Commercial carpets take a real beating. But that’s okay because they are designed to do so. Yet companies still need to take care of their carpets if they want them to last as long as possible. And that means scheduling professional carpet cleaning from time to time.
Cleaning the carpets is a normal part of office cleaning. It is considered a deep-cleaning task, meaning it is not done on a nightly or weekly basis. But how frequently should it be done?
In the Boston area, carpet cleaning is heavily impacted by a number of things. They include foot traffic, the nature of the business, and even the different types of weather we see throughout the year. So many things to consider make it impossible for us to offer a hard and fast number. But we can offer some general industry guidelines.
Standard Recommendations
Our industry divides workspaces into three categories for purposes of creating cleaning schedules. They are high, moderate, and low traffic areas. The standards for scheduled carpet cleaning are as follows:
- High Traffic: approximately every 6 months.
- Low and Moderate Traffic: approximately every 12-18 months.
High-traffic areas are common areas, break rooms, meeting rooms, etc. In a medical setting, patient waiting rooms and lobbies are also considered high traffic.
Moderate- and low-traffic areas include individual offices, closets, executive boardrooms, and the like. Just remember that the nature of a given business influences which areas are considered high, moderate, and low traffic.
Carpet Cleaning Is Deep Cleaning
The office cleaning industry considers carpet cleaning a deep cleaning task because it goes above and beyond mere vacuuming and minor stain removal. Carpet cleaning involves an industrial-grade machine that digs in with a combination of hot water, steam, and an appropriate cleaning chemical.
Given the nature of carpet cleaning, it is best to remove everything from a given space before the task begins. In a typical office setting, this means removing all the desks and chairs. It can be a huge undertaking, which is why so many companies are reluctant to have their carpets commercially cleaned.
Nonetheless, deep cleaning the carpets is crucial to maintaining long life. Otherwise, dirt and grime embedded in carpets slowly wears away the threads until structural integrity is compromised. All that dirt and grime act almost like an abrasive sandpaper that wears heavily on the fibers.
Now to Schedule Carpet Cleaning
There is no getting around the fact that professional carpet cleaning is inconvenient. But it is a necessary part of office cleaning. The inconvenience can be minimized with proper scheduling. Think of it this way: if you can schedule the work at a time when it will be least disruptive, you can minimize the inconvenience.
Let us look at a couple of examples, beginning with a restaurant dining room. Carpet cleaning would be best overnight. So, given that Mondays and Tuesdays are typically the slowest days in the restaurant business, it would be wise to schedule carpet cleaning to begin as soon as the dining room closes on either Sunday or Monday night.
In a private school setting, deep cleaning the carpets during summer recess is ideal. Cleaning the carpets Friday night into Saturday morning would be a great move for a medical office. The idea is to clean as early in the shift as possible so that carpets have the maximum amount of time to dry.
Professional carpet cleaning is an integral part of proper office cleaning practices. It is not a daily or weekly task, but it’s still something that needs to be scheduled regularly.