When it comes to floor care, building operators and maintenance crews shouldn’t underestimate the importance of entryway flooring and entrance matting.
“There are certain areas of the building you need to pay close attention to; number 1 is the entryway,” says Teresa Farmer, sustainability consultant at Kelsan Inc., in Knoxville TN. “Your entryway sets the standard for how clean visitors think the building is.”
Deploying 12 to 15 feet of scraper entrance matting outside a building entrance, and a further 25 to 27 feet of scraper/dryer matting inside the entrance, can capture up to 98% of the dirt on people’s shoes. But to make sure that all that matting keeps working as intended, building maintenance crews will have to do more than strategically place the matting – they will need to regularly maintain them too!
Effective cleaning programs go beyond cleaning chemicals and maintenance equipment; they also require setting up daily and periodic maintenance plans that include vacuuming mats and sweeping/mopping hard floors. Periodic maintenance includes things such as hot-water extracting entrance mats and installed broadloom carpets, polishing and sealing hard floors, and cleaning underneath entrance matting.
Cleaning underneath your entrance matting is an often-overlooked step, but it’s essential to the long-term health of your flooring and the effectiveness of your mats. Dirt and sand makes its way over time to hide between the floor and your mat, and effectively act as tiny little ball bearings when people walk over your mat. This causes premature mat wear, mat migration on the floor, and can even lead to slip and fall accidents!
While some buildings choose to use a matting rental program that collects soiled matting and replaces it with laundered mats, these mats still require daily vacuuming by your on-site maintenance crew. Oftentimes, rental mats fall into the “not my job” trap – the rental company won’t clean underneath your mats when they pick up and drop off, and your on-site maintenance crew might neglect to pick up and clean underneath the mats because they think the mats are the rental company’s responsibility!
We recommend daily dust mopping and/or vacuuming of hard surface floors such as stone, porcelain or ceramic tile to remove fine particles, and if necessary, using an autoscrubber. Because these areas are subject to high-soil load, most flooring manufacturers recommend using a floor cleaner with a neutral pH – but its always wise to check with your specific flooring manufacturer for their recommended care and maintenance products, especially if your floor is subject to specialty chemicals like winter ice melters or salt products.
Keeping your entryway flooring and entrance mats looking great is the best way to make a good impression with your commercial building!