Floor and Carpet Maintenance

We all know the term “First Impressions Count” and that applies to your office or other workplace as well, doesn’t it?

Well let’s face it whether you have a huge office block, a retail shop or a busy pub the floor of your premises is something that everyone sees and helps formulate their impression of your business.

That floor may be a solid hardwood floor (or even a veneered wood surface), carpeted floor, vinyl or a stone floor such as marble or slate.  Each has its own advantages and disadvantages as a floor covering but they also present us with different issues when drawing up a professional cleaning program that will not just clean your floor surface but ensure long term protection of your expensive floor covering.

Floors or floor coverings are expensive to replace. That’s why we at Coatbridge Office Cleaning are so interested in not just cleaning your floor but ensuring it looks maintains it high quality appearance.

For example many of our cleaning company competitors will tell you they will vacuum the carpet on a daily basis but did you know that the type of vacuum cleaner being used will make a difference to the deep down levels of dirt and grime removed. Some vacuum cleaners will do a great job of removing top dust and dirt but leave behind the grit which will continue damaging your carpet every time someone walks over it. For more information on cleaning carpets go to our carpet care pages.

We recommend a two pronged approach to virtually every cleaning job.

We want to give you high quality cleaning on a day to day appearance but also to help you save money in the longer run by protecting your floors.

Cleaning Wooden Floors

With wood floors too much cleaning using a damp mop can lead to internal wood damage and mean early replacement. If the top surface is okay and the wood is properly protected this will not be a problem for you but if your cleaning company is using a cleaning chemical that is not specifically “ph neutral” then the protection will get worn away faster and the water will start to damage the floor.

It may look okay at first glance but we will always test the floor in both high traffic regions and low wear areas before we can safely recommend a suitable cleaning programme for you. See our section on maintaining and cleaning wooden floors.

Cleaning Stone Floors

Stone Floors can be very hard wearing but when damaged will be difficult and expensive to replace. I recently saw a stone floor in a pub following a major refurbishment where the building contractors had damaged the top layer of the stone by trying an “acid wash”. That floor was almost certainly permanently damaged unless a lot of money and time was going to be spent on grinding the top layer off and putting a seal on to protect it long term. But we will deal with the problems of maintaining and cleaning stone floors in the appropriate section.

Cleaning Vinyl Floors

Vinyl (or more accurately polyvinyl chloride PVC) can be laid in sheets or tiles.  When these first came out the backing layer was made up of asbestos but over more recent years this has been substituted by inorganic clay. Obviously if you still have the older version of PVC floors special care needs to be taken and we would recommend you allow us to carry out a small test if you are unsure of the age of your PVC floor.  Most cleaning companies will neglect to check this and can lead to your staff being exposed to dangerous asbestos dust in the workplace.

Again we will often suggest that a specialist strip and seal be carried out to protect the top layer of the floor especially if you are dealing with high traffic areas such as corridors, busy reception areas and areas beside lift entrances and photocopier machines.

Whatever type of floor you have in your workplace we can advise on the most appropriate ways of both day to day cleaning and long term care and protection. These two different issues can often be integrated into one cleaning schedule to give the most appropriate cleaning for your office or other workplace.