Floor care is continuous—from the moment a new floor is installed to its eventual replacement five, 10, or 20 years down the line, the work never stops. High foot traffic, tracking of water, dirt and debris, spills, stains, and more can significantly impact the appearance and longevity of any flooring. Floor care professionals are tasked with the daunting job of ensuring floors last as long as possible and look excellent throughout their lifespan.
The appearance and cleanliness of floors are especially important in educational facilities management, where the goal is to create spaces that students, teachers, and school staff can be proud of. It’s also crucial to ensure that floors remain clean and free of debris for optimal safety.
Some of the largest obstacles in floor care include:
- Learning how to identify floor types by sight;
- Understanding how each floor type is maintained; and
- Ensuring the chemicals needed for floor care are mixed properly every time they are used to clean, strip, wax, or perform other maintenance.
These challenges are easily overcome by consistent, quality training and mentorship within organizations and the industry as a whole.
Learning Floor Care Processes
To learn how to effectively care for floors—whether you have no experience and are approaching floor care for the first time or have years of experience and are approaching a new floor type—find a training opportunity and ask questions.
For custodial professionals, the first opportunity for floor care should come with appropriate training alongside an experienced professional. Because different floors require different care steps, you will need to learn more about the types of floors you will work with and how to identify a floor type by sight, which is often information that is passed down through a team.
Next, you’ll need to understand the chemicals and equipment appropriate for specific types of floors and the best process for the required regular and special care.
Adequate training protects the longevity and structure of the floors you care for and the safety and well-being of your team.
Tips and Tricks for Floor Care Professionals
1. Minimize Impact with Adequate Planning
In order to achieve optimal results, an eye for detail is essential from the planning stages, before the work begins, to the finishing touches. Without meticulous planning, cleaning, preparation, and execution, results will be lackluster.
In the planning stages for floor care, consider timing and traffic:
- How long will it take to complete the required care?
- Can work be completed overnight when foot traffic is limited?
- If floors will be inaccessible to traffic for a prolonged period, when can it be scheduled to minimize the impact on people who live, work, or learn in that space?
In education spaces, large floor care projects are often scheduled for winter, spring, and summer break periods. If the facility cannot be closed, the best practice is to consider working in phases and determining alternate pathways for foot traffic within the building.
2. Don’t Neglect Proper Cleaning Procedures
A perfect base clean is essential when preparing for major floor work like stripping and waxing. When scrubbing the space, pay close attention to corners and edges. If you are planning to clean walls, do it ahead of stripping and waxing to prevent chemicals from being sprayed on a freshly waxed floor.
One of the best ways to ensure a perfect finish when waxing is to use clean water to mimic the look you will see after waxing. If you ever doubt your cleaning, do everything required—scrub the space, clean edges and corners, and pay close attention to detail. Next, mop the floor with clean water—how it looks wet is how it will look once you’ve put the wax on. If you aren’t confident in how it looks, go back and clean again.
3. Take Pride in What You Do
Arguably, the most important part of floor care is doing it consistently and well. Floor care can be repetitive, tedious, and time-consuming. As a floor care professional, always take pride in what you do—when you care, your work will show it.
Clean floors are more than just something nice to see when stepping into a building—they create a lasting first impression and a sense of pride in the space. Above all else, clean, well-maintained floors keep people safe. While floor care presents various challenges, a job well done is something to be proud of for building visitors and floor care experts.
Cindy Espinosa is a resident regional manager with SSC Services for Education in Denton, Texas. She has worked with SSC for over 17 years, and her hands-on experience and extensive training have allowed her to become an expert in all things floor care.