This is a complex question to which we can give you a short and a long answer. The short answer is – it depends, on many factors. The long answer is basically to explain what those factors are. So let’s try to do just that in this article.
First thing’s first – keep in mind that everything you will read here pertains to commercial buildings of all sorts, but not to private homes, no matter how spacious or resplendent they are. The main reason for this is not only that here at Geyen Group South we specialize at the heavy lifter’s task of cleaning carpeting at commercial sites. It is actually the simple fact that at home people pay much more attention in order not to wear out and soil their carpet, and that goal is usually pretty easy to achieve by simply insisting on people taking their shoes off before entering.
But most commercial sites – and this includes common areas and corridors of condo buildings – can’t count on this simple luxury. So, what is a commercial facility manager or an executive housekeeper to do in order to ascertain the ideal frequency of cleaning, and more importantly, in order to strike the right balance between day to day maintenance that can be performed by on-site personnel and professional carpet cleaning performed by a specialized outside vendor?
Well, to that end, the first question every facility manager has to ask himself is – how much action does the carpeting in question see? Is the space a high traffic area like a main street corporate lobby or a specific-use facility like the offices adjacent to a factory building? (OK, this is not really one question, as you can see, but it is definitely the main one you need to discern the answer to, and you can do that by knowing the answers to all these sub-questions).
Let us be frank, in cases of really heavy use or abuse, like if employees walk in from an unpaved parking lot or some other type of construction site or if you simply expect them to have a lot of dirt particles or mud on their shoes, for example if you run a trucking company, you would be best advised to avoid carpeting altogether and go with some sort of tile floors or other floor material. Ditto for large stores, malls and similar commercial buildings with a very high load of foot traffic of all shapes, sizes and degrees of dirtiness. In any case, even if you have carpeting, consider using at least some type of entrance matting. It will make your life a whole lot easier in the long run.
The second thing to consider is what kind of footwear is usually on the carpet. Are they your run-of-the-mill shoes, sneakers, loafers and high heels or something more prone to bringing in dirt, like boots or trek shoes? This is closely tied to the type of climate in the area – if your building is located somewhere with more rainfall or snow, you should plan for more cleaning during winter months and allocate your carpet cleaning budget accordingly.
Of course, the frequency of regular maintenance i.e. the cleaning performed by your staff – and let’s face it, this mostly boils down to vacuuming – is another factor which determines the frequency with which professional carpet cleaners should be visiting. If you are doing it on a daily or a weekly basis, you will greatly reduce the need for specialists to come, but chances are your staff cannot do what professional equipment and cleaning solutions can, especially in hands of seasoned pros.
The next thing to have in mind is the simple fact that not all areas of the building get equally dirty. Is your carpet right at the entrance, is it in the lobby, behind a counter or at some infrequently used corridor? It is simply common sense that high soil areas need to be cleaned more frequently than those which are less used or farther removed from entries and other sources of soil.
You may think that all this amounts to not much more than stating the obvious, but the conclusion that stems from this simple observation could prove to be an eye-opener: it means that you should schedule professional cleaning in your building at different times for different parts. So, try to resist the urge to have the pros do the entire facility every time they come – it does not necessarily mean that you will pay less or have less downtime. With proper planning, you can cut costs significantly by, for example, not having large unused sections of the carpet, like in back rooms or conference rooms, cleaned more than once a year, simply to get the dust that finds its way everywhere except vacuum tight spaces.
Finally, the one thing that dictates your carpet cleaning schedule the most is definitely your carpet cleaning budget. So, you should turn the tables around and make your budget work for you. If you have a budget to do your carpets four times a year, you should schedule cleaning for times when cleaning will be most effective – the most usual setup is mid-winter (January), at the end of winter (April), late spring (June), and at the end of summer (October).
Also, allocate your budget more specifically, which means to have it drawn out for specific parts of the building. For example, your lobby could receive the lion’s share, while your backrooms would be done only during scheduled spring cleaning.
Whatever you do, take into account the specifics, but always remember that the most important thing is to have carpet cleaning budgeted and scheduled. And of course, to call in tried and tested professionals, like us here at Geyen Group South.
