Whether you have laminate, Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT), carpet tiles, polished concrete, or tile flooring for your commercial flooring, your floor is likely to be affected by weather changes, especially during winter.
Leaving a floor without proper maintenance can lead to damage and unwanted maintenance costs.
Snow, mud, salt, and sand can be tracked onto the floors, causing dampness, stains, scratches, unsightly grime, and severe damage.
Fortunately, these easy-to-implement tips can help prepare your floors for winter.
1. Start with Risk Assessment
What would happen if a customer or staff member slips on a wet spot on the floor? What if moisture gets to the wooden floor? What will happen if the pipes freeze and burst?
These are all some of the questions that you should ask yourself when conducting a risk assessment on your floors before winter. No business wants to incur huge costs and losses in the form of lawsuits when accidents happen or on floor replacement.
Therefore, take time to assess your floors and identify all risky spots that need to be attended to before winter kicks in. From there, bring in experts to fix the issues to make your office safe for everyone during winter.
2.Provide shoe scraping points and mats at all entrances during winter
Entrance mats and scraping points allow people to remove slush and snow from their boots before they get into your office. This is essential because it prevents the tracking of slush into your office.
Slush is a major carrier of moisture and dirt and is a safety hazard to visitors and employees if not monitored. Slush and subsequent melt can cause unintentional falls and injuries.
3.Avoid salt
Salt accelerates the melting of snow and ice and is one of the most widely used elements during winter. Salt is corrosive and can cause unsightly stains on carpets, which are extremely difficult to remove without the help of a commercial cleaning service.
It is even worse on wooden floors. As the salt melts t, a lot of moisture is deposited on your floor, causing warping, deterioration and even rot.
A simple solution of half white vinegar and half warm water gently scrubbed on small carpeted areas can be used as an effective cleaning agent instead of salt.
A cup of white vinegar mixed in a gallon of water will eliminate salt residues on wooden floors thus preventing absorption of the salt onto the wooden floors.
4.Remove Sand
Once the snow starts falling, sand is also thrown on sidewalks and roads to provide traction on slippery surfaces.
The coarse grains of sand trapped on boots can make their way inside your office, which could cause severe damage on floors. Keep in mind that the sand particles act like sandpaper and will cause floor scratching. The scratches can leave your floors looking old and dull.
To deal with the sand scratches on your floor, hire a commercial cleaning service to vacuum and clean the floor regularly.
5. Seal the floors
Extreme cold weather can cause dampness and may lead to cracking of tile flooring. To prevent such damage from happening, consider sealing off any cracks on the floor. There are lots of flooring companies out there that offer good floor sealing solutions that you can use to accomplish this task.
