Many small businesses that operate in office settings or anywhere else where they have some carpeting or rugs may still be using residential vacuum cleaners to take care of the floors in those spaces. If the business is directly responsible for keeping their office environment clean, they may be too small to have a maintenance personnel or department.
Running a vacuum cleaner over the thin pile carpeting in the office may seem like a good idea, but if it is a basic, residential vacuum cleaner, even a more advanced one, but still a residential cleaner, it could be putting employees in harm’s way.
The limitations of residential vacuum cleaners.
In most cases, a residential vacuum cleaner is only going to be effective for small areas. Yes, it will be operational and collect a lot of dirt, dust, and other particulates from the carpeting, but in most office settings there are many items that can get dropped onto the carpet, forgotten about, lost under a desk, and anywhere else that can cause damage to these sensitive components.
Commercial floor cleaners and vacuum cleaners are much more durable and can withstand significant impact from nails, thumbtacks, pennies, paperclips, and much more that get spun up by a residential vacuum cleaner’s rollers.
Another concern when using or relying on a residential vacuum cleaner for commercial spaces is simply power. A residential vacuum cleaner is only strong enough to collect dirt and small particulates from the upper layers of carpeting. Even though the carpeting or area rugs in an office space are thin, a residential vacuum cleaner will not be able to get up all of the dirt and other allergens.
Even though it looks clean on the surface, the minute employees begin walking around the next day, they are going to be stirring up the dust and other allergens. That can have a direct impact on air quality.
Any business owner or manager who is responsible for keeping an office environment clean should focus on commercial floor cleaning equipment rather than a basic residential vacuum.