Tag Archives: Cleaning

How Often Should I Clean My Floors?

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Throughout the years, we have received a lot of questions about how often floors should be cleaned in an office or facility setting. To answer this, there are several key factors to take into consideration that are going to affect the frequency of this. Hopefully by reading this it will help give you pointers for you determine an ideal frequency to have your floors cleaned.


Factors to Determine Frequency


Traffic
The frequency is largely dependent on how much traffic there is in each area of your office or facility. The most common used areas in your office are:
-Entryways and exits-Primary hallways -Main stairwells
These areas are going to need more frequent cleaning. You do not want clients or even potential clients to walk through a dirty office when they stop by to visit. With that, your office employees and team members do not want to walk through a dirty office with messy or beat-up floors. There are also going to be lower traffic areas that do not need to be touched as often, but the areas with the most frequency will dictate how often you will want to get your floors cleaned.


Activity
There may be areas that get a lot of activity but not a lot of foot traffic. Think of areas like kitchens or conference rooms. These areas will have people sitting in them but not necessarily a lot of walking around. These areas while not a lot of foot traffic are still prone to having scuff marks say from chairs, spilled beverages or food. This is what is called a high level of personnel activity that is going to lead to more frequent cleanings versus areas that do not have as much use.


Floor Mats/Matting
A determining factor that is also going to determine how often to sweep/clean your floors is the number of floor mats or “runners” located throughout the facility. Floor mats tend to keep floors relatively clean which will then reduce the cleaning work and frequency of the cleaning. You will typically find these located toward the front entryway and around the office with areas that have access to the outside as a place to wipe your feet when entering the office or facility. This lessens the chance of people entering tracking mud and dirt throughout the entire office.


Sealed/Unsealed Flooring
Knowing what your floors are made out of will help you also determine the frequency of having your floors cleaned. As an example, sealed floors offer far greater protection against things such as spills, scuffs, scratches etc. When you have unsealed floors, the floors will be much for susceptible to these types of damage that could lead to permanent damage over time. These types of floors will need to be maintained much more frequently versus sealed flooring.


As you can see, there are multiple different determining factors that come into play when trying to figure out how often you should have your floors maintained. There will be areas with much more frequency than other spaces, areas with more activity, and even the types of flooring. It is recommended to maintain your floors on a weekly basis and figure out what frequency works best for your office/facility. We get it, you simply don’t have the time to constantly maintain all of this on top of the other thousand tasks you need to worry about. This is why maintaining your floors professionally will behoove you in the long run with saving you both money and time!

Types of Services Offered By Janitorial Companies

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It seems like a pretty simple question and answer don’t you think? Well, that’s because it is, but this post will help you better understand some terminology used in the industry. You may come to realize that janitorial companies may be able to provide more services than you ever would consider.


As you look around the industry you will notice many companies refer to themselves as “building service contractors”, “commercial janitorial services”, “custodial services”, or even just “commercial cleaning services”. To put it simply, there is not much of a difference at all with these “labels” if you will. Mainly, it depends on who is asking for the services. For example, schools ask for “custodial services”, medical facilities ask for “housekeeping services”, commercial office buildings may ask for “cleaning services” or even “janitorial services” for manufacturing plants and warehouses. These are all interchangeable terms for the most part.

Services

Daily Service – Anything that involves ongoing, daily, routine care of the facility. These tasks are broken into four primary categories and usually outlined in the scope of work on the proposal document:

  • Trash removal
  • Routine floor care
  • Dusting and wiping surfaces
  • Restroom/breakroom services – this includes everything listed above, in addition to replenishing consumable products (toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc.)

Day Porter Service – This is most common with facilities that have a large number of daily users of the building. This includes employees, visitors, students, patients, etc. A Day Porter cleans and keeps things “tidy” in high use areas throughout the day. These spaces can be lobbies, common areas, restrooms or breakrooms, kitchens, cafeterias, outside areas.


Disinfecting Service – This has always been an important offering of janitorial companies with disinfecting high touch areas/surfaces to reduce the spread of viruses. It just so happens that COVID-19 has pushed this into the forefront of everyone’s minds.


Hard Surface Floor Restoration – Periodically, restoration services will be needed to protect and maintain certain floor surfaces. Some hard surface floors that need maintenance include but not limited to vinyl composite tile (VCT), ceramic tile, wood, concrete, terrazzo. Some of the terminology used for these restoration services are “strip and wax”, “recoating” or “deep scrubbing”.


Carpet Restoration – Just like hard surface flooring above, carpeted flooring surfaces also require periodic work. I know what you may be thinking right off the bat. No, carpet shampooing is NOT what is performed by commercial cleaning companies. Instead, carpets are normally cleaned through processes such as encapsulation, bonnet cleaning or even dry carpet cleaning.


Window Cleaning – For the most part, the cleaning of entryway doors and interior glass (office partitions, etc.) is all part of the daily services. However, the cleaning of exterior windows (inside and outside) are usually listed as a separate service. There is a specific deionizing cleaning system that eliminates water spots when it comes to exterior windows.


In conclusion, when you are in your search to outsource your cleaning services, make certain you are inquiring about a detailed list of service offerings as well as coming up with a plan for scheduling these project-based services.

Helpful Tips For Disinfecting Your Office

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As offices start to reopen in the midst of Covid-19, we all must do our part in slowing its spread. This all starts with safe and informed cleaning practices. Cleanliness has always been important to maintaining good health, job performance, and the satisfaction of employees in the office. Today, there is a more particular emphasis to this, showing that the transmission of disease in the workplace through surface contact is a real threat. In some more extreme cases, it can shut down an entire operation.


This blog will provide helpful tips for disinfecting your office. Following these tips and guidelines will help ensure you keep your business running smoothly, and more importantly your employees safe.


How and When to Clean
“Cleaning” is essentially referring to the use of detergent or soap mixed with water to remove germs from surfaces. This will reduce the risk of spreading infectious diseases. Yes, cleaning removes dirt, grime and debris as well as reducing germs, but it does not necessarily kill the germs.


Cleaning should take priority for everyday office use. Per the CDC guidelines, it is recommended for daily cleaning even when there are no potential instances of infection. Hight touch surfaces, which we will go more in depth below, should be cleaned regularly. If an office co-worker is sick, you may want to add a time to disinfect these surfaces as well.


Disinfect High Touch Surface Areas


Bacteria and viruses alike can live on surfaces on a number of different materials. For example, Covid can live on plastic for as long as 3 days! With this, comes a high risk of spreading infection on high touch surfaces by employees. If there is a sick employee, it is important to disinfect these high touch surface areas throughout the day:


-Doorknobs

-Desk, tables, and countertops

-Computer monitors, mice and keyboards

-Shared office equipment (fax machines, printers, phones)

-Light switches

-Elevator buttons

-Faucet handles and toilets

-Breakroom equipment (vending machines, coffee makers, etc.)


Maintain a Safe Office Space


Safe habits are essential in preventing the spread of Covid-19 or any disease for that matter. To keep the office running without exposure – or to limit exposure at the very least – make sure you remember 2 things: isolating and reacting to instances of illness. Below are a couple ways to maintain a safe and germ-free work space.


Hand washing is and will continue to be the best way to prevent the contraction and/or spread of germs. Regularly communicate what the best practices are to employees. As needed, employees should be washing their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.


It is also important to keep cleaning supplies and disinfecting wipes available. It is crucial to react quickly to sickness. Always maintain a log of your cleaning supplies so you have them properly stocked at all times. What has been seen more and more, and is a great idea as well is to install hand sanitizer stations in convenient locations along with disinfecting wipes to encourage their use.

What Are the Reasons For A Site Visit

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One of the most important steps in the sales process for any commercial cleaning company in general is a site visit and/or a tour of your facility. Yeah, it is possible to receive a pricing proposal from your potential vendor within reason without even laying eyes on your facility, but how accurate will the results be? Below, we will discuss a little deeper about the purpose of a site visit along with some best practices to prepare for the visit.


Purpose of the Visit


– 90% of the costs affiliated with a commercial cleaning program stem from direct labor and labor related costs.

-Obtaining the most accurate number of labor hours needed to properly meet your expectations is single handedly THE most important factor when estimating the cost to clean your facility. -Seeing your facility first hand helps us create the most personalized experience possible!


What Items are Cleaning Vendors Seeking to Discover?


– Space density: This is essentially looking for the “tightness” of the area needing cleaning. A perfect example would be a call center office type. An office with cubicles everywhere tends to be very dense. Denser spaces tend to take more time to clean due to reduced efficiencies.

-Working Conditions: While not necessarily having a direct impact on the number of hours needed to clean, it could play a part in the wages needed to attract cleaners to work in certain conditions. This typically is the case with certain places like manufacturing facilities where working conditions may require extra personal protection equipment.

-Flooring Types: One of the main parts of any commercial cleaning program is, you guessed it, cleaning your floors! Cleaning companies need to see what types of flooring (i.e., carpet, tile, wood, etc.) are in your space along with measurements of each type. Hard surface flooring generally takes longer to clean with sweeping and mopping as opposed to carpeting which typically requires only vacuuming.

-Current State of Cleanliness: Potential cleaning vendors tend to look for a couple of items here. Firstly, they will look to see if the space/building has been cared for well. If not, it will require more labor time to bring the space back to a manageable level. Secondly, as stated above, cleaning companies want to assess your expectations. If there is a very high level of cleanliness expectations, then this will come into play when developing an estimate for work hours needed.

-Location and Size: This one is pretty simple, how big and how spread out are the spaces. Things a cleaning company must consider is how much time a cleaner will spend traveling from one space to the next or one building to the next and so on.


How You Can Help Making the Site Visit Productive and Efficient.


-Directions/Instructions: It can be helpful to provide some things to the potential vendor prior to the visit such as where to park or enter the building, who to ask for upon arrival, and any visitor safety requirements.

-When to Clean: It is good practice to help prospective cleaning vendors when you desire to have your space cleaned, even though your may have an RFP (request for proposal) that covers this. This would cover if you wish to have your space cleaned after hours, weekends, requiring a day porter during the specific days, etc.

-What to Clean: Circling back, you may have already provided this summary of work to potential cleaning vendors. This is very important to help understand what you wish to have serviced and how frequently. A good example of this would be, some places wish to have their bathrooms cleaned every day or every service, while let’s say dusting would only be required on a weekly basis.

-Specific Information: This would entail any unique and specific information pertaining to YOUR location and YOUR needs. Certain types of buildings require specific needs that others do not require. Or even just something that is a nuance to you that you wish was fixed and never has been.

FAQs With BCS

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Purchasing a janitorial service can come with a high degree of risk. Here at BCS Facilities Group, we strive to help build YOUR trust while reducing as much risk as possible. Below is a compiled list of the most frequently asked questions received during the purchasing process. If you are unable to find an answer to your questions, please do not hesitate to contact us here.


Service

How much notice do you need to get started?

Typically, we require at least 3 weeks to launch our services in order to properly staff your facility so we can accommodate your needs as efficiently as possible.
What types of services do you provide?

While we specialize in daily/weekly janitorial services, we are well versed in carpet cleaning, tile maintenance, window washing, as well as disinfection services.
Do you supply all of the equipment?

This will vary on a case-by-case basis. We leave this up to you and what is preferred by you. We are fully capable of providing all equipment and cleaning products for the cleaning of your facility.

Personnel

Who will I contact if there is a problem?

Your account holder. BCS prides itself that you will NEVER have to worry about who to contact as your point of contact will never change from day 1.
What happens if we don’t like one of your employees?

If there is an issue with one of our employees cleaning your facility, we will make certain to make the necessary changes where need be in staffing your facility. We at BCS pride ourselves on providing the best customer service in the industry.
How many people will you have in my facility?

The answer to this varies by each facility after the initial and final walkthroughs are completed. Once we have a good outlay of your facility and have a clear understanding of the desired services, we will inform you of how we will staff your facility and an estimate of how long the process will take.


Company

How long have you been in business?

BCS Facilities Group was founded in 1987 and since then has been perfecting the science of facilities maintenance.


Are you local/regional?

Yes. We are a local family owned and operated commercial cleaning company based out of Newtown, Pennsylvania servicing Eastern PA, New Jersey and Delaware. BCS is in what we like to call the “Goldilocks zone” of janitorial cleaning companies
How is your company different from all of the others?

Probably one of the most important questions ever asked. We are not just a janitorial service. It goes deeper than that here at BCS. Our main priority is building your trust, reduce risk, give you peace of mind. We take care of your business so you don’t have to! We view ourselves as an extension of your staff and a partner that will provide you a place that you can be proud of.

Top 5 Cleaning Myths You NEED to Stop Believing

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It seems that today more than ever we are bombarded with different so called “hacks” that help create some form of short cut for even the simplest of things. Cleaning being one of the most popular out there! Whether you are clicking on a random article on the front page of Yahoo, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter you name it it’s on there. Now, most of these are meant to be for a “that’s pretty cool I might give that a try!” type of response and I’m sure we’ve all tried at least one of these so-called hacks at one point in time.
Read on as today I will be putting on my fancy “myth buster” hat to debunk some of these outrageous myths on cleaning that could be doing you more of a disservice than actually helping. Because who wants to live by taking short cuts in life am I right?

Vinegar is an Effective and Appropriate Cleaner for All Surfaces This one is a popular one that I have been seeing float around the internet and this is a huge NO! While vinegar may be able to help with certain tasks like removing grime on certain surfaces, it is not appropriate for everything. It can cause damage or corrosion to metal, glass or even certain ceramic and stone surfaces due to the acidic acid in the vinegar. It can strip the wax on the wax floors and even unseal tile grout over time. Pete He, PhD, the chief scientist and co-founder of Dirty Labs also notes that the EPA does not recognize vinegar as an antimicrobial agent for sanitization or disinfecting.
Using Newspaper to Clean Windows and Mirrors Another NO! This myth used to have some validity to it as newspapers used to be made with thicker paper than what they’re made with today. The thinner newspapers today will quickly deteriorate when they are wet and leave spots on your glass mirrors or windows. As if we all want to see last week’s headlines on the window when we want to take that much needed break from work and stare out the window wishing we were outside instead of inside.
Baking Soda to Remove Odors From Carpets Don’t hold your breathe on this one if you think baking soda can help you out with this. Yes, it seems like it comes in handy a lot for us all and has many uses but not for this. And yes, even myself included have done this before so guilty as charged but it’s a lazy way out. While it can absorb unwanted odors, it does not attack the main source of the odor and only masks the smell for a brief period. Just get your carpets cleaned once a year people!
Bleach Cleans Everything I know this one may anger a lot of people but the truth must come out and you can always count on me to have all of your backs! Yes, on its own it can be good for spot stain removal but still needs some sort of surfactant to lift the actual dirt out. And check this out, according to Caroline from Winc, bleach “degrades the layers of a surface, making them more susceptible to bleach resistant superbugs which breed when bleach is overused or used as a sole cleaning agent”. I am just going to leave that one there for all of you. Just use disinfectants that are less harmful.
Using Coca-Cola to Clean Your Toilets As with just about every single myth listed above including this one it may seem like an interesting cost-effective idea, it may not be the smartest. The sugar contained in the soda is actually very harmful as it attracts more bacteria. You vinegar folks this may be your moment as a good alternative to this with your toilet bowl is actually vinegar!
Any of you out there have any other fun cleaning myths that have been debunked? Or just myths in general? Please provide in the comments below and let us know!

Top 3 Benefits of Hiring a Professional Cleaning Company

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Let’s face it, we all have busy schedules. It’s just part of life. But, what the most annoying part about it all is when we’re busy and are preoccupied with other “bigger and better things” we tend to push certain tasks into the back of our minds or simply just brush it off for a later date. Now, will these tasks be completed? Who knows, right? One big task that gets pushed aside more often than most might admit is cleaning. There are the simple solutions such as hiring one or two internal employees to do it to keep it maintained, or you just brush it off completely piling up your to-do list saying “I’ll get to it eventually”. If you’re uncertain about hiring a professional commercial cleaning service, keep on reading and we will go over some of the key and crucial benefits of hiring a commercial cleaning service.
There is Higher Quality and Standards A professional cleaning company will make your space as clean as possible since they likely have a higher standard of “clean” as you do. The cleaners are professionally trained and certified to offer the best quality of service. Professionals know exactly where to look and no more constantly look at dust on baseboards! Life is hectic and we get that! Nobody has the time to set aside for a deep clean of your work space. So why not get that peace of mind that your work space has been thoroughly cleaned by people who, you know, clean for a living. There is no such thing as “out of sight, out of mind”.
Not to mention, most of the supplies used will be better. No offense. Cleaners use cleansers and equipment that are not always widely available to the general public. It is just a better way all around to improve the image of your business by leaving it tidy, clean and polished. This will lead to motivated employees, which we touched base on in a previous blog post. And the sky’s the limit when you have a happy work environment!

It Gives You Less Stress As stated up top, our lives are all hectic. Our to-do lists are probably all at least a mile long at this point so why not make life just a little bit easier on yourself? I am sure that cleaning tends to fall to the bottom of that list because NOBODY loves to clean. What if you had an unexpected business client or impromptu meeting at your office or work setting? You would hope for the best appearance possible and to avoid that unnecessary embarrassment of cob webs stringing across the walls and ceiling! Gross! And definitely a turn off to anybody.
This will all allow you to focus on your other objectives that need to be completed with more undivided attention. Not to mention it gives you the peace of mind and makes you just feel more comfortable and secure.
It’s Cost Effective The cost of spending nowadays can add up quick! Supplies, and equipment of all sorts can get very expensive. Not to mention the labor costs you would have to pay an employee to do the job itself. Why not get rid of at least one of these costs? With a professional commercial company, you only pay for the service! Hiring an external cleaning company will be a long-term cost-effective solution.
Gone are the worries of vetting employees, and worrying about salaries or benefits. Now, you’ve eliminated time, money and stress off of your plate!

Convinced yet? What’s stopping you from enjoying these benefits and then some? So, the next time you want to inquire about booking a professional commercial cleaning service or simply just looking, make sure to look for these benefits so you are doing what’s best for you and your business. Please feel free to check out our services page and schedule an appointment today for your business’s needs!