With the winter weather already on its way, your main concern might be bundling up and trying to stay warm when you are outside.
However, you should never forget about the effect that winter has on your business.
Taking care of your workplace during the winter can be a new challenge as you face de-icing the sidewalk to cleaning up the slush that gets dragged into the building. If you are feeling a little overwhelmed, there are some winter-proofing tips that you can use.
Keep the Parking Lot Snow and Ice Free
There is nothing more important than keeping your parking lot as free of ice and snow as possible because this will improve safety for your employees and customers alike. You can manage this by hiring a plow service, salting the parking lot, shoveling the snow by hand or using a chemical de-icer. Regardless of the method, this will help to prevent any slips, injuries, and accidents.
However, you need to be careful when you are using a de-icer or rock salt. With a de-icer, you need to choose one that will remove the ice and snow without causing any lasting damage to the parking lot itself, the environment or the interior of your property. Rock salt is the less expensive option, but it can slowly grind away the concrete and will harm the surrounding vegetation which are long-term expensive problems. You also face the risk of having some salt stains on your carpets and you will want to avoid this.
Protect Your Floors
One of the major issues when you deal with cleaning in winter is having to cope with the mess that is brought into the building from outside. You will not only have to deal with snow and slush, but the salt, dirt and other debris that this brings with it along with the moisture that is left behind. This moisture can cause bacteria and mold to take hold of your carpets.
To protect your floors, you need to have a good first line of defense which will be the welcome mats. With these mats, dirty snow will be left at the door and not tracked through the building. Of course, to ensure that you get all of the dirt out of the carpets, you will need to increase the frequency of the carpet cleaning and vacuuming. The longer the dirt and salt stay in your carpets, the faster the carpet fibers will break down and start to fray which causes long-term issues.
Do Not Forget the Air
With the air outside being arctic, buildings all over the country keep the climate inside wonderful by sealing the hot air in. The problem is that in an effort to keep all the wonderful warm air inside, the building is also trapping all the mold, germs and other airborne bacteria. According to the EPA, indoor air will actually contain 3 to 5 times more contaminants and pollutants that the outside air.
This is added to the ventilation system re-circulating the air 5 to 7 times per day and you start to understand why illness is so common during winter. To improve the quality of the air in your building, you should ensure that the ventilation system is properly cleaned. You should also look at using supplies that do not emit vapors or distribute contaminants. There are a number of cleaning supplies that do this, and you need to be careful with them.
When you follow these winter-proofing tips, you will not only ensure that your work environment is safe for employees and customers, you will increase the lifespan of all your assets.
If you are still unsure about what to do, you should look at hiring a commercial cleaning company that has experience in winter-proofing office buildings. They will understand what your building needs and help you with any issues that you might have.