How Often Should Your Office Carpet Be Cleaned?

Because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the UK cleaning industry--which makes up 5% of the national workforce--has become incredibly important this year. It will continue to be important next year, too.

If you’re an office manager or premises manager of an office building, then you know how important having a clean office is. It was already important before the pandemic hit, and now, with so many new regulations in the UK, it is even more important.

From commercial carpet cleaning to wiping down desks, there’s much for you to do.

Keeping up to date with shifting regulations can be quite stressful. Reassuring your employees that the space is safe, as well as ensuring they follow guidelines, only adds to that stress.

It can all be quite overwhelming when you consider all the work you have to put in to keep your office space clean and safe.

Fortunately, by creating an effective schedule, you can significantly reduce your stress--so that you can focus on actually running your business. By learning how often your office carpet should be cleaned, you can easily tick that off your to-do list.

Read on to learn more.

Factors that Impact Carpet Cleaning Frequency

How often your office carpet should be cleaned depends, in large part, on several factors.

From carpets being made from different materials, to how often you are using particular areas of your office space, these factors will have an impact on your carpet cleaning schedule.

By reviewing these, you’ll have a better idea of when to clean your office space carpets.

How Often the Space is Used

As you can imagine, the amount that people are walking upon the carpet makes a great difference in how often you have to clean carpets.

If you have a shop where clients often come in to make purchases, for example, it’s a good idea to count how many customers come in, and base cleaning frequency on that number.

If there are parts of your office that rarely see any footfall at all, you’ll only have to clean them when you do the minimal amount of carpet cleaning--which we’ll cover in a moment.

Style and Colour

The last thing you want is to have a visitor come into your office and see a giant stain in the middle of your carpet.

But if you have white carpets in your office building--then chances are you’ll have to clean quite often. Colour is a big factor to consider, but so are density, pile type, and nap.

Generally speaking, the lighter the colour, the more often you’ll have to clean. If the nap is high, this will also require cleaning often. Fortunately, offices often have short nap, so you shouldn’t have to clean regularly for that reason.

The Type of Space

The type of space you have also impacts your carpet cleaning schedule.

For an office space, this is usually once every half year or annually, though this can vary depending on how busy your office is, and how close it is to the main entrance to the building.

Additionally, if your office space has more footfall than your average office--for example, if you host speaker events, hold office parties, or have many clients or partners coming in to discuss matters--you may want to have your carpets cleaned more frequently.

Every three months or so, in this case, would be appropriate.

Changes because of the COVID-19 Pandemic

You may need to clean your carpets more often, however, because of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

According to guidance from the UK government, frequent cleaning of the workspace is essential to staying safe during this time. Especially if there has been an infected person in your workplace, you will want to be careful.

The good news? While a person is infectious longer than this, in a contaminated environment that is not a healthcare environment, the residual infectious virus is significantly reduced after 48 hours.

However, if you want to be extra-safe, it’s a smart idea to clean your carpets more regularly and after there has been any exposure.

Seasonal Changes

Seasonal changes also have an effect on the state of your carpets.

When there is a lot of rain, for example, your employees might bring in some mud on their shoes. In winter, there may be additional issues with snow, slush, and ice used to keep pavements from freezing over.

Whilst it may help to have mats at the door, chances are there will still be residual traces of seasonal changes whenever employees walk in.

If there’s a lot of inclement weather in your area, then you will also want to regularly deep clean the carpets in your office.

This is especially the case for areas near the entrance, and high-traffic areas that everyone will walk over when they are heading into other office areas, such as hallways.

Additionally, any carpeting in the kitchen or other areas that attract congregation will need more regular cleaning.

How Often Carpet Cleaning Must Happen--No Matter What

Whatever the different factors impacting how often you clean your carpets, there are some guidelines you should follow no matter what.

Deep professional cleaning should be done:

• Every 2 years at least
• Once a year for a medium amount of footfall
• Biannually for heavy footfall

A general cleaning should be done:

• Every year or year and a half at least
• Once or twice a year for a medium amount of footfall
• Every three to six months for heavy footfall

It’s important to do this because, no matter how clean you generally are, carpet can collect a lot of unwanted particles, liquids, bacteria, and viruses. Mould can start to grow, as well.

Knowing when to clean carpets means avoiding unpleasant smells, the health risks of mould (which can impact office productivity!), ugly stains that don’t look good to anyone visiting the office, and, of course, general office cleanliness.

What To Do Between Cleanings

Even when you aren’t having your carpets cleaned, it’s important to maintain a standard of cleanliness--both for aesthetic and health reasons.

To keep your carpet clean between cleanings, you’ll want to prioritise preventative cleaning, stain cleaning, and hoovering.

Preventative Cleaning

Preventative cleanings should be done once or twice a month for areas with heavy footfall, and every two or three months for other areas. For preventative cleaning, you’ll want to have cleaning services done, but it doesn’t require a full-on deep clean.

Stain Cleaning

Stain cleaning is all about getting that stain out the second it happens. It’s a good idea to remind your employees of the importance of doing this. You can also train them.

Having a staff training on cleanliness is a good idea anyway, considering the constantly changing regulations of 2020.

It would also be worthwhile to have someone to regularly check for these stains, especially in areas such as the kitchen or near the main entrance.

Hoovering

Hoovering will save you a lot of money and time, as it is one of the best ways of removing dirt and other particles from a carpet. Ensure that you have a high-quality hoover--not one of those that actually spreads the dirt around!

If you do have that problem, remember that cleaning your hoover can fix this problem easily. Sometimes there may be some residue stuck inside, or the brushes simply need a quick clean. Learn more about how to clean your hoover here.

Hoovering your office space daily is optimal, though for areas that are used less, once a week is fine.

Additional Tips

Here are some additional tips for cleaning carpets properly and carpet cleaning for commercial offices:

• Move furniture out of the way when cleaning, and take rugs outside to clean them if possible
• Hoover your office carpet before it is deep cleaned so that the deep clean really does its job
• Remove stains before the deep clean, using the different process of using detergent and a hand brush
• Use a detergent spray on the carpet before the deep clean
• After the deep clean, allow the carpet to dry fully before using it again (keep in mind that this may require you to schedule a day during which the office is closed)

Need a Carpet Cleaned?

If you need an office carpet cleaning or a commercial carpet cleaning, then you’re in the right place. At A Cleaning Service, we offer these services.

We also offer a variety of special offers and packages when it comes to carpet cleaning, which you can learn more about here.

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