A free, online resource center that provides school, college and university facility operations professionals with the tools and training to achieve excellence in educational facility maintenance.
Daily Floor Care:
1. Dust Mop Floor 2-3 Times a Day to Remove Daily Dirt and Grit
2. Remove Gum Using a Putty Knife
3. Wipe Up Pop or Sugar Drink Spills with Damp Rag
4. Clean Up Black or Shoe Marks
Weekly Floor Care:
1. Mop Floor or Tack Floor with Hydro Cleaner
2. Check Expansion Joints for Signs of Changes in Humidity
3. Check Entire Floor for Signs of Floor Damage
Sanitation is pest management. Clutter helps create a conducive condition for pest harborage that allows pests to eat, rest, and reproduce. It has been shown that light can penetrate the ootheca of an American cockroach and significantly decrease the weight of the subsequently emerging nymphs. Reduced fitness reduces survival and keeps the population under check.
Adult female German cockroaches were found to live for almost 13 days even without food or water. However, if food and water are present, their longevity increases to 85 days.
These facts provide plenty of reasons to hold sanitation as a key practice in cockroach management. In addition, sanitation further leads to success in implementing the key IPM components such as:
Making critical areas accessible and improving targeted treatments
Increasing effectiveness of monitoring
Eliminating alternative food sources which directly compete with baits
Monitor using sticking traps to identify the area to be baited.
Select a bait that is palatable to the cockroaches. There are a number of very effective baits on the market and some that act as quickly as an old-fashioned spray, but with much less risk of exposure (i.e., liability).
If one bait does not control the population, use another. Remember, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results is the definition of insanity!
Rotate your baits to avoid resistance.
Do not spray an insecticide over or close to baits. The spray will contaminate the bait and render it ineffective.
Evaluate the effectiveness of your treatment with continued monitoring.
Hosted by Roger Young, featuring Dave Waddell (North American Hazardous Materials Management Association), Dr. Irene Cesa (Flinn Scientific Incorporated) and Russ Phifer (WC Environmental)
The first step in IPM is to identify the insect you are working with and to determine if it is in fact a pest. If you have German cockroaches in your school rest assured you have a pest problem that needs to be resolved. To learn more about identification please read this EDIS publication on the German cockroach that was written by Steven Valles.
A lot of times when we pull that walk off mat up on the different types of floor we see where it has stained the floor or discolored the floor and sometimes we just can’t get that out.
A best practice is to remove the walk off mat at least two to five times a week in the evening. Ask your last custodians who pass through the building to remove the floor mat and turn it over and move it away from the door or the entry so that that part of the floor can dry out.
Create a floor plan indicating the type of flooring you have throughout the school. This will allow you to plan the cleaning process for each of the areas.
It is very important that we understand what it is that we’re taking care of.
Implement a training program. Make sure when you do training that you are using people who are trained – trained themselves for training and utilizing the right materials and supplies
It is important for you to document the maintenance of your floors, especially if you have any claims against the installer or the manufacturer or even with your insurance company.
So try to follow the manufacturer recommendations and to use only certified people to train your staff on how to maintain your floors. Establish a PM schedule automatically generating work orders, track the PM work and utilizing a system such as SchoolDude.com.
All of the floor systems have about the same problems. Tape is one of the biggest. If you have any tape on any type of coating on your floors, tape will pull the finish off no matter which tape you use if it’s over 24 hours.
If you need to add lines try shoe polish, tempura paint or the best practice is to pain the lines on it permanently.
Some of the other problems are street shoes. Street shoes can leave permanent black marks on uncoated floors. We recommend using only gym shoes. One of the biggest issues we see nowadays is water damage and not reporting of water damage.
If you see any water damage it is best for you to contact your insurance agent even if you’re not filing a claim. Insufficient maintenance on athletic floors is costly to the owners. It is easier and cheaper to maintain them than to replace them.
Schedule daily maintenance and annual maintenance in cooperation with your staff and coaches – talk with your coaches, work out schedules where you can get in and do your daily maintenance and weekly maintenance and annual and have it scheduled. The best way to do this is by utilizing a PM system such as SchoolDude.com.
