7 Tips for Keeping Your Commercial Carpets Clean
Commercial carpets are made in such a way that they don’t show dirt. While it may look clean to the naked eye, a commercial carpet contains a build-up of all manner of dirt. To always keep your commercial carpet clean, the following guidelines are highly recommended.
1. Maintain a Regular Carpet Cleaning Timetable
Whether you see dirt on your commercial carpet or not, it’s there. To be sure your commercial carpet is always clean, maintain a regular cleaning timetable. Whenever it’s due for a cleaning, don’t be deceived by how clean it looks. Regular cleaning of your carpet prevents stains from forming, especially during winter when carpet fibre tends to break down easily due to winter snow.
Don’t just vacuum it. Give it a thorough clean up to remove hidden grime. This will, in the long run, minimize maintenance costs and extend your carpet’s life.
2. Place Protective Mats in Strategic Places
Having protective mats where people can shake the dust or snow off their shoes goes a long way to keeping your carpet clean. Ideal places to have such mats include doorways and any other access point.
If no mats are placed at the entry points, all the snow or dust under your clients’ boots will eventually find its way into your carpet. Besides, floor mats may prevent slip-and-fall accidents and also protect your floor wear and tear.
3. Implement Simple Solutions
Some of the most effective methods of protecting your carpet are the most obvious. A simple sign such as “Wipe Your Feet” can be very effective in deterring people from messing up your carpet. You can also have a boot tray next to doorways and encourage people to remove their boots and leave them at the door.
Another simple strategy is to make sure that sidewalks and pathways leading to your establishment are scraped clean to minimize the amount of dirt that may find it’s way into your building.
4. Clean Up Spots and Stains Immediately
If something spills onto your carpet, and it will, the likelihood of spots and stains is very real. The only difference between a stain and a spot is time. That spot, if not dealt with immediately, will develop into a stain, which is much more difficult to remove.
You should carefully clean the affected area using a soft cloth, sponge or paper towel to absorb as much of the spill as possible. Avoid wiping or rubbing as this may spread the mess.
5. Pre-Spray the Carpet with a Cleaning Solution
Make sure that the chemicals used to clean your carpet do not leave sticky residues that end up collecting even more dirt and messing up your carpet. As a rule, only use diluted gentle chemicals that break down sticky, oily dirt stains.
6. Pre-Vacuum Your Carpet to Remove Dry Soil Before Cleaning It
All carpeted areas should be vacuumed daily. Dirt when immediately removed comes off easily. However, if allowed to accumulate and get embedded into your carpet, cleaning it becomes a much harder task. Pre-vacuuming makes deep cleaning easy and more effective.
7. Get Your Team Trained on How to Clean Commercial Carpets
Have your team trained on how to effectively clean your carpets. However, don’t allow them to conduct trial and error training with your carpet. Let them first learn how to effectively clean a commercial carpet before they actually do it themselves. You could bring a professional carpet cleaner to demonstrate how to clean commercial carpets.
Keeping your office carpets clean requires a combination of strategies. The most important of these is to have a maintenance and office cleaning schedule that ensures that your carpets do not accumulate dirt.