Bottom-Line Floor Care
Part 1: Three Key Components of a Floor-Maintenance Program
Part 2: Flooring Chemicals: Look Beyond Initial Cost
Part 3: Floor Maintenance: Working with Contractors
Flooring Chemicals: Look Beyond Initial Cost
By Stanley Quentin Hulin - April 2010 - Flooring
Chemicals form the cornerstone of the program, and the costs of these chemicals are on the rise. Cleaning crews can protect the flooring material by removing soil and contaminants and applying coating chemicals.
When looking strictly at chemical costs, managers often believe they can effectively cut costs by buying bargain-price chemicals. This is a common mistake managers make because they do not fully understand floor-maintenance chemicals.
Most managers view cleaning chemicals as generic, but as with all products on the market, cleaning chemicals include performers and non-performers. Departments waste many labor hours using non-performing chemicals they expect to work. Conversely, quality chemicals actually can increase productivity and reduce labor hours. They might cost more, but the real cost of floor maintenance is in the labor.
Managers also can reduce chemical costs by purchasing concentrated chemicals or incorporating proportioning systems. Concentrated chemicals deliver more cleaning power with less packaging, and proportioning systems reduce chemical use by providing precise measurement for the chemical-to-water ratio.
One major cost component of hard-floor maintenance programs relates to coating chemicals, and these prices also keep increasing. Again, buying more generic floor finishes might seem like a cost-effective decision. But in the long run, these finishes have a tendency to break down, ultimately costing more in labor to restore and maintain an acceptable appearance level.
Using high-quality floor finishes actually can increase the time between scrubbing and recoating and, by extension, the time between stripping and refinishing, due to the durability of the floor finishes. Extending the periodic and restorative procedures reduces the amount of coating chemicals, labor, equipment use, and facility downtime.
Equipment Issues
Managers also should pay close attention when specifying floor-maintenance equipment because the right equipment can benefit the program in several ways.
The purpose of equipment is to increase productivity and reduce physical fatigue, making it possible for technicians to get more done in less time. Spending more money on better equipment can boost the organization's bottom line.
When managers weigh the cost of a machine against labor hours, it becomes clear that buying a machine instead of renting or leasing makes more sense in most situations.
Comments
Terry Klymkiv wrote re: Flooring Chemicals: Look Beyond Initial Cost
on 1/13/2011 10:54:40 AM
Very well written article. Sometimes people think that they will save on chemicals but they don't understand that they will spend much more on labor. I have a personal experience with stripping and waxing floor. When I buy a cheaper stripper I might spend much more time stripping off old wax from the floor. However when spending 10 $ more on a better stripper I can tackle the same work much faster and save on labor. The same with floor finishes. Cheap ones tend to yellow very quickly and the floor needs to be stripped off almost every time. More expensive finishes wear very good and can be just scrubbed and recoated and therefore save a manger a lot of money in the longrun.
