - it very quickly "bumps into" another O3 ion and makes 3 oxygen O2 molecules out of the 2 O3 ozone molecules.

Hence it is a potent "free radical" as they say in the health food stores, a likely carcinogen in O3 form.

This is good and bad.

It is bad if you are in the room when the machine is running - the O3 will also interact with the molecules in your body to form O2 and some mutant bad thing - at a minimum it will make you and your pets nauseous - which creates odors rather than fixes them.

However.......

If you are not in the room - it is good - it will interact with the odor causing organic substance and immobilize, for want of a better word and eliminate the odor.

This is why ozone generators have timers - you set the timer for a half hour or so (ours are rated for a 1500 square foot area in about 60 minutes). You stay away for an hour or so after the timer expires. After immobilizing all the odor, the remaining ozone will go thru the first process I mentioned - reacting with other ozone ions to form pure oxygen and "problem solved".

The machine itself is just two electrical plates a few millimeters apart that form little tiny lightning bolts in between when the current is on. Low tech - but real effective.

We've used these in all kinds of places -

- antique bathrooms where we couldn't trace the odor -the ozone will penetrate cracks in walls and grout and get at odor sources you can't reach with a disinfectant.

- carpets - same thing - leave it on long enough and it will penetrate deeply to immobilize / kill organics like mold and mildew.

- pet stains in wallboard - it won't cure the problem - but it will go far enough into the gypsum to buy you a couple of days peace for your pet allergic friends to attend your New Years Eve party. This is not an hypothetical - I've done this.

- new carpet odor - the odor is VOC's (you're solvent sniffing when you move into new plastic carpeted environs) and that is the "classic" organic chemical as your chemist friends will tell you. Ozone bonds with the VOC and basically makes it inert so it can't hurt you or annoy you any more.

I actually had an employee use it to "save" one of his adult children's houses. They had spent years and a ton of money remodeling an old house - and were all starting to suffer from allergies - sick building syndrome. They vacated the house for a couple of mornings one weekend - ran our generator on full tilt for a couple of hours upstairs, then down. Still in the house 5 years later - no allergic reactions.

There are also low power generators for continuous use in smaller rooms where people don't spend all day inhaling the ozone - like plant or retail bathrooms. They are made by a company called "The Ozone Specialists" under the brand "Newaire". I haven't used these, but they look similar to the ones that the Sharper Image used to sell in huge quantities, and people swore by them. I just wouldn't put one in a bedroom or an office where you sit and inhale it all day. I don't think they ever proved a link between cancer and ozone - and low exposure probably isn't much of a risk - - but I wouldn't recommend 40 hours or more a week exposure to any oxidants. They also make something similar to the old Sharper Image car deodorizer for people who smoke in their car.

www.ozoneexperts.com.

Pretty cool - huh ?

Bob

Odor Control - Mildew - Liquid Enzymes

One of the few occasions when my wife actually admitted I knew something about commercial cleaning was the summer the elementary school she volunteers at got water damage. They were remodeling and an unforeseen thunderstorm hit when the building wasn't properly covered by tarps. No serious damage - but when the teachers came in Monday for the final prep days for the upcoming start of classes the mildew smell was pronounced. The district employees extracted the water - but didn't really know what to do about the smell. I gave her 2 quarts of "liquid enzyme" and instructions to give them to the two teachers she was closest to. Simple process - you mix it by label instructions - usually about 4 to 1 with tap water in a spray bottle and wet down the carpet throughly with the mixture.

The enzymes are a semi - living entity that reproduce in the presence of a food source and moisture, and mildew fungi in carpet are one of their absolute favorite foods. Once they "eat" all the mildew, they die and basically turn into a very fine dust that can be vacuumed up.

The next day the two teachers using the enzyme had no mildew smell - the classrooms next door - not so lucky. Side by side testing anyone ?

Enzymes also like to "eat" residual tobacco odor, pet urine (ok - it was the second time she believed I knew wherof I speak - the first was a cat urine problem in the basement) and pretty much any organically derived odor cause.

I've also used it in conjunction with ozone generators in more serious and pervasive odor situations.

Non -toxic, environmentally ideal, a perfect solution in many odor situations.

Liquid enzyme is also the active ingredient or one of the active ingredients in some ceiling cleaning formulations, some over the counter cleaning products, certain carpet cleaning formulations, septic tank restoratives, and drain deodorizers.

As always - read label instructions - it's almost impossible to use this in a dangerous way - but if you don't get the dilution right it will be ineffective.

Bob

An Overview

While I'll opine from time to time, primarily this is thumbnail expanations of commonly occurring commercial cleaning techniques and issues for our janitorial franchisees, employees, and customers.

I also want to use this as a library of links to well written technical articles. Coverall North America's technical people are among the most prolific contributors to our several trade journals - and pulling as much of that wisdom together as possible in one spot should help all of us with our day to day operations.

Bob