If you’ve been tasked with cleaning toilets with a tiled floor in a pub, club or restaurant and they’re in pretty bad shape, follow our advice below;

Equipment

• Deck Scrubber
• Wet Vac
• Mop & bucket

Urine – The idea is to bring up the layers and layers of uric acid that have built up over the weeks/months/years (!) and have settled into the grout.

No Quick Fix – These layers will continue to come to the surface with repeat cleaning over a few months but it’s not a job that produces instant results so it’s worth explaining this to your client.  A wet vac is essential in order to stop the uric acid settling back into the tile and grout.

1. Use a heavy duty hard surface cleaner with a water soluble solvent – Selden F40 ‘Strongarm’
2. Dolute 1:10 with warm water (40-50 degrees)
3. Thoroughly scrub with a deck scrubber
4. Leave for 5 minutes
5. Repeat scrubbing
6. Thoroughly rinse off with water
7. Pick up all the water with a wet vac
8. Repeat entire process once or twice more
9. Daily use multi-purpose cleaner for daily cleaning with wet vac if possible

The deck scrubber is best used in areas that have cubicles or are tight spaces. If you have a large open space then using a low speed rotary floor scrubbing machine would produce great results with a brush attachment.

Visit Understand The Label for comprehensive information and signage that will help keep you and your team safe and up to date.

Whilst on this subject, it’s probably worth finding out when your cleaners last received any formal training. Through our chemical partner, Selden Research, we can provide free training at the convenience of your team. For more information just give me a call on 01252 877200 or click here.

As part of our corporate and social responsibilities, we pledged a days work from 3 of the Source team to our affiliated charity, Ordinary2Extraordinary (O2e). As one of O2e’s four nominated children’s charities for 2012, Get Kids Going required some support at the London Marathon Expo in handing out leaflets on forthcoming events and chatting to runners about the work the charity does for disabled kids.

David wins 2012 Virgin London Marathon

Shelly in action

O2e have recently launched a new website www.o2e.org

For more information on Get Kids Going, please click here.

Each have  different needs so I thought it would be useful to make our advice available to all.

Things we need to consider are;

• Type of floor – Altro safety flooring, ceramic tiles (wet and dry side), gymnasium etc and the type of brush or pad required
• Location of use and storage – Is there a lift available? How mobile does it need to be? What size space does it need to fit into and be stored in?
• Power options – Battery or mains?
• Size of area being cleaned – What size tanks does it need?
• Budget – Entry level machine or one with all the bells and whistles?
• Operators – Who will be using it? What training is required?

Cleaning machines can be a fantastic way to achieve better results and save money. The initial outlay is a big commitment, yes, but the benefits far outweigh alternative manual cleaning methods in most circumstances. Give us a call if you’d like to chat through your requirements.

Southern Daily Echo - Former footballers are cleaning up

Cleaning Hygiene Today - Toilet Humour and Business Acumen Scores at Business Awards

Bright Marketing Blog - Award-winning Bog Rolls With Attitude (and profits)

Ecademy - Award-winning Bog Rolls with Attitude (and profits)

YouTube (minute 2.20) - Toast of Surrey Winners Speech. From 2.20 mins

Entrepreneur Country - Bog Rolls and Revenue

Get Surrey - Toast of Surrey Finalists Revealed

Get Surrey - Toast of Surrey Winners Enjoy Success

Cleaning Matters Magazine – Super Service Sees Surrey Award

Cleaning Matters Magazine – Fortune Favours The Brave

Since inception, Theo’s Small Business Sunday competition has developed into a business club and last week saw the first #SBS Winners event in Birmingham. Sadly, I was away on holiday on the day of this event but will be present at the next event, whatever it takes!

Theo’s Ryman team has joined forces with Chris Wheeler of Metal Frog web design company and have launched the official #SBS Winners website. Each winner has their own profile page, you can check out ours here.

Business communities can be a great way of networking and learning from other small businesses that are thriving. I’m really looking forward to being a part of this group and embracing Theo’s advice for growing a business.

Some of the time our chemicals and the school cleaning team can do a great job of maintaining it and breathing new life into it. However, in some cases the floor is too tired and needs specialist help. It made sense for us to team up with an old football teammate of mine who runs his own floor restoration business and put him in touch with the schools that need some serious TLC on their wood floors.

Craig and his team have been responsible for restoring some delicate listed properties and the reputation of Restore My Floor has enabled them to work with the precious floors at both Winchester and Portsmouth cathedrals. We’re looking forward to seeing the results and will post the before and after photos on this blog. To see some of their work, just click here.

You can follow Craig on Twitter @RestoreMyFloor

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16196178

The statistics were staggering; more than 4,000 criminals applied to be teachers last year, all of whom were flagged up by CRB checks. It made me question how many suppliers to schools take this seriously enough when sending deliveries to education sector customers.

All of our staff, both office based and delivery drivers, are CRB checked which gives our education sector customer peace of mind and hopefully demonstrates professionalism and commitment too.

The ‘brochure’ will be in PDF format within our website, one for each category. Each product will have a detailed description, most with an accompanying image. Prices won’t be on the document as we have several pricing structures.

Of course, we’ll still welcome the ‘do you do…?’ question that we’re asked on a daily basis by our customers and the answer will still almost always be ‘Yes!’

We’re aiming to hit a deadline of end of April for the PDFs to be complete.

Whilst I know that new business will not just fall in our lap as a result of the win and the subsequent press articles, we’re pleased that more people know about us in our local communities and afar. If you’ve missed some of the press releases in recent weeks, here’s what’s out there;

Cleaning and Maintenance Magazine – The Toast of Surrey

Southern Daily Echo – Former footballers are cleaning up

Cleaning Hygiene Today – Toilet Humour and Business Acumen Scores at Business Awards

Bright Marketing Blog – Award-winning Bog Rolls With Attitude (and profits)

Ecademy – Award-winning Bog Rolls with Attitude (and profits)

YouTube (minute 2.20) – Toast of Surrey Winners Speech. From 2.20 mins

Entrepreneur Country - Bog Rolls and Revenue

Get Surrey – Toast of Surrey Finalists Revealed

Get Surrey – Toast of Surrey Winners Enjoy Success

Print Media;

Aldershot News & Mail

Camberley News & Mail

Farnborough News & Mail

Yateley News & Mail

Surrey Advertiser

Southern Daily Echo

Pending Press Articles;

Cleaning Matters Magazine