Cleaning For The Health of It
Facts About Indoor Air Qualityby Roger McFadden
Technical Director
Coastwide Laboratories
How Cleaning Professionals Can Help Improve Indoor Air Quality
Listed below are some important things Cleaning Professionals can do to help improve indoor air quality inside the built environment. Please watch our website for more information about indoor air quality and professional cleaning.
1. Select cleaning products with low emissions, reduced odor and lower volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
2. Never mix chemicals unless the label directions specifically require it.
3. Always dilute cleaning chemicals correctly and accurately.
4. Avoid atomizing or spraying cleaning chemicals into the air as a fine mist.
5. Avoid stirring up dust and displacing it into the surrounding air.
6. Use dampened dust cloths to hold onto the dust instead of stirring it up.
7. Avoid overwetting surfaces during the cleaning process. Overwetting can leave excess moisture and may encourage mold or mildew growth.
8. Use carpet cleaning methods that extract moisture instead of injecting and leaving it in the carpet fiber.
9. Provide good ventilation when using cleaning products.
10. Improve ventilation in areas where cleaning agents are stored.
11. Ventilate to accelerate drying when feasible. Be careful and do not blow moisture from a non-critical area into a critical area.
12. Avoid recycling air that contains contaminants.
13. Keep all cleaning equipment (ie: vacuum cleaners, extractors, burnishers etc.) well maintained.
14. Use floor burnishers equipped with proper filtration.
15. Use effective entrance matting to reduce pollutants from entering the building.
16. Clean up spills promptly to avoid transferring the contaminants throughout your facility.
17. Schedule wax stripping or other heavy duty cleaning projects during unoccupied times when possible.
18. Remove mold and mildew deposits promptly.
19. Reduce the inventory of stored cleaning products when possible.
