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Occupation From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Floor cleaning is a major occupation throughout the world. The main job of most cleaners is to clean floors.
![]() | This article contains instructions, advice, or how-to content. (November 2018) |
The principal reasons for floor cleaning are:
The treatment needed for different types of floors is very different.[4]
Slipping is a common safety hazard for cleaning methods that involve water or other liquids, especially if the floor is left wet.[5]
Sawdust is used on some floors to absorb any liquids that fall rather than trying to prevent them being spilt. The sawdust is swept up and replaced each day. This was common in the past in pubs and is still used in some butchers and fishmongers.[6]
It used to be common to use tea leaves to collect dirt from carpets and remove odours.[7]
There are also a wide variety of floor cleaning machines available today such as floor buffers, automatic floor scrubbers and sweepers, and carpet extractors that can deep clean almost any type of hard floor or carpeted flooring surface in much less time than it would take using a traditional cleaning method.
Different types of wood flooring may require completely different care depending on whether they are waxed, oiled or have a polyurethane coating. It is important to determine the type of finish of a wood floor and always treat it in the proper manner, for instance it is difficult to clear wood floor wax from a floor coated with polyurethane. Simple cleaning instructions:[8]
Tile and stone flooring is common in kitchens, stairs, and bathrooms. Its cleaning process can be divided into three steps:
Vinyl composition tile or VCT is a common commercial floor type. Cleaning this type of floor is done with either a mop and bucket or with a floor scrubber.
VCT requires a polymer coating or floor finish to protect it. This needs to be kept clean with dust mopping and wet cleaning (i.e. wet mopping or floor scrubber).
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For cleaning floors, when a type of floor wiper is used, a liquid of cleaning agents is usually added to the water that is used with it. The product used may also depend on the floor-type such as parquet or tiles as some products can damage the floor.[citation needed]
Floor cleaners whose formulation includes certain fragants (certain monoterpenes) can cause indoor air pollution equivalent or exceeding the harm to respiratory tracts when the time is spent near a busy road according to a study.[9][10]
A well-maintained entrance matting can dramatically reduce the need for cleaning. For public and office buildings, about 80 to 90% of the dirt is tracked in from outside. Installing a total of 15 feet of matting consisting of both indoor and outdoor sections will remove about 80% of this.[11] Thus, about two-thirds of the dirt can be removed at the entrance.