Miami Warehouse Cleaning: How to Clean a Warehouse Floor

At Kleanway, we offer various cleaning services for both residential and commercial properties. As for as commercial property is concerned, there’s one area that seems to be problematic for property owners: warehouses. We offer Miami warehouse cleaning services to pressure clean warehouse floors and other problematic areas. To help warehouse owners and managers, we’re dedicating the post today on how to clean a warehouse floor. We’ll discuss ways to maintain the cleanliness of your warehouse, as well as why maintaining a clean floor is essential. Furthermore, we’ll go over when it’s time to schedule a warehouse clean.

Why Keeping a Warehouse Clean is so Difficult?

Warehouses are big and often stacked with a lot of things. This is the first reason why keeping a warehouse clean can be such a difficult task. There’s never a time when a warehouse is empty, so there are always spots that collect dust and other debris.

Another reason why keeping a warehouse clean is so challenging, is because it’s always busy. A lot of warehouses ship goods that people order from online stores. People are always buying from online stores and expect their deliveries to arrive promptly. As a result, many warehouses operate seven days a week, often with long hours.

To make matters worse, there are always fork lifts and other light vehicles operating on the warehouse floor. These light vehicles often spill oil onto the floors. Warehouses where foods are stocked may also gather dirt buildup on the floors due to spills.

Many warehouses don’t have dedicated cleaning staff, so on top of all the factors that contribute to dirty floors, there’s no one to make sure everything stays clean.

Why Warehouse Cleaning is Essential?

Despite the understandable difficulty of cleaning warehouses, it’s still imperative for many warehouses to stay clean.

Warehouses that store foods, medical supplies and other health-related products must stay clean to adhere to safety standards. The thought of rats or coachroaches in a warehouse that stocks comestibles and health products is unsettling – vermin and pests must be controlled at all costs.

But even warehouses that don’t stock health products have to stay clean. Dirty floors can pose a health risk to staff. One of the main health risks associated with dirty warehouse floors is slip-and-fall accidents. Floors dirtied by oil spills or packaging materials are especially hazardous.

The National Floor Safety Institute states the following:

Compensation & medical costs associated with employee slip/fall accidents is approximately $70 billion annually.

Maintaining the cleanliness of your warehouse is, of course, much cheaper and safer than paying out injured employees.

Another concern in warehouse cleanliness is air quality. A warehouse that isn’t regularly cleaned is at risk for mold and other growths. Once the spores fill the air, they’ll pose a risk to the respiratory health of warehouse employees.

Clean Warehouse Floors Boost Efficiency

One reason why some warehouses are surprisingly filthy is because many warehouse managers simply don’t realize how important clean floors are for the warehouse to operate at full capacity. Dirty working conditions can slow down turnaround times on work. Poor hygiene in the warehouse can also mean employees will fall ill more often. As a result, employees might regularly call in sick.

Keeping the warehouse floor clean and well-organized should be considered part of the standard maintenance schedule. A clean floor will offer a better work environment for employees and boost productivity.

If customers occasionally visit the warehouse, clean floors will also help make a good impression. Clean floors look professional, whereas dirty floors can come across as a lack in professionality. No one would like to buy from a shop that’s dirty. People expect clean shopping environments, so why should the warehouse where the shop’s supplies come from be any different?

How to Clean a Warehouse Floor: Everyday Maintenance

To start off with, all warehouses should ideally have some cleaning equipment. It’s also good to assign the responsibility of cleaning to a group of employees. To ensure that floors stay clean, supervisors must inspect the floors every day.

Sweeping is an important daily cleaning task in warehouses. Neglecting to sweep before cleaning the floor will damage the floor surface. Over time, the scratches will make the warehouse floor appear dirty even when it’s clean.

When you logically think about it, you can’t effectively clean any floor without sweeping first. The dust and debris on the floor will simply mix with water when the floor is being cleaned. This means that cleaning will simply muddy the dirt and spread it out on the floor rather than removing it.

Once the floor is swept, workers can proceed to cleaning the scrubber. It’s important that warehouse managers acquire all the necessary cleaning equipment for daily sweeping and scrubbing. Without the right equipment, managing the cleanliness of warehouse floors will be near impossible.

Areas where sweeping and scrubbing machines can’t operate will, however, still need to be cleaned manually with industrial cleaning equipment.

Lastly, oil spills and other possible slipping hazards should always be cleaned from the floor immediately to avoid accidents.

Pressure Cleaning Warehouse Floors: Developing a Schedule

While daily sweeping followed by scrubbing is good to maintain floors, it’s not enough to keep them clean permanently. A lot of warehouse managers feel discouraged by dirty floors, even after implementing rigorous cleaning protocols. To clean warehouse floors properly, warehouse managers must schedule regular professional cleaning sessions.

Pressure cleaning a warehouse floor is an ideal way to remove grit and dirt that’s left behind after everyday cleaning. The pressure of the water blasts deep cleans floors and removes even the toughest dirt and stains. Hiring a Miami warehouse cleaning service will ensure warehouses are cleaned properly and that all dirt residue is removed from floors.

Your warehouse cleaning schedule will depend on how clean you want to keep the warehouse. While some warehouses can afford a bit of dirt, others have to be kept spotless. The cleaner a warehouse needs to be, the more often warehouse floors will need to be pressure cleaned.

Unfortunately, floor areas that need to be pressure cleaned have to be empty. All stock in these areas will have to be removed. As most warehouses can’t be emptied out entirely for cleaning, the warehouse floor might need to be divided into sections so each section can be emptied before cleaning.

If cleaning the warehouse floor involves sectioning it off to clean it one section at a time, cleaning might take longer, but the results will be well worthwhile.

Benefits of Pressure Cleaning Warehouse Floors

Pressure cleaning is a great way to remove tough grit, oil stains and other dirt from concrete floors. Because most warehouse floors are concrete, floors can be pressure cleaned at high pressures, allowing for a flawless finish.

Assuming the surface of a warehouse floor isn’t scratched to a point where it’s coarser than it should be, oil stains can often be removed completely after one cleaning session.

Pressure cleaning is also a good way to control mold and other respiratory hazards. The deep cleaning nature of pressure cleaning means it’s ideal for warehouses where strict hygiene is essential. Various cleaning agents can be used to deliver a hygienic end result where mold, bacteria and other organisms are significantly reduced.

Is Pressure Cleaning Suitable for Painted Concrete Floors?

Painted concrete floors can also be pressure cleaning. As with any other concrete floor, everyday cleaning for a painted concrete floor should involve sweeping it before cleaning it with a scrubber. There’s little difference between cleaning a painted floor compared to one that isn’t painted. The only really difference is maintenance – a painted floor will need to be repainted when the paint gets old. As far as cleaning goes, everything can be done the same.