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Reopening & cold weather-related move indoor concerns for the professional cleaner & the facility manager.

Reopening plan for the facility manager and the cleaner

Getting ready for reopening and moving indoors as the weather cools?

There are three major areas a cleaner and facility needs to focus on as the U.S. gets ready for reopening and the cooler weather-related move inside.

High touch surfaces

First, is your high touch surface cleaning. Regular cleaning still is the number one way to reduce or eliminate the transmission of germs. Regular cleaning has no limit though. How much and how little is still an unscientific judgment call. Solutions from high touch surfaces include electrostatic sprayers, steam sanitizers, UVC lights and some newer chemicals that claim to continue to work after the cleaning. A novel idea, but still not proven to work by the governmental agencies like the EPA or the CDC.

Therefore, what it comes down to is just regular cleaning followed by good disinfection using the professional cleaner and facility managers best judgment. Judgment can be fine-tuned by using an ATP meter that measures microorganisms before and after cleaning and disinfecting.

Air circulating indoor

The second area that needs to be addressed is the open space. This is the air that will need to be cleaned for floating germs. This can be divided into three time frames, long time, medium time and present time. 

Long time is the obvious one. For this, a proper filtration HVAC system works. 

Then we have the medium time. This may be the easiest. This can be done by a low micron fogger and UVC lights.

Circulating indoor air when employees & visitors are present

The third and by far the most important is the present time. By the present time we are referring to the air circulating while people are present. For this to be at the most ideal and clean air environment, the HVAC system must have the ability to immediately replace the air that people are breathing. A rare feat without completely reinventing our current HVAC Systems.  

Currently, the best way is by adding air sterilizers to the space as needed to facilitate the rapid change of air. Air sterilizers do rate the coverage of the airs hourly cleaning and cubic feet. Air sterilizers are a dime-a-dozen each claiming to be the best. Choose one that doesn’t just use one method of removing the virus, but more than one. An example of this would be an air sterilizer that uses three methods of air sterilizing. First, UVC lights that trap the dirt in a filtered box and continuously kill the tracked-in dirt. Second, an ionizing generator that takes the same air and stops the particles that have made their way through the UVC filter. Finally, the third filtration system removes any leftover particles by using Merv 13 HEPA filters. The results are similar to “clean room”  level of cleaning. This can easily be measured by an air cleanliness meter.

All the best!

Taf Baig

IICRC Instructor and Master Textile Cleaner

You can get more information from these two reliable government sources:

EPA CDC

 

About Taf Baig

Taf started his own cleaning business from the trunk of his car at the age of 22. He built it up into a huge and successful business. Now he focuses on doing the same for others. At Magic Wand Company, he has helped build 1000s of successful businesses in carpet cleaning, pressure washing, tile and grout cleaning, wood floor cleaning, duct cleaning, restoration, and other similar businesses.

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