Many of us can remember the time when we, younger in years and lesser in girth, eagerly participated in the raging debate about which was easier and less costly to maintain, carpeting or resilient tile floors. Soft or hard? I'm not sure, given the enormous variables involved in every installation of each sort and the vast array of opinions offered, if we ever actually reached a definitive conclusion, but there was one indisputable fact that emerged from that focus on floors.
Indisputable fact: Every industry participant will defend that particular industry to the very end of their time in it.
And so it is with this newly emerging controversy seeking the answer to the question, Which provides a more healthy environment, carpet or hard flooring? It is not surprising to find carpet industry people defending the product they supply. Nor are we shaken by the revelation that the carpet cleaners are supportive of their maintenance efforts as positive contributions to human welfare. Although no tile industry folks joined in, I'm reasonably certain of their stand on the issue.
Looking back, we can see the results of the "ease of maintenance" controversy. VCT proponents likely spurred research into maintenance techniques that sought to avoid or, at least, reduce the nasty and costly stripping of trashed finish that was a summer ritual in most schools and, in other settings, occurred all too frequently. Harder finishes, high speed burnishing, better dust mop treatments and mop head compositions, all resulted from the desire to reduce maintenance time and costs, making the product more appealing to facility owners.
On the other side of the issue, the response of the carpet industry was also focused on reducing or eliminating maintenance that made their product seem less desirable. No longer did we just vacuum a carpet, we "spot" vacuumed it. Or, we concentrated on "traffic lane" vacuuming or "area" vacuuming. Even today, the CRI website gives vacuuming once a week as a "rule of thumb" in residential settings. The commercial side is advised to set up frequencies based on foot traffic, high, medium, and light, with daily effort on high traffic and lessened attempts on medium and light. Using back packs, we can cover more area than with uprights in the same amount of time, but they offer no mechanical agitation to loosen dust and get it airborne. The operator must know how and when to use them correctly. Still, they are highly recommended as a cost saver.
While all these innovations do lessen the maintenance cost of carpet and, coupled with the fact that carpet has the depth dimension that allows for fine soils to sink out of sight, give the appearance of economy, we find ourselves, in this day of increasing allergy afflictions, trapped in the worst way. Dust doesn't settle just once a week on residential carpets, nor every two or three days on commercial installations with only light traffic to disturb it. And dust accumulation rates vary in intensity at various times of the year and in every facility, even in different areas in the same building.
We are not injured respiratorially by sand tracked in at an entrance or by a paper clip dropped from a desk. What hurts, according to the studies, is fine, airborne particles, dust on the breeze, so to speak, and it doesn't matter if the source is the parking lot outside an open window or the carpet beneath the shuffling feet of the 9 to 5ers. Spot vacuuming gets the sand and often the paper clip, but what about the fine dust trapped, momentarily, in the carpet fibers. Unless we can get that dust to settle on schedule in selected areas, our time and money saving practices to reduce carpet maintenance may produce less than stellar results.
Indisputable conclusion #1: You should not whine about engine failure if you aren't willing to change the oil.
If our maintenance practices are not in line with the best practices to obtain the desired results of reducing indoor contaminants, we find fault with the floor covering to no avail. We often, on the maintenance end of things, equate the effort with success. The janitor says, "Hey, I did mop that floor. Can't you see the swirl marks?" Or, the vac man on the team says, "I vacuum that traffic lane every night." We did something with some tools or equipment and that should do the job, right?
Wrong! Our physical presence with the tools in hand doesn't guarantee anything. Was the result of the effort an actual reduction in residues that contribute to health risks? Or, did we leave "swirl marks" and "hidden" dust to recontaminate the room?
The decisions of far too many in facility management and maintenance are driven by cost and budget. If we are serious about doing a quality job in promptly removing and, thus, avoiding the accumulation of indoor contaminants, we need to focus on the outcome of our work. While I seriously doubt the value of swabbing hundreds of square inches every night to determine the presence or absence of unknown bacteria against which the body has natural defenses, I can see the good sense of using particle meters in carpeted (and other) areas to see if the vacuuming (or dust mopping) is doing the job intended. Breathing is a necessity and the monitoring of indoor air quality seems to be a smart step to take for both the occupants who spend much time there and the maintenance staff who inevitably will be looked to for the solution to the problem.
Indisputable conclusion #2: As before, we haven't reached any universally applicable conclusion because the variables and unknowns don't allow for any.
That doesn't mean the discussion has no merit, just the opposite. Problems don't get solved until they are acknowledged, and this give-and-take has done a lot to bring out the issues and allow us to focus on addressing them. We can feel good about that, even with our allergies kicking in.
