From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Floor cleaning is a major occupation throughout the world. The
main job of most cleaners is to clean floors.
[edit]Reasons for cleaning floors
The principal reasons for floor cleaning are:
- To prevent injuries due
to tripping or slipping. Injuries due to slips and trips on level floors are a major
cause of accidental injury or death. Bad practice
in floor cleaning is itself a major cause of accidents.[1]
- To beautify the floor.
- To remove stains, dirt, litter and
obstructions.
- To remove grit and sand which scratch
and wear down the surface.
- To remove allergens, in particular dust.
- To prevent wear to the surface e.g. by using a floor wax or protective sealant.
- To make the environment sanitary e.g.
in kitchens.
- To maintain an optimum traction e.g.
for dance
floors.
[edit]Methods of floor cleaning
The treatment needed for different types of floors is very different.[2] For safety it is most important
to ensure the floor is not left even slightly wet after cleaning or mopping up.[3]
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.[4]
It used to be common to use tea leaves to collect dirt from carpets and remove odours.[5] Nowadays it is sill quite
common to usediatomaceous earth,
or in fact any cat litter type
material, to remove infestations from floors.
There are also a wide variety of floor cleaning machines available today such as
floor buffers,automatic floor scrubbers andsweepers,
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.[6]