A clean facility that protects the overall health of your customers, guests, employees, or tenants is a major cornerstone when it comes to running a successful business. Because the level of cleanliness represents an essential part of the overall look and feel of your business, it can significantly impact your success in the long run.
Besides creating a positive first impression on potential customers, guests, or tenants, and keeping your employees happy and productive, cleaning your entire building regularly could help you prevent the spread of different microorganisms that are responsible for a wide range of diseases. However, cleaning specific areas every few days is not enough to get rid of dangerous germs. In terms of disease prevention, it’s very important to also disinfect all the surfaces and objects that are touched by different persons frequently.
Understanding the Differences between Cleaning and Disinfecting
One important thing that a facility manager or property owner should be aware of is that a space can harbor contaminants that could affect people’s health even if it looks clean. That’s because cleaning basically involves organizing different items, vacuuming and mopping floors, and dusting or wiping down surfaces like tabletops, bookshelves, and doors to remove dust, debris, and stains. Although some cleaning products could remove up to 99.9% of specific germs, not all cleaning solutions are created equal. Therefore, some of them could be less effective or completely ineffective against certain types of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that can cause disease.
Disinfection, on the other hand, refers to the use of specific equipment and chemical products that can virtually kill all of the bacteria, viruses, and fungi on a surface. In a building, disinfection practices and frequency should be considered in relation to the intended use of each area and occupancy rate. For instance, specialized facilities, like schools and hospitals, require certain disinfection activities to be performed on a daily basis. Conversely, the common areas in public spaces, institutional buildings, apartment complexes, and hotels may require disinfection procedures less frequently.
Reasons to Disinfect Your Facility
As most of us live and work in contained spaces, we use common areas, like hallways, restrooms, recreation centers, gyms, and locker facilities, quite often. Imagine how many people are touching the doorknobs, handles, light switches, and elevator buttons that you’re also touching. Cleaning and disinfecting all these surfaces, therefore, is critical for everyone’s health. Below are the most important reasons why facility managers and property owners should implement strict disinfection measures in buildings.
-
Preventing the germs and diseases from spreading.
Specific strains of bacteria, viruses, and fungi can survive on different surfaces for several hours, or even days. This means that they can spread to anyone who touches a contaminated surface. Although complying with good personal hygiene practices, such as frequent hand-washing, could help people avoid getting sick and spreading illness, properly cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces can stop the spread of viruses and bacteria to people.
-
Improving the indoor air quality.
The indoor air quality is an important factor that affects everyone’s health. Besides investing in a proper filtration system and using plants, which improve the indoor air quality by converting carbon dioxide into fresh oxygen and filtering out certain types of pollutants, another great way to improve air quality in your building is to disinfect surfaces with products that eliminate bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Wiping down surfaces with disinfecting products on a regular basis will also allow you to keep dust, debris, and other pollutants at bay, further improving the indoor air quality.
-
Attracting and retaining customers and employees.
A clean and tidy facility often attracts more customers, guests, tenants, and employees mainly because it looks more appealing and welcoming than a building that isn’t cleaned regularly. Since the way your building looks reflects a promise of an experience, most consumers consider that a tidy environment implies superior products and services. Whether you’re running a restaurant, store, hotel, or an apartment complex, a potential customer, guest, tenant, or employee will judge your services, products, and even your credibility based on how your establishment looks and feels. In addition to indicating a high level of professionalism and superior products, a clean facility shows that its manager or owner really cares about the health and wellbeing of his or her customers, guests, tenants, and employees.
Keeping an entire building sparkling clean and free of germs can be a major challenge for a facility manager or property owner. To help, Performance Painting Contractors is ready to repaint your building and also disinfect different areas and surfaces, upon your request. Using low-concentration bleach-and-water mixtures that have been approved for killing different disease-causing bacteria, fungi, and viruses, our staff can disinfect a wide range of surfaces, including doorknobs, light switches, handles, window and door frames, pressure wash areas, exterior entrance areas, as well as the floors in areas like hallways, lobbies, break rooms, restrooms, locker rooms, and any other location that may need disinfection. If a bleach-and-water mixture isn’t appropriate for the surface, our professionals will use other EPA-registered disinfectants.
As cleaning substances and disinfectants can be irritating to eyes, nose, throat, and skin, the best time to clean and disinfect your facility is after working hours, during weekends or holidays, or any other time when the building is vacant. To learn more about our disinfection services, please contact our professionals today!
