Checklist: Checklist: Considerations for Floorcovering Selection and Maintenance
Design for Maintainability
• Specify flooring tiles or carpet tiles. These small modules can be easily replaced if damaged, avoiding the need for complicated patching jobs or replacing large sections of floorcovering. • Consider maintenance budgets when choosing materials. Some flooring options should be considered only when resources will be available for frequent and thorough cleaning. • Specify colors and patterns that can hide minor stains. Stains will stand out on uniform, light-colored floorcoverings, leading to early replacement of the material. Mid-tone and darker colors and random patterns can hide most stains. Random patterns also help mask the differences between new replacement tiles and the older ones on the floor. • Specify light colors to mask fading. In locations subject to bright sunlight (but not high-risk areas for stains), consider light colors that won’t fade as much as darker colors. Low-e coatings on glass also help to filter out UV light that causes most fading. • Choose styles that won’t go out of fashion. As flooring is often replaced for aesthetic reasons rather than function, specifying neutral colors and conservative patterns is safer than being trendy. • Prevent contaminants from entering the space. Use air-lock entries and extensive, multistage track-off systems (see EBN Vol. 10, No. 10) to capture pollutants before they can get onto the flooring, where they can promote wear and tear, and contribute to IAQ problems. Encouraging people to remove their outdoor shoes at the entrance is a very effective approach that is appropriate in some settings.Support Proper Maintenance
• Follow product-specific recommendations. Maintenance procedures may be product specific, and treating all flooring the same way can be unnecessarily expensive and even damaging. A finish designed for vinyl tile can damage linoleum, for example. • Get the right information to the right people. When specifying a floorcovering, include requirements for conveying the manufacturer’s recommended maintenance procedures to the building managers. Ideally, this information transfer will include on-site training with regular follow-up by the manufacturer’s reps to account for the high rate of turnover among maintenance staff. • Consider contracting out flooring maintenance to a company affiliated with the manufacturer. Interface Flooring, Milliken, and other carpet manufacturers have networks of franchised installers and maintenance contractors. Using their services improves the odds that maintenance practices will be appropriate. • Consider installing central vacuums that discharge particles outside the building.Practice proper maintenance
• If a central vacuum is impractical, select a high-quality on-location vacuum cleaner that discharges out of the top, not the bottom. A low-quality vacuum cleaner can blow particles into the breathing zone, where they remain for the several hours before settling back into the carpet. What’s more, as long as dirt remains in the carpet, it abrades the carpet fibers, aging the carpet prematurely. CRI awards “Green Labels” to vacuum cleaners that meet its standards for soil removal, dust containment, and carpet appearance retention. • When wet-cleaning carpets, use an appropriate dilution of detergents. Residual detergent reduces the effectiveness of vacuuming and acts as a magnet for more contamination. • Use a bleaching agent, not detergent, to remove stains from carpets. • Use metal-free instead of zinc-based finishes on resilient floorcoverings. Not only will this eliminate heavy metals and ammoniated compounds from the finishing process, but it will allow for the use of safer stripping agents. • With coated resilient floors, be sure that the finish and stripper are compatible with one another. • With coated linoleum, use finishes and cleaners designed especially for linoleum. Linoleum is susceptible to damage from both water and the high alkalinity of some cleaners. • Set up a maintenance hotline for building users to contact maintenance staff. It’s critical for employees to report spills immediately, both to prevent accidents and to allow maintenance staff the best chance at removing the substance before it permanently stains the flooring (not to mention risk of mold if wet carpet isn’t dried out). Employees might also be able to identify spilled substances, enabling custodians to tailor their treatments to particular spills. Hard surfaces are often maintained better than carpet in part because spills can’t be ignored on hard floors the way they can on carpets.
