The Janitors' Closet

A gentle push in the right direction

A few years back, I read and much enjoyed "Nudge", by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, respectively an economist at the University of Chicago and a Law Professor at Harvard.  Essence of their argument (from my perspective) is that, by presenting information and options, and organizing decision making processes optimally, one can gently guide ("nudge") folks into decisions that will work better for them, without applying coercion.

I provide janitorial service in Phoenix AZ.  I quote a lot of janitorial jobs where the current provider is doing as perfectly adequate job, according to his somewhat limited specs.  The facility might look less than optimal because the carpet needs to be cleaned, or the exterior windows washed, or the VCT burnished.  None of these "periodic" services, or cleaning supplies, are in the specs, but might well be available (for extra billing) should the customer call.  The customer doesn't call - perhaps he's too busy, or forgotten what's not in the specs - so the periodic work does not happen, the appearance of the building deteriorates, and the janitorial service forgoes a bit of extra revenue.  Because the facility looks less than ideal (because of the dirty carpet, etc.) I'm there bidding on the current fellow's job.

In quoting a job, we generally give the prospective client two prices - one for basic janitorial (but with our health, security and indoor air quality programs built in) and a second price for a bundle of "periodic" services - perhaps a bi-weekly burnishing, an as-needed scrub and refinish, a quarterly carpet cleaning, monthly windows, and a quarterly ceramic or stone floor scrub.  One monthly price for the bundle, rolled into the monthly bill.  We optimize the frequencies, so the carpet and tile are never trashed, and we can do more of a maintenance than a restorative job (cheaper for us, cheaper for the client).  We schedule the jobs well in advance, and can thus even out work loads.  The client gets the same bill every month, so doesn't have to budget, or get approved, extra charges.  The client never has to remember to call to order a job.  And the facility looks good ongoing.

We "nudge" (never require) the prospective client to take the "full service" package.  It's better for him - less hassle, better looking facility; it's better for us - for the same reasons

Netting space junk

A (relatively) low-tech approach to removing space trash is covered in an interesting article in The Verge.

There is a whole lot of junk (debris from broken satellites, boosters and so on) orbiting around above our atmosphere.  The more that accumulates, the more danger the stuff poses to various satellites and manned missions; even a small particle hitting you at high speed can pack quite a punch, and destroy an expensive piece of equipment.

The British satellite uses a big net to capture a given piece of debris; the current experiment is just to see if a net works.  Once you've netted the thing, the idea is, you can then use a variety of means to slow it down so that it falls out of orbit, and burns up in the atmosphere (with luck, instead of hitting someone on the head).

Seems to me that the basic issue (if the net, or another technology, works) is akin to the experimenting going on to clean junk out of our oceans: there is a lot of junk, spread over a lot of area.  Much expense involved to do the job.

Much easier to catch the stuff where it originates, or not spew it into the environment (ocean or space) in the first place.  It's a bit similar to why we push our commercial janitorial clients to rent treated walk-off mats for their building entrances:  the mats stop the soil from being tracked in, so you have soil to remove from a dozen or two square feet of mat, and not 20,000 square feet of carpet or tile.

The mat is cheaper than my janitor.

How we "Nudge" people

 

Several years ago, I read and much enjoyed "Nudge", by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, respectively an economist at the University of Chicago and a Law Professor at Harvard.  Essence of their argument (from my perspective) is that, by presenting information and options, and organizing decision making processes optimally, one can gently guide ("nudge") folks into decisions that will work better for them, without applying coercion.

I provide janitorial service in Phoenix AZ.  I quote a lot of janitorial jobs where the current provider is doing as perfectly adequate job, according to his somewhat limited specs.  The facility might look less than optimal because the carpet needs to be cleaned, or the exterior windows washed, or the VCT burnished.  None of these "periodic" services, or cleaning supplies, are in the specs, but might well be available (for extra billing) should the customer call.  The customer doesn't call - perhaps he's too busy, or forgotten what's not in the specs - so the periodic work does not happen, the appearance of the building deteriorates, and the janitorial service forgoes a bit of extra revenue.  Because the facility looks less than ideal (because of the dirty carpet, etc.) I'm there bidding on the current fellow's job.

In quoting a job, we generally give the prospective client two prices - one for basic janitorial (but with our health, security and indoor air quality programs built in) and a second price for a bundle of "periodic" services - perhaps a bi-weekly burnishing, an as-needed scrub and refinish, a quarterly carpet cleaning, monthly windows, and a quarterly ceramic or stone floor scrub.  One monthly price for the bundle, rolled into the monthly bill.  We optimize the frequencies, so the carpet and tile are never trashed, and we can do more of a maintenance than a restorative job (cheaper for us, cheaper for the client).  We schedule the jobs well in advance, and can thus even out work loads.  The client gets the same bill every month, so doesn't have to budget, or get approved, extra charges.  The client never has to remember to call to order a job.  And the facility looks good ongoing.

We "nudge" (never require) the prospective client to take the "full service" package.  It's better for him - less hassle, better looking facility; it's better for us - for the same reasons.

Several years ago, I read and much enjoyed "Nudge", by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, respectively an economist at the University of Chicago and a Law Professor at Harvard.  Essence of their argument (from my perspective) is that, by presenting information and options, and organizing decision making processes optimally, one can gently guide ("nudge") folks into decisions that will work better for them, without applying coercion.

I provide janitorial service in Phoenix AZ.  I quote a lot of janitorial jobs where the current provider is doing as perfectly adequate job, according to his somewhat limited specs.  The facility might look less than optimal because the carpet needs to be cleaned, or the exterior windows washed, or the VCT burnished.  None of these "periodic" services, or cleaning supplies, are in the specs, but might well be available (for extra billing) should the customer call.  The customer doesn't call - perhaps he's too busy, or forgotten what's not in the specs - so the periodic work does not happen, the appearance of the building deteriorates, and the janitorial service forgoes a bit of extra revenue.  Because the facility looks less than ideal (because of the dirty carpet, etc.) I'm there bidding on the current fellow's job.

In quoting a job, we generally give the prospective client two prices - one for basic janitorial (but with our health, security and indoor air quality programs built in) and a second price for a bundle of "periodic" services - perhaps a bi-weekly burnishing, an as-needed scrub and refinish, a quarterly carpet cleaning, monthly windows, and a quarterly ceramic or stone floor scrub.  One monthly price for the bundle, rolled into the monthly bill.  We optimize the frequencies, so the carpet and tile are never trashed, and we can do more of a maintenance than a restorative job (cheaper for us, cheaper for the client).  We schedule the jobs well in advance, and can thus even out work loads.  The client gets the same bill every month, so doesn't have to budget, or get approved, extra charges.  The client never has to remember to call to order a job.  And the facility looks good ongoing.

We "nudge" (never require) the prospective client to take the "full service" package.  It's better for him - less hassle, better looking facility; it's better for us - for the same reasons.

But sometimes there's too much wax

I ruminated the other day about why one ought use floor finish. 

But, as in all good things (think beer), you can overdo it.  Started a small industrial facility (a metal fabricator) a couple of weeks ago.  The stated reason for bringing in a professional janitorial service was that the gal - not quite an employee, not quite a firm - who's been doing the cleaning for years is costing them too much in floor finish, even though they are buying the low cost stuff from a home improvement warehouse.  As with many in-house, or kind of in-house, janitors, the client provides chemicals, equipment, training (or would if they'd thought of it), and had never thought much about the cost.

(As a rule, we include periodic VCT, carpet and ceramic work as part of our ongoing service and price, and never charge separately for chemicals)

Didn't pay much attention to the floors as I began my initial walk-through; they were almost black, looking a bit like a dirty version of modern very dark brown fake-plank flooring.  Until I looked under a mat.  The floors themselves were a light chestnut.  The black was a whole lot of finish, with dirt and grit waxed in.  But they did have a shine.

When told about the cost of the ongoing finish purchases, and eyeballing the floor, as asked about frequency of re-finishing.  She'd been laying down finish every night, five nights per week - for several years.

We stripped a test patch, to see if we could remove the gunk, without damaging the floor.  And to get a rough idea of what kind of time (and stripper quantity) might be involved.  We did get most of the finish off.  A two foot square area took us a couple of hours.  The client was happy with the appearance, but not particularly with the estimate.

 

Tile - or carpet?

We started service for a large industrial facility the beginning of last week.  Nice modern facility, that the previous janitorial service had let go, for so long that the client had more or less forgotten what a clean facility might look like.  We spent the first couple of nights bringing the routine janitorial up to speed (one can now see the paint on the walls around the Bradley sinks in the shop), and then rolled into floor work.  (We generally include periodic floor and window work as part of our ongoing service and billing- burnishing and refinishing VCT, carpet cleaning and protecting, ceramic, stone and concrete scrubbing, and so on.)

The worst part, appearance wise, involved lots of junked up textured ceramic, in office and shop lunchroom areas; took us a couple of nights to scrub.  Then we addressed office carpet cleaning, and some shop restroom concrete.  Last night, we finished the concrete and got into carpet cleaning in a couple of small shop areas.

Received this from the client's Quality Supervisor, this morning:

"...Also, kudos to your team that shampooed the quality office carpet last night! I have never seen the carpet look this good, great job!"

Always with the stories (you accumulate a few in 40-plus years in the industry), I responded:

"Glad the quality office looks better. We’ve fooled with worse.  Had a small place years back – offices of a trash collection firm – located right down at the dump.  No dumpster for the trash – we were supposed to open the back door and toss it.  They had a couple of back rooms with so much gunk in (and on top of) the carpet (and enough oil that it was kind of shiny) that my folks thought it was really grubby tile, at first…."

True story.  These days, we try to stick with rather more upscale clients, like the industrial one referenced.

(Top photo is the before, bottom the after.  As usual, the regular lines are lay of the knap from the extractor; when the carpet has dried, we can vacuum it to pull out the lines.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why we use floor finish. And burnish.

A few months ago, a client (for, I imagine a good deal of money) replaced a perfectly good shop lunchroom floor with new VCT.  And paid extra for a "permanent" finish so as to be able to save money by discontinuing our program of monthly burnishing and as-needed refinishing.

Not consulted beforehand, we mentioned to the client after the fact that there is really no such thing as a "permanent" finish; the ones that are called that provided instructions for refinishing when the "permanent" finish begins to show wear.  Go figure.

Here's what it looks like now. Dull and scratched.  Perhaps it's "permanent" in that, given what the client paid for it, he's not likely to want to pay to do anything more with it.  And, it's just a shop lunchroom.

Wood floor restoration

Happened to be talking to my next door neighbor John while watering the lawn the other evening.  He'd noticed the red oak floors in my house (a pretty much restored 1926 bungalow in downtown Phoenix); he'd just of pulled up the 1970's shag carpet in his house, and wondered what could be done about the original wood floors underneath.  He suspected they were beyond salvaging, and had about decided to re-carpet.

I put the hose into a parched flower bed (I mentioned that this is Phoenix) and ambled next door.  A quick hit, by hand, with a bit of 150 sandpaper showed that the "permanent" stains were very surface; the glue from the carpet pad looked evil, but mostly scraped up; likewise a whole lot of paint.  (The carpet went down after a fire; the painters sent in by the insurance company figured that, with carpet going down, there was no need to be tidy).  Similarly, figuring that the carpet would not be removed in their lifetime, they were quite generous with nails (big) in the carpet tack strips, and added (just to be sure) a whole lot of staples, throughout.

All solvable.  The staple holes were small enough to be unnoticeable; the nail holes could be filled with a tinted putty.  John had a wood flooring company look at the job, and they suggested sanding with a drum sander.  No need, I thought: the wood was in good shape throughout; no reason to take of a substantial amount of it, as would a drum sander (you can only fully sand an oak floor several times before you hit the tong-and-grove part, and need to replace the floor).  A large (usually about 16" x 24") commercial sander would remove surface issues while taking off little wood.  I offered to assist (more with advice than real work); he'd have a better, less destructive job, much more affordably. After the cleaning and light sanding, I like oil based urethane.  It goes down easily, looks great, and wears quite well.  My house I refinish every several years - large dogs with large claws), but my office probably every eight or ten years.

While we do the occasional wood floor professionally (our main focus is in office cleaning Phoenix) I've mostly learned at places where I can afford to make mistakes - my home, and my 1914 vintage office.  So far, no mistakes.

Finally, I mentioned to John that he needed to get up ALL the nails and staples; any left would shred the sandpaper on the sander, at a cost of a few bucks each time.  He asked (innocently) how to insure that he's gotten all the staples up.  I suggested a lot of walking around, barefoot, on the floor....

Wood floors - I prefer maintenance to replacement

Speaking of Gyms (as I was in my last article), caught an article in one of our monthly trade journals (we provide commercial janitorial services Phoenix) about care of gym floors.  Gym floors are hardwood, are generally carefully monitored to prevent anything but soft shoe contact (one tries to avoid golf cleats), and usually have ample space for many feet of treated entry matting.  But the rule of thumb seems to be full replacement every 15 to 25 years, and a sanding every 5.  It is suggested that an annual re-coat will extend the life of the floor.

As a rule, you only need to replace a hardwood floor when you've sanded enough to weaken the structure, or have begun to expose the tongues of tongue and groove flooring (or you sand through to the basement...).  You only need to sand when you've worn through the finish and into the wood, or have put down so many coats that the floor had begun to discolor (with modern, mostly non-yellowing finishes, that takes a good many coats).  So, refinishing often seems a good idea.

Still, that seems to me a heavy replacement schedule, even with the aggressive  usage of basketball games.

Fortunately, in our office cleaning Phoenix operation,  we do a lot of floors, VCT, ceramic, stone and wood. My office is in a 1914 vintage building, featuring the original oak flooring.  It was sanded some 30 years ago, likely for the first time.  In our full building restoration a few years back, we replaced a good deal of damaged flooring, sanding the new wood to level the floor.  At the same time, we did a light screening of the existing floor (nowhere near a sanding, just enough to give the new finish something to grab on to).  I believe that is the only refinishing since the sanding 30 years back.  I used an oil-based urethane with a lambs wool applicator; as memory serves, three coats.  Still looks great, with only vacuuming, microfiber damp mopping, and treated entry matting ongoing.

Here's a history of our restoration of our commercial cleaning Phoenix offices.

Protect with entry mats

You can save a lot of money by trapping dirt at your building's entry than by using my janitor to remove it from all the nooks and crannies of the place.

Here's a good summary of types, and uses, of entry mats, from our friends at Cleaning and Maintenance Management.  About the only point I'd add is the benefit of rented, not purchased, walk-off mats - the kind that your mat company picks up every week, and replaces with a freshly laundered one.  As I stress to my commercial janitorial clients, the mat service will get the old mat much cleaner than my client can by taking it to the high pressure hose at the car-wash (they have a really big washing machine), and they treat it with a goop (the technical term) that grabs the grease, motor oil, and petroleum distillates from the asphalt parking lot.  That's stuff you don't want tracked through your building.

So go rent yourself some mats.

Warehouse floors ought be sealed

From time to time, we're called upon to deal with warehouse floor issues - staining, slipperiness, damage.   Nice if we'd been called a few years ago to prevent the problem, rather than have to explain (usually) that we can't do anything much, at least at a reasonable price.

Here's a quick article, via Cleaning & Maintenance Management, on the safety, repair, appearance and maintenance issues involved in such floors, and why one wants to seal and/or finish them initially.

We can certainly handle maintenance on concrete (and stone, ceramic, cork, terrazzo and other less than common floors), both initially and periodically.  But I'd much rather "maintain" than "restore".  And I'll bet you'd prefer that too.