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Beware: Rock Salt or Other Ice Melting Products Can Hurt Your Floors

Did you know that rock salt or other ice melting products can damage your floors inside your home?
If you are using ice melting products on your walkway, driveway or porch, it is imperative to limit as much as possible the exposure of these products to your home’s carpets, rugs, and floors, including hardwood and vinyl.
Rock salt and “ice melt” is easily tracked into your home from the out-of-doors. This can ruin carpet fibers and markedly increase wear on your carpet. It is grimy and makes your carpets and rugs look dirty, as well! In addition, these gritty substances can scratch and nick your hardwood and other flooring.
To avoid damage:

  • Have people take off their shoes before tracking in your house! Place a special mat or even a couple of old towels for family and guests to place their shoes upon entering your house.
  • Place doormats at all of your entrances right inside the door and vacuum them frequently. Honestly, it’s a good idea to have a couple of inexpensive replacement mats during the winter.
  • Vacuum your area rugs and carpets often — salt product particles can very quickly penetrate deep into the carpet fibers.

If you have any questions or carpet cleaning needs, as always feel free to contact Cincinnati Maintenance!

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Helpful Floor Cleaning Tips from #CincinnatiMain

We at Cincinnati Maintenance thought it was time for us all to brush up on how to care for our carpet and flooring in between professional, deep cleanings.
First of all, we cannot stress enough the importance of vacuuming. It’s simply essential. The main reason is that getting up the dirt and grime helps protect your carpet! Dirt and grit wear down and break down the fibers, so vacuuming is pretty high up there in how to take care of your home and business flooring.
Sweeping and vacuuming your un-carpeted flooring is important, too! For the same reasons – it helps keep grit from wearing down your floors.
When you are “sweeping,” we recommend MICRO-FIBER. Using a mop with a micro-fiber pad works so much better than an old-fashioned broom.
Some bonus tips:

  1. For hardwood floors, use a dust mop or micro-fiber pad mop regularly. When damp mopping, a neutral (neutral being the key word) cleaner – such as the Bona products – is best. This product can be found at Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc.
  2. For tile and grout, a good tile brush from Home Depot or somewhere similar will help clean the grout. Definitely avoid sealers and high alkaline cleaners. Again, neutral cleaners are key.
  3. For vinyl flooring, avoid anything that says “enhances shine” and avoid applying floor finishes. A good neutral, preferably “green,” solution is always best.

If you have any concerns or questions, you can always contact Cincinnati Maintenance and we are happy to help!

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Have You Heard of Marmoleum?

A popular flooring out there is called Marmoleum.  Have you heard of it?
Marmoleum is touted as a “green” flooring, meaning it is an environmentally conscious choice for many residential homes.
The adhesive upon installation is solvent free and there is also a “clickable” type of Marmoleum that uses no adhesive.
Some other benefits, according to popular home improvement website dengarden, include:

  • Estimated life of Marmoleum with normal use is 50 years
  • 100 percent biodegradeable
  • Anti-static – therefore, easier to clean because not as much grime sticks to it
  • Made of natural materials – no gaseous output of chemicals

Dengarden also indicates a few disadvantages:

  • Dents easily – so be sure to put furniture foot pads on table legs and chairs
  • Could stain – be sure it is properly installed and finished as well as cleaned properly
  • Must maintain a proper seal on the floor – discuss with your retailer exactly what this entails

As always, feel free to contact Cincinnati Maintenance should you have any questions about your home’s flooring and maintenance needs.
 

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Entryway Mats – Small Investment Now Saves Money Later

Entryway Mats - Small Investment Now Saves Money Later

Business owners: Entrance mats stop dirt, salt (in Winter from icy sidewalk care), and other debris from being tracked further into your office building – which can spell trouble for polished floors, rugs, carpets, and polished floors. Protecting your commercial and retail investment is usually in the forefront of business- and building-owners’ minds. This extends from high-cost maintenance responsibilities all the way down to the often overlooked entryway floor protection.
There are some other reasons you want to make a small investment of entryway mats: quality mats in office foyers and vestibules prevent dangerous slip-and-fall injuries, especially in icy, snowy or rainy weather. This aids in protecting your employees, office renters, customers, and walk-in traffic from a painful accident.
Good mats will extend the life of commercial carpets and flooring, and both will stay cleaner for longer periods of time. There is naturally less wear and tear when grit and grime from shoes are taken care of at the mat instead of being ground in throughout the building.
Lastly, entrance mats are visually pleasing and create an inviting, professional look when your prospects and clients come to call.
Check back to Ed’s Blog at Cincinnati Maintenance for more helpful tips!
 

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Frequent Carpet and Tile Cleaning is Imperative in Medical Facilities – Particularly during Flu Season! Cincinnati Relies on us!

I recently posted on Social Media how the norovirus can live on a carpet’s uncleaned surface for a month or more.  Now, with flu season upon us and, well, really any time, medical facilities need to clean ALL their surfaces – and oftentimes, carpets and floors are forgotten or neglected when germy surfaces are being cleaned.
Cincinnati Maintenance is frequently asked, “How often should we clean the carpets?”  We covered this in a blog post a couple of months ago, but it bears repeating that certain types of businesses need the carpets cleaned more often than others.  For instance, daycares could benefit from weekly or twice-per-month cleaning because small children are crawling around and constantly put things that have been on the floor in their mouths.  Hopefully no one is putting anything in their mouth that’s been on the doctor’s office floor, but, nevertheless, every one-to-three months is good timing for medical facilities to have a deep floor clean.  During pandemic or a time of especially hard-hitting viruses, obviously more often can only benefit the reduction of germs.
Another area that is often overlooked is tile and grout.  All kinds of germy messes can creep down in the grooves and crevices of tile and grout floors.  Please do not forget that these areas need deep, professional cleaning, too.
Cincinnati Maintenance cares about our customers and our customer’s customers.  We are proud to help medical buildings and offices maintain the highest level of cleanliness available to keep good health a primary focus.
 

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Considering Olefin Carpet or Already Have It? Things to Consider about Maintenance and Cleaning of Olefin Carpet. Be sure to choose the RIGHT carpet cleaner in Cincinnati Ohio.

It is fairly common for commercial offices or businesses to consider installing Olefin carpet, sometimes known as Olefin Berber.  Everyone has heard how this type of synthetic fiber is miraculous at resisting stains.  That IS true; it IS stain resistant.
However, there are some pitfalls to Olefin as well.  Olefin loves….oil.  It is basically an oily fabric that attracts oil.  While the “oiliness” does mean is tends to repels many stains, it – on the other hand – can be difficult regarding oily soil.  Also, high traffic areas can look soiled but that often is the light reflecting differently off of areas where the carpet fabric loops have been crushed.  
A cleaning pre-spray made specifically for Olefin or Berber is highly recommended.  But one must be really careful with the pre-spraying of stains because Olefin is also, unfortunately, known for “wick back.”  This means if too much wet spray is used, it gets to the backing and “wicks up” staining substances to the surface!  
If you have Olefin or Berber in your business or your home, good vacuuming habits are a must.  Don’t over soak or use an overabundance of treatment spray when trying to take care of a stain.  And, most importantly, when you have the carpet professionally cleaned, the encapsulation method – which is low moisture carpet cleaning like Cincinnati Maintenance provides – is practically imperative.

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VCT – or Vinyl Composition Tile – Greatly Benefits from a Regular Cleaning Maintenance Schedule

Many of our business and industrial clients ask us at Cincinnati Maintenance how to best maintain or keep clean their VCT – Vinyl Composition Tile.  With minimal effort, the key to keeping this commercial or institutional flooring looking its best is a regular cleaning schedule.
On a daily basis, we recommend VCT be swept or vacuumed to get rid of dry dirt and gritty soil.  This may be followed by a quick damp mop.  In the higher traffic areas or areas subject to more grit, twice daily sweeping or dry vacuuming may be preferred to keep the area safe as well as nice looking.
Periodically, calling Cincinnati Maintenance to provide deeper machine cleaning ensures that the high traffic area is maintained at a level of consistency.  This deep clean may also include buffing and an application of floor finish or a combination of these.
Lastly, in some cases, a more extreme level of restoration may be required – this could possibly include stripping and refinishing the VCT.  This scenario is reserved for instances where regular maintenance was not sufficient to keep the overall desired level of appearance.
When businesses, commercial and industrial sites have invested in VCT, taking measures to maintain it properly should be part of a daily checklist of cleanliness not only for appearance but for safety’s sake as well. Lastly, having a planned schedule of professional flooring maintenance is just one more step in protecting that investment.

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Entryway Mats Have Multiple Purposes in Keeping Your Office Building Clean and Inviting. Commercial Buildings in Cincinnati need Mat Systems.

At least “80 percent of all the soil, dust, contaminants, and moisture entering a facility are tracked in on the shoes of building staff and visitors,” according to ISSA experts in the cleaning industry.  Entryway or entrance mats can stop a tremendous amount of dirt and debris from coming further into your office and wreaking havoc on your polished floors, hardwood, rugs and carpets.  
A small investment in entrance mats will protect your larger investment of the flooring in your building.  The carpet and floors of the office will have a much longer life and will stay cleaner and less worn when the entryway has quality matting.
Particularly in wet or snowy weather, good quality mats in the foyer or vestibule prevent dangerous slip-and-fall accidents which can lead to unwanted and unnecessary headaches for the owner should someone get hurt.
Lastly, entrance mats create a visually pleasing and inviting, professional look as customers and clients enter the building.  It’s always a bonus to give people a wonderful first look into your building and your business.
Office building and business owners should consider nice-looking, highly functional mats to protect their flooring investment and prevent harmful accidents.

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