Workplace safety, to most people, involves good lighting, keeping walkways free of clutter, and making certain trash is regularly removed. However, few people think about how their carpets can impact a healthy office.
According to the EPA, indoor air pollution is often two to five times higher than the pollution levels outside . Your full-time employees are spending around 40 hours every week breathing in this polluted indoor air. The results are increased absenteeism, a decrease in productivity, and an overall less healthy workforce.
Do you need to install an expensive air purification system or upgrade your HVAC to deal with this poor air quality? While you can, there’s a more affordable answer: commercial carpet cleaning. The dust, debris, and allergens caught in your carpets are often to blame for the poor air quality. Understanding how carpet cleaning and air quality go together can lead to a new way of purifying the air in your office. Let’s take a look at this connection and how professional commercial carpet cleaning by SourceOne can transform the air in your office.
How Carpets Act as a Filter
To understand why professional carpet cleaning is important, you first need to understand how carpet works on a structural level. Your office carpeting is essentially a type of air filter. Gravity pulls allergens, dust, and other debris out of the air and into the carpet, where the dense fibers trap them. This actually helps your air quality because it traps contaminants that people would otherwise breathe in.
However, this issue is that, like air filters, your carpet can only hold so much. Once it becomes full of carpet dust and other debris, it can’t hold any new particles. When this happens, every time someone steps o the carpet, these particles are sent flying up in the air where people can breathe them in. Without proactive carpet cleaning to remove trapped particles, your carpet goes from a helpful air filter to a source of indoor pollution.
Common Allergens Often Trapped in Carpets
There are a number of different microscopic contaminants that enter your office building every day via foot traffic, ventilation systems, and other daily activities. Here are some of the most common office allergens that are often trapped in your flooring:
Dust mites and insect dander
Dust mites thrive in the deep part of carpet where dead skin cells and other debris collect. These mites aren’t actually harmful themselves, but the waste they produce can trigger allergies, including respiratory issues.
Pollen and other outdoor allergens
Whenever a person walks into your office, they track in dirt, pollen and other particles on their shoes. These particles get pushed deep into the carpet and can cause allergic reactions and reduce air quality until they’re removed.
Mold spores
If your office is in an area of high humidity or has small window leaks, mold spores can settle into the carpet and begin colonizing. This means they will eventually release volatile organic compounds into the air people breathe.
Pet dander
Even if no animals ever enter your office, employees can still bring pet dander into the space from home. This dander can settle into the carpet and get kicked up whenever people walk on it, causing reactions in those who are allergic to it.
An overview of how commercial office carpets trap pollutants, the “sandpaper effect” of abrasive debris, and how hot water extraction achieves up to 99.97% particle removal for improved indoor air quality.
How Professional Carpet Cleaning Restores Air Quality
While routing vacuuming is a key part in building maintenance, it’s not enough to really get rid of all the allergens that can settle in your carpet. Vacuuming, even when done with commercial vacuum cleaners, simply cannot agitate the fibers enough, nor do they have the suction needed to reach the base of the carpet pile.
However, professional carpet cleaning does more than just vacuum:
- Deep extraction – We make use of deep extraction methods that use high-pressure, heated solutions to break the bonds holding fine particles to the carpet fibers. Once these bonds are broken, industrial-strength vacuums are able to pull them completely out of the carpets, restoring their ability to capture and filter new debris.
- Neutralize contaminants – Commercial cleaning not only cleans, it also sanitizes. This neutralizes the dust mites, bacteria, and other biological contaminants that can cause allergic reactions and asthma flare-ups.
- Control humidity – Carpet cleaning chemicals are designed to capture ois and volatile organic compounds without leaving any sticky chemical residue behind. This ensures that new dust and other debris won’t instantly stick to this residue and your carpet.
The Benefits of a Healthy Office Environment
Investing in regular commercial floor cleaning that focuses on improving the air quality in your office has several benefits that can directly impact your bottom line:
Reduced absenteeism
The CDC has noted that respiratory ailments and allergies are among the leading causes of absenteeism in the workplace. By removing the dust and other particles that cause these issues, you can expect to see your team’s overall sick days and even seasonal allergy call-outs drop.
Improved cognitive performance
Studies also show that employees working in offices with excellent air quality score significantly higher on cognitive tests and strategy execution. Cleaner air means that people experience fewer headaches and mental fatigue.
Longer-lasting carpets
Finally, when debris gets into your carpet, it acts like sandpaper. It can actually damage the fibers of the pile, significantly reducing the lifespan of your carpets. By removing this debris, you can get more on your investment and avoid replacing your carpet as often.
Comparing the Impact of Carpet Cleaning Methods
While there are several commercial carpet cleaning methods, they don’t all work in the same way. Let’s look at the main three options and how, by combining them, you can keep your carpets looking amazing and reduce the number of allergens and other debris in the air.
High-filtration vacuuming
- Done every day or several times a week.
- Removes dust and debris before it can settle into the carpet pile or become airborne.
- Affects the upper layers of the carpet.
Encapsulation cleaning
- Done every quarter or every two months.
- Traps debris in crystal polymers that can then be vacuumed out.
- Affects the upper and mid-layer of the carpet.
Hot water extraction
- Done semi-annually or annually.
- The best cleaning option for air quality. It flushes out carpets using hot water and a pre-treatment chemicals.
- Cleans down to the base of the carpet.
Why It’s Still Important to Vacuum Regularly
Some business owners make the mistake of assuming that encapsulation cleaning and hot water extraction replace regular vacuuming, but they don’t. Between these cleanings, it’s important to vacuum the carpets regularly with HEPA filters. Vacuums that use standard filters actually don’t suck up all the dust and allergens—some escape back into the air. HEPA filters remove 99.97% of particles, making them ideal for boosting your indoor air quality.
Create a Breathable, Healthy Office with SourceOne
Your office environment has a direct impact on your employees’ health, comfort, and productivity. Leaving experienced carpet cleaning out of your air quality plan ignores a space that has a direct impact on the dust and allergens in your building.
Here at SourceOne, we recognize that clean carpets are about more than just removing stains and spots. They’re about improving your air quality and employee health. Our team uses advanced cleaning equipment and eco-friendly cleaning solutions to remove deep-seated dirt, debris, biological compounds, and more from your carpets while protecting your employees and your office.
Want to learn more about how we can help you? Reach out to SourceOne today to discuss a comprehensive carpet cleaning program for your office.
