Don’t Bring the Outside in This Winter

Winter Cleaning Considerations

Some buildings experience winter as snow, slush and mud tracked indoors, where others contend with dust and debris. No matter what conditions winter brings to your facility, keep the telltale signs of the season outside. You can’t completely weather-proof your building, but here are some questions to consider to help keep evidence of winter conditions where they belong—and not on your floors.

• How much matting do you have? The ’15-foot rule’ recommends five feet of coarse matting outside your building to capture slush and dust, five feet of indoor matting directly inside your doors, and finally another five feet to capture the stubborn sand, snow, or other debris clinging to visitors’ shoes. Make sure you vacuum mats frequently, change them often, and clean them thoroughly – even using a carpet extractor to pull out all of the dirt that people track in.
  
• Is your daily cleaning routine keeping up with conditions? Make sure you’re cleaning consistently, especially in transitional areas where outside dirt can be transferred to other shoes and carried around a building. Scrubbers that pick up water and debris are a great choice – helping to eliminate dirt before it can be tracked around.
  
• Can you remove dirt before it gets to your building? Weather permitting, sweep outdoor surfaces to keep dirt from getting to your doors. Using sweepers to clean exterior surfaces helps improve perceptions of cleanliness, and reduces the amount of dirt you have to deal with indoors.

See if addressing these details can help reduce the amount of outside dirt and slush that you have to contend with in your building during these winter months.