carpet cleaning

The Importance of Carpet Cleaning

Replacing flooring can be expensive, so protecting your investment is a great proactive approach to keep it safe and clean for years to come. This is especially true for your carpet as it can easily become matted, ripped up, and dirty. Because carpet is made of fibrous materials, it easily traps dirt, dust, and dust mites. Your employees and tenants who have allergies will be extremely grateful for regular carpet cleanings as deep carpet cleanings will remove allergens and improve risks associated with asthma and allergies. Omni Facility Maintenance Services now offers carpet cleaning as a service for our clients.

The Benefits

The benefits of having your carpets cleaned regularly are innumerable, and most experts agree that having your carpets deep cleaned twice a year can make them last for 5 – 15 years per install. Cleaning them regularly keeps them looking great for business, including all your employees, tenants, and customers. Plus, it removes allergens from the fibers to keep everyone breathing easier and safer. When soil is regularly deep cleaned out of the carpet fibers, it reduces the damage of consistent foot traffic (like fraying and matting). Even though soil can be difficult to see with the naked eye and the carpet might look clean, the truth is that tiny little pieces of sand and grit are sitting on the surface and getting sifted down to below the fibers. All this dirt and grime can make the floors dull and exacerbate allergies.

The Process

When you hire Omni Facility Maintenance Services to deep clean your carpets, our first step is to carefully evaluate the current flooring and determine the best and most efficient way to clean it. Once this is determined, we start by removing any soils, oils, and stains that may be difficult to remove or require individual attention. To remove these before the deep clean, we use a pre-wash solution that is designed for the specific fibers of your carpet. Then, we use an appropriate agitation method that will help the solution in separating the soil from the fibers. After this sits for the appropriate amount of time, we begin the process of carpet cleaning that is appropriate for the fibers. This could be a very low moisture (VLM) method or a hot water extraction (HWE) method to remove the soil solution, dirt, and grime from deep within the fibers. If a client is looking for additional durability and stain resistance, we will add either a protector, coating, or sealant that will help the surface resist new staining. These protectors make it much easier to clean the carpets next time around.

Working with Omni Facility Maintenance Services as your carpet cleaner can ensure your floors are kept clean on a proactive schedule. We believe in the integrity of our services and desire to build long, trustworthy relationships with our clients. In addition to carpet cleaning services, we can also clean and touch up other types of flooring to ensure your entire business is kept glowing. We can clean and refinish tile, grout, hardwood, luxury vinyl tiles and planks, stone, marble, and even rubber surfaces. You can trust Omni Facility Maintenance to be your trusted partner in all things facility maintenance.

 

The Importance of Commercial Property Inspections

Do you understand the importance of receiving regular commercial property inspections? These inspections are meant to help your people and property remain safe, as well as saving you money and helping you plan. Omni Facility Maintenance Services has served the Chicagoland area for over 30 years, providing an extensive list of commercial services including property inspections. We thoroughly check your building’s roof, plumbing, foundation, structure, ventilation, siding, exit signs, windows, and more to ensure everything remains safe and stable to prevent future costs associated with break-fix work or lawsuits.

Keep People and Property Safe

When you own a building, keeping the property safe so the people inside remain protected is imperative to responsible ownership. Setting up regular commercial property inspections will keep your building up to date with all local and state codes. Should anything happen on your property due to a code violation, hazardous area, or anything that can be construed as the building’s fault, a lawsuit may become a reality. Investing in property inspections now is a small expense compared to those a lawsuit due to injury can cause. Plus, keeping up with your property now can prevent high maintenance costs in the future.

Prevent High Maintenance Costs

Scheduling a commercial property inspection allows you to review data about the health of your building from professionals. This allows you to make informed decisions about pieces of your property that need to be fixed or replaced now which can save money down the road. For example, if there is an issue with plumbing, fixing it sooner rather than when a pipe leaks and causes a flood inside the building is much safer, faster, and will save money. One of the best things about partnering with Omni Facility Maintenance is that we provide proactive facility maintenance to help our clients save money. We are also open 24/7/365 should any emergencies occur at your location.

Plan for Expansion or Renovation

Making mindful decisions about your property doesn’t solely mean scheduling work when it’s needed before it breaks; it also means knowing when to plan for expansion or renovation. When business owners feel they can make informed decisions about their property, they tend to make sound decisions due to the stress and anxiety of the unknown being reduced. Commercial property inspections help those who are untrained in facility maintenance understand what is needed to keep their business stay healthy for the longer term.

Before someone gets hurt or something on your property breaks, schedule your commercial property inspection with Omni Facility Maintenance Services. We will save you time, money, and the emotional toll of dealing with a catastrophe by ensuring everything is in working order. Our team has been working in the Chicagoland area for over 30 years, offering 24/7/365 facility maintenance care to all who need immediate assistance. But don’t let it get to that point! Schedule your commercial property inspection today to stay ahead.

Choosing the Right Paint for Your Facility

When it’s time to repaint the interior of your facility or give your new build its first coat of fresh paint, choosing the right paint brand and color can seem daunting. With so many options on the market, Omni Facility Maintenance Services is your trusted facility maintenance partner. We can help you navigate all your available options; this means helping you decide what colors would be best for the mood you want to create and which paint brand will be best to keep you in budget.

There are several benefits to choosing the right paint for your facility, including controlling how those inside feel, creating a proper brand image, and increasing indoor air quality.

The Psychology of Color

While it may not seem like much, the color you choose to paint inside your facility will have a dramatic effect on those who work, live, and shop inside. This is due to how the mind perceives certain colors. Therefore, you won’t want to paint the inside of your yoga studio with warm colors like yellows, reds, and oranges. Conversely, you wouldn’t want to paint the inside of your CrossFit gym with cool colors like blues, purples, and pinks. Matching your facility’s interior paint color to the experience you want those inside to have is imperative.

If you have a tenant space, you will want to choose something neutral and non-controversial. These spaces will lean towards the lighter end of spectrum, perhaps with a cool-toned or warm-toned white or cream. Leaning cool-toned will provide a calmer feel while leaning warm-toned will provide more energy. If you are painting an office space, you will want to consider the type of work that will be done inside. Green is an excellent color to boost productivity and provide a calm environment, while blue is known to increase concentration. As a general rule, warmer colors provide energy and motivation, but should be used sparingly the more saturated they get (reds) because more saturation and surface area covered can lead to hunger and aggression. Cooler colors generally provide a calm and mellow space.

Solidify Brand Image

Choosing the right paint for your facility is imperative to upholding your company’s brand. How you paint and the colors you choose should align with your brand, which means you need to think ahead to how you want people to feel about your brand and choose colors that will create that feeling within them. If your brand is forward thinking and energetic, you might decide on a few different paint colors, perhaps even having a mural painted on one wall. If your brand is down to earth and mellow, you might decide to do a minimal paint job and supplement the design with plants or art. Painting the inside of your facility gives you the ability to create an experience for anyone who enters, so be mindful to create an appropriate experience that aligns with your brand.

Increase Indoor Air Quality

Painting may seem like a minor task, but did you know there is paint on the market that can actually make the interior of your building healthier? If it’s in your budget, Activa Coating is the top photocatalytic paint for facilities. This paint should be strongly considered because of the many benefits the photocatalytic process provides. Photocatalysis is the process by which natural or artificial light hits the painted surface where it immediately begins “cleaning.” Activa Coating helps to clean not only the surface on which it is painted of dirt and grime buildup, but it also helps clean the air that passes by it. This process removes harmful contaminants and compounds by decomposing them through oxidation. Therefore, by painting the interior of your facility with Activa Coating, you can help keep the air and surfaces cleaner for those inside. This can reduce sick building syndrome, the spread of illnesses, and make the air cleaner for those that are high risk to pollution (allergies, asthma, children, and the elderly).

Choosing the right paint for your facility can take time and patience as you create an experience for those inside. Your trusted facility maintenance partner, Omni Facility Maintenance Services is available to discuss paint options and colors that will fit within your budget and timeframe. If you are interested in protecting your facility with Activa Coating, contact us today! We are your go-to partner for anything facility maintenance.

Check out our services page to learn more about how we can help care for your entire commercial property. Don’t see something listed? Give us a call and we can help connect you with a reputable partner in the area. With Omni Facility Maintenance, you never have to worry about the health of your commercial facility. Partner with us today!

Questions to Ask Before Installing New Commercial Flooring

When looking to install new flooring in your commercial facility, the options can be overwhelming, especially if you’re considering changing the type of flooring. Choosing new flooring for your facility shouldn’t feel like a chore, but should instead make you, your tenants, or employees feel renewed in the space. While there are several options on the market to choose from, including options that look like other options (like vinyl or laminate that looks like hardwood) you need to be prepared to understand what your facility needs to be successful. This is where Omni Facility Maintenance Services can be your trusted partner; we’ve installed new flooring for commercial facilities in the Chicagoland area for over 30 years.

1.What are my business’s needs?

Prior to determining what type of flooring you will want to install in your commercial facility, you will need to determine what your building’s needs are. There is a huge difference between what type of flooring is needed inside of a tenant space versus a retail shop. Start by writing down how your facility serves the public and this will help point you in the right direction for what type of flooring you will need in your commercial facility.

2. What is the purpose of each area?

This question is for the facilities that will need to install different types of flooring. For example, if you’re working on finishing tenant spaces, you will probably want a different flooring in the living room versus the kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom. While you may still decide to use a lot of the same flooring throughout your facility, it’s important to consider if there are certain areas, like bathrooms, that will require sturdier flooring (like tile instead of carpet). When considering what is the purpose of each area, you will want to consider things like foot traffic. How many people are going to be walking on this flooring and how often? This leads into our next question.

3. Where am I located?

Your location will heavily impact the type of flooring you will want in your facility. You will want to consider many factors here, including the year-round weather in your area, what other facilities you are next to, whether you are on the ground floor or higher up, or whether people walk directly into your facility or if there is a lobby to introduce them to the building before they enter your business. Where your business is located will help you determine the type and amount of foot traffic you will receive, as well as what that foot traffic might be tracking in and onto your flooring.

4. What is my budget?

Determining your budget for new flooring can seem daunting, but when you partner with a team like Omni Facility Maintenance, we can help you determine a good budget range based on the questions you answer (like the ones here in this blog). How much you are going to spend on new flooring depends heavily on what you will need that flooring to do, how you want it to look, and the maintenance level you wish to provide.

5. What maintenance level do I want?

How long your floors last depends on two things: 1) Proper installation from a reputable and licensed company and 2) proper maintenance starting immediately after the flooring is installed. Keeping your floors in good condition by caring for them properly is how you can get the most out of your investment. Some cleaning options, like carpet, require a higher maintenance level while floorings such as vinyl require less maintenance.

Omni Facility Maintenance Services can help you determine the perfect new flooring for your commercial facility, but you need to start by asking yourself these foundational questions. While you may not have all the answers, pondering these things early can help narrow down the options and make the process smoother when you are ready to move forward with selecting your new commercial flooring. Installing a new flooring in your facility doesn’t have to be a chore; partner with Omni Facility Maintenance Services to remove the headache of choosing your flooring alone. We can help!

Chill Water and Heat Recovery Systems

Omni Facility Maintenance Services now offers our clients in the printing industry chill water and heat recovery installation and service. Formerly Advantage Energy Group, our focus on these systems for the graphic arts and printing industries allows us to serve our clients’ whole facility with one company. Our team custom designs, installs, and maintains energy-efficient solutions to maximize your equipment’s life while lowering your cost of operation. If your facility uses chill water and heat recovery systems, this is how Omni Facility Maintenance can help you.

Chill Water Systems

Your printing facility uses chill water systems to ensure that the printing presses don’t get too hot while they are running. If they get too hot, they may print incorrectly or cease working altogether until they are cooler. This can cost the company time and money, which is what we want to help you avoid. That is why we now offer services to keep your chill water systems working in peak performance. In addition, we can also help you relocate your equipment, install new systems for new presses or new locations, replace inoperable equipment, and more.

Heat Recovery Systems

Your printing facility will also have heat recovery systems to dispose of excess heat inside your facility safely. These systems capture extra heat and use it as energy to process the cooling from your chill water systems or to heat your facility appropriately. We can provide these heat recovery systems and install them for you. These systems benefit you because they greatly reduce your facility’s costs, saving you money for more important things.

Working with Omni Facility Maintenance Services

When you partner with Omni Facility Maintenance Services, we can provide routine services on your chill water and heat recovery systems to ensure your facility operates at peak performance. We also service your zone controls, which is a precise temperature control system to keep your printing presses running at an optimal temperature by utilizing their chill and heat systems. Additionally, we are aware of all energy incentives and will actively pursue governmental rebates on your behalf. It pays to be energy efficient!

We are proponents of proactive facility maintenance because that means we can do our best to help our clients save money. Don’t wait to call us after something in your facility breaks; call us to discuss what preventative maintenance packages we can offer your company. We provide a long list of services for your facility, including inspection checks to ensure your building is compliant. If you’re interested in learning more about chill water and heat recovery systems, or any of our other services, contact us! We are happy to assist you.

commercial remediation

Commercial Remediation Services

Omni Facility Maintenance Services is dedicated to ensuring our clients’ commercial facilities are protected, running efficiently, and free of issues. That is why we are always considering the best services to provide for commercial facilities, and we recently added three new services to our list. In our efforts to give our clients the most comprehensive proactive facility maintenance plans, we are now offering water, mold, and fire remediation services. These issues aren’t always preventable, but it’s possible to prevent them with preventative maintenance and regular inspections. Should you experience water, mold, or fire issues in your facility, you can expect Omni Facility Maintenance Services to provide the below commercial remediation services.

Water Remediation

Water damage for any commercial facility can be devastating, especially if it is not treated and remediated immediately. Depending on the severity of the damage and the size of the area affected, it is possible that your place of business or tenant facility will need to be shut down to remediate the flooding issue. Omni Facility Maintenance Services is available 24/7/365 to assist you with your flooding and water damage; we work to minimize disruption to your business when possible and work quickly to ensure your commercial facility is dried out, cleaned out, and returned to its previous state. When you give us a call, we will arrive on-site as soon as possible to assess the amount and type of damage. From there, we will put together a comprehensive remediation plan. However, some types of water damage uncover mold in your facility which will need to be removed immediately for the safety of your building and team or tenants.

Mold Remediation

If mold is detected in your commercial building, Omni Facility Maintenance Services has a team full of professionals ready to help you understand your options so that you can make the best decision for moving forward with your remediation process. The most important aspect of finding water and mold damage in your commercial facility is not to wait to call experts to take care of the issue; in as little as two or three days, mold can spread across your facility and begin to release spores into the air. Mold is quick to spread and can cause several types of allergic reactions or even lung issues for those with existing health concerns like asthma. In fact, the term “sick building syndrome” was coined from the issues presented by mold spreading within buildings and causing employees to become sick enough to not come to work. Mold will and can take out everyone, but Omni Facility Maintenance Services can quickly take the mold out of your building.

Fire Remediation

Dealing with the aftermath of a commercial fire can be shocking and devastating, but we are here to help you through the stress. It’s important that you work with a professional fire remediation partner to handle restoration and get your commercial facility back up and running to pre-fire perfection. This service often combines our water remediation service as water is used to put out the fire and each building will present unique difficulties and solutions in the remediation process. Regardless of if you have already partnered with Omni Facility Maintenance Services, you can call us 24/7/365 to help you get your facility to a healthy state.

The best way to prepare for an emergency is through proactive maintenance and partnering with a trusted service provider. Reactive commercial maintenance can often cost building owners and managers a lot more money than if they had created a plan with their partner for emergencies such as these. While water, mold, and fire damage are usually impossible to plan for, routine building inspections to ensure your space is up to code can help identify potential issues or even catch issues early on before they become a larger problem. If you want to ensure the safety of your building and the health of your team or tenants, partner with Omni Facility Maintenance Services today for proactive facility maintenance. Just call Paul!

protect your commercial facility

Protect Your Commercial Facility

Protection is a top priority for any commercial facility. This includes both your facility and the people who live or work inside. Protecting your commercial facility may seem like a daunting task, but we’re here to help! With yearly workplace injuries in the U.S. totaling well into the thousands, facility and employee protection must be acknowledged. For this month’s blog, we dive into some top tips from Omni Facility Maintenance Services to help protect your commercial facility.

Security

Security can often be the first line of defense to protect your facility and its inhabitants. The top two security items you should remain mindful of are cameras and alarms/locks.

Cameras

When it comes to security, cameras are a great first step. An efficient security system can help your facility avoid potential theft, fraud, mass shootings, and can even detect if people have fevers or are wearing their face masks. Visible cameras can also act as a natural deterrent to a lot of crime.

Alarm & Locks

Sufficient locks and an alarm system should be your next step for protecting your commercial facility, especially during downtime. Plus, many of these systems can even integrate with your cameras to provide a robust security system for your facility. Good locks can make it extremely difficult for any unwanted person to enter and may even deter crime. Alarm systems work to scare off intruders who are not deterred by the locks or cameras and these alarm systems can immediately contact the business owner and authorities simultaneously.

Cleanliness

Cleaning your facility is an often forgotten but important aspect of building protection. Additionally, many get confused or overwhelmed figuring out how to do it frequently and efficiently. With these tips, you’ll be one step closer to making your facility safe and spotless.

Daily Chores

The first step to keeping your facility clean is to stay on top of basic daily/weekly chores. This would include wiping down surfaces, sanitizing bathrooms and high traffic areas, dusting, sweeping, mopping, window cleaning, outdoor maintenance, and more depending on your facility’s needs and size. These daily chores can help prevent poor indoor air quality, germs from spreading, and potential slips and falls due to dirty or wet floors.

Power Washing

Having a professional team like Omni Facility Maintenance power wash your business every few months can come with a variety of benefits including increased sanitation, curb appeal, and property value. This can be especially useful right before winter comes and when spring arrives. Want to learn more about power washing and its benefits? Check out our blog, Benefits of Power Washing Your Business!

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

The air inside your facility should be fresh and clean of toxins. Many people neglect the importance of IAQ, but it is crucial to the health of your facility and employees. The best first step for improving IAQ is to improve ventilation. This can be performed through various methods including a well-functioning HVAC system, open windows or spaces, and fans. If you want to learn more, check out our blog, Improve Your Indoor Air Quality!

Preventative Maintenance

As many of you may already know, preventative maintenance is the best way to keep your facility running smoothly and efficiently, avoiding setbacks and costly downtime. Preventative maintenance can protect your facility and employees by eliminating the possibility of breakages or accidents. There are many other benefits that come with preventative maintenance. If you want to learn more, make sure to check out our blog, The Case for Proactive Facility Maintenance.

Taking the first step towards protecting your facility and employees doesn’t have to be difficult, especially with the right knowledge and team to help you along the way. With the tips we’ve provided today, you’re well on your way to having a safe facility. So, why wait? Start protecting your facility and employees today by contacting and partnering with Omni Facility Maintenance Services.       

4 Commercial Maintenance Tips

Conducting routine building maintenance can seem overwhelming and even stressful at times, especially as a small, growing business. Many larger corporations spend considerable amounts of money and devote an entire team to keeping up with facility maintenance. Considering this, how can small businesses with lower funds and fewer employees accomplish this task? For this month’s blog, we will be diving into four tips for commercial building maintenance that can help protect your business from financial setbacks.

Start From the Outside

The outside of your facility will be the first impression for any new visitors coming into or simply passing by your business. That said, the plants, lawn, walkways, outer walls, parking lots, and other outside aesthetics need to be well maintained in order to create the right first impression. This includes mowing the lawn regularly, making sure plants stay watered and healthy, sweeping walkways, and cleaning the outside doors/windows. Although this might seem like a lot of work, minimal periodic maintenance is necessary to maintain a professional curb appeal. Failing to keep up with outside maintenance can ultimately snowball and create time-consuming projects. It’s easy to clean if it’s well kept. If you would like to schedule recurring power washing services for your storefront, contact Omni Facility Maintenance.

Conduct Roofing Repairs Immediately

When it comes to having a small team, you might not have the resources or training to get up on the roof and conduct inspection or repairs. In fact, if you do not have this training, do not try to do this! Safety should always be your number one priority. That said, it is still important to keep a lookout for any visual damage to your roof and conduct routine inspections, especially after season changes or harsh weather. To stay safe, you can partner with a team like Omni Facility Maintenance Services to schedule preventative maintenance visits and keep your roof intact. This will ultimately save your business time, money, and resources. As we’ve said in our previous blogs, proactive maintenance is key.

Maintain HVAC Quality

Similar to roofing, HVAC specialists are required for most of the work that is done within HVAC systems. With the complex technology and electronic systems, it can be difficult for a business to maintain their HVAC systems without properly trained individuals. This is why we recommend partnering with a professional team like Omni Facility Maintenance to take care of all of your HVAC systems proactively which will save you money in the long run. A professional team will conduct routine inspections so that parts can be examined or replaced, and the system can be checked for major issues. This prevents any possibility of costly downtime due to a faulty system.

Upgrade Your Light Bulbs

Although LED and CFL light bulbs come with a hefty start-up cost, they can end up saving you money down the road. First, you will save time and money on future installations due to LED and CFL light bulbs lasting much longer. Also, you will begin to see savings in your electricity bill because they consume less energy. Setting up an automatic system so that lights will turn off during downtime will also save you money on your electricity bill. Ultimately, switching to energy-saving light bulbs comes with a variety of different benefits for your building maintenance.

We understand the workload and stress that can come with building maintenance, especially as a small business. Applying preventative care tactics is the best way to maximize your building maintenance efforts, ultimately saving you and your team time and money. This applies to all aspects of your facility including the outside aesthetics, roofing, HVAC system, light bulbs, and much more. Whether you choose to tackle maintenance privately or outsource the work to a professional team like Omni Facility Maintenance Services, these four tips are guaranteed to save your resources.

Tips to Save Money on Commercial Maintenance Services

Since the start of the pandemic, cost reduction initiatives have been a big trend. The pandemic has had a drastic impact on building operations and maintenance, leaving many owners struggling to make ends meet. For this month’s blog, we will be discussing a list of strategies to help you save money on your facility maintenance services.

Facility maintenance and repairs will always be an inevitable aspect of caring for a facility. That said, the costs that are associated with maintenance and repairs can be unpredictable and will vary depending on a variety of factors. For example, you might be well under your maintenance budget for the year when *BOOM* a pipe breaks, flooding happens, and you have to replace an entire floor’s worth of carpet (at least). A situation like this can be extremely stressful and costly for a business.

Before diving into some of the specific strategies to save money on facility maintenance services, we want to quickly discuss the difference between preventative and reactive maintenance.

  • Proactive (or Preventative) Maintenance
    • Repairing and maintaining equipment before breakage occurs
    • Can prevent costly issues, like the one mentioned above, from occurring
  • Reactive Maintenance
    • Fixing after breakage occurs
    • Can create costly issues, like the one mentioned above

Omni Facility Maintenance Services strongly recommends taking on a proactive maintenance strategy. Although the visits will be more frequent, preventative maintenance is the best way to keep your equipment running efficiently and to help avoid the costly devastation of reactive maintenance. The cost to replace/repair broken equipment can add up to thousands of dollars and cause extensive production downtime. The best way to take on a preventative maintenance strategy is to retain a professional team like Omni Facility Maintenance. With our property inspection services, proactive maintenance becomes a breeze.

While preventative maintenance is one way to passively save money on repairs for your facility, there are other proactive actions to take to help reduce costs.

Lighting

You may find that you are often changing light bulbs in your facility, which can take a lot of time, especially in a large building with many bulbs. It may not seem like much, but the cost of the light bulbs combined with the time it takes to install them adds up over time. One of the best investments you can make is to make the switch to LED lighting. Many LED light bulbs have an estimated life of 50,000 hours. This is about 50 times longer than incandescent bulbs, 10 times longer than CFL bulbs, and 25 times longer than halogen bulbs. Although LED light bulbs are more expensive, you will have lower maintenance costs and less frequent purchases, ultimately saving you money in the long run.

Carpet/Flooring

The two most common mistakes that facility managers make with carpet:

  • Not cleaning it the right way (each carpet has different fabrics and, thus, different cleaning needs)
  • Only cleaning when visibly dirty/not frequently enough

Oftentimes, the flooring or carpet in a facility can be overlooked or deemed not important for maintenance. This is always the case until the cost of replacing the flooring or carpet is presented. The best case of action is to take a preventative maintenance approach to your carpet and flooring. Taking care of your flooring can result in over a 10-year lifespan and save your business thousands.

Maintenance Procedures

Our last tip to help save you money on your facility maintenance services is to create an organized, repeatable maintenance schedule. This might also include eliminating unneeded maintenance procedures. By having a simple and easy-to-follow schedule, you can boost productivity and lower labor costs. If you partner with Omni Facility Maintenance Services, we will take care of all this for you.

Overall, there is no way to avoid facility maintenance services. So, why wouldn’t you want to save the most money possible? With cost-saving initiatives becoming increasingly popular, strategies for saving money have never been easier. With simple concepts like preventative maintenance, you can save thousands on your facility maintenance costs.

Remember: Having a team like Omni Facility Maintenance on your side to perform facility inspections is one of the best ways to keep your facility in the best condition possible while saving you money. If you have questions about our services, check out our website or just call Paul: (630) 465-4074

indoor air quality

Improve Your Indoor Air Quality

In recent years, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board has consistently ranked indoor air quality (IAQ) within the top five environmental risks to public health. These comparative studies have also found that indoor air can potentially be 2 – 5 times more toxic than outdoor air, sometimes even reaching upwards of 100 times more toxic. Poor IAQ can be one of the silent leading causes of negative health symptoms in the workplace. This makes tackling poor indoor air quality a top priority for facility managers to protect themselves and their employees.

What is indoor air quality and why is it important?

Indoor air quality is a relatively simple concept. IAQ helps us understand the toxicity level of the air found within buildings. This relates to and affects health, comfort, and, for commercial facilities, work productivity. Since poor indoor air quality can affect employee health, morale, and productivity, indoor air quality is a top priority for facility and building managers. According to a 1989 EPA report to Congress, “… improved indoor air quality can result in higher productivity and fewer lost workdays.” The report also estimated that billions of dollars are lost each year due to poor IAQ. That said, it’s extremely important to keep IAQ high of mind. One way you can do this is through proactive facility maintenance.

What factors contribute to indoor air quality?

Aside from hiring Omni Facility Maintenance Services to ensure your commercial building remains safe, healthy, and compliant through proactive maintenance, one of the best ways you can understand the IAQ of your commercial facility is to learn about the contributing factors. Some of these factors are outlined and defined below:

Pollutant Source

  • Biological: Bacteria, fungi/mold, viruses, animal dander, dust mite allergens, and pollen.
  • Chemical: Emissions from office/building equipment, cleaning supplies, tobacco smoke, gasses (eg. carbon monoxide & nitrogen dioxide), and chemical spills.
  • Particles (solid or liquid substances that are light enough to float in the air with other particles): Dust, dirt, sand, and moisture.

Building Design

  • Equipment Maintenance: Proactive maintenance of your HVAC system is extremely important to maintaining proper IAQ. Preventative maintenance is strongly recommended to ensure proper ventilation. If you need help keeping on top of preventative maintenance, make sure to reach out to our team at Omni Facility Maintenance!
  • Ventilation: The quality and productivity of an HVAC system are partly based on building occupancy and the other equipment inside your facility. If these factors change, the HVAC system might not provide you with the proper ventilation and may require modifications.
  • Outside Air Supply: Outside air must be properly filtered by the HVAC system in order to trap pollutants such as dust, pollen, and gasses. If this isn’t done properly, it can negatively affect your IAQ.
  • Space Planning: The way you align your equipment and furniture could be impacting your IAQ. For example, if office furniture is restricting airflow by blocking a vent.

Moisture & Humidity

  • The excessive presence of moisture mixed with dirt and pollutants allows mold and other biological agents to grow. Overly high humidity levels can also lead to moisture damage to property and equipment.
  • On the contrary, too low humidity levels can also cause negative effects such as dry eyes/skin, sinus issues, and other minor health effects. Optimal humidity is between 30 – 50%.

How to Improve Indoor Air Quality in Your Commercial Facility

If you’re looking to improve your indoor air quality, below are Omni Facility Maintenance Services’ top tips!

Keep Your Facility Clean

When your workplace is consistently clean, it lowers the levels of allergens, dust, mold, and other contaminants. Additionally, avoiding cleaning materials with harsh chemicals will help prevent the release of chemical compounds.

Clean Your Air

Devices such as dehumidifiers/humidifiers and air purifiers/scrubbers can help keep your IAQ at proper levels. Another product you can use is photocatalytic paint; Activa Coating uses the power of photocatalysis to help clean the air of pollutants of any air that passes by its painted surface.

Maintain Proper Ventilation

HVAC systems and their filters should be cleaned regularly and checked to ensure they are in proper working condition. A dirty HVAC system with old filters has the potential to continuously spread pollutants back into your facility. Make sure that air vents are uncovered to allow air to flow freely throughout your facility. Opening windows and adding circulation fans can also contribute to increased ventilation. Lastly, having plants in your facility is a great way to have a consistent supply of fresh air.

Conclusion

Overall, the indoor air quality of your commercial facility should be among one of your top priorities. With the potential to negatively affect the health, productivity, and comfort of everyone within the facility, it’s important to treat IAQ as any other workplace hazard. While maintaining good IAQ may seem like an uphill battle at times, there are some quick and easy implementations that will get you on the right track. Partnering with a preventative maintenance partner like Omni Facility Maintenance Services to maintain proper HVAC functionality should be your first step.