How Maintaining Flooring Reduces Industrial Dust and Containment Issues

Fac­to­ries, ware­hous­es, and oth­er indus­tri­al facil­i­ties fea­ture var­i­ous mate­ri­als that can threat­en the health and safe­ty of per­son­nel unless prop­er­ly con­tained. These mate­ri­als are often called For­eign Object Debris (FOD). Dust is the most preva­lent form of FOD, but facil­i­ty man­agers must also con­sid­er loose machine parts and build­ing mate­ri­als, chem­i­cal spills, trash, food waste, bro­ken pave­ment, and more. Thanks to grav­i­ty, most FOD winds up on ware­house floor­ing, which also hap­pens to be the pri­ma­ry area for foot traf­fic and machin­ery move­ment. So, with­out prop­er floor care, your oper­a­tion can under­go major acci­dents, effi­cien­cy loss­es, and oth­er liabilities.

Let’s fur­ther explore how prop­er­ly main­tain­ing your facility’s floor­ing reduces indus­tri­al dust and con­tain­ment issues.

How Main­tain­ing Your Facil­i­ty’s Floor­ing Reduces Indus­tri­al Dust and Con­tain­ment Issues

Smooth Floors Keep Dust at Bay

Dust is present inside any build­ing. How­ev­er, the amount of dust that accu­mu­lates in your facil­i­ty depends on sev­er­al fac­tors, such as air fil­tra­tion and cir­cu­la­tion, the num­ber of soft, porous sur­faces, spe­cif­ic oper­a­tions (e.g., grind­ing, cut­ting, etc.), and so on. Your facil­i­ty floors also play a major role in dust accu­mu­la­tion. Bare con­crete floors are porous, mak­ing it easy for tiny par­ti­cles to build up in every nook and cran­ny. Seal­ing and smooth­ing out your floors via coat­ing and/​or con­crete pol­ish­ing clos­es off these pores, leav­ing behind a smooth, glossy, dust-resis­tant sur­face that requires less maintenance. 

Reg­u­lar Floor Clean­ing Pre­vents Grime Formation

No mat­ter how smooth and stur­dy your floors may be, prop­er floor main­te­nance is still required to con­tain dust and oth­er FOD. As men­tioned above, invest­ing in qual­i­ty floor sealing/​polishing solu­tions facil­i­tates floor clean­ing, mak­ing it that much eas­i­er to clear away dust, spills, and oth­er objects. Reg­u­lar­ly and prompt­ly clean­ing your facil­i­ty floor­ing helps pre­vent seri­ous dam­age and grime for­ma­tion – the soon­er you clean up a chem­i­cal spill, for instance, the less time it has to cor­rode your floor­ing and release harm­ful odors into your work areas.

Keep­ing an Eye on Floors Pre­vents FOD from Lingering

With so much going on in your indus­tri­al facil­i­ty, the pres­ence of FOD may go over­looked. That said, if you’re com­mit­ted to car­ing for your con­crete floor­ing via peri­od­ic inspec­tions and reg­u­lar clean­ing, you’re much more like­ly to come across any mate­ri­als that wind up where they shouldn’t be. Even a sin­gle loose screw or frag­ment of pave­ment can result in injury, so keep­ing a close eye on every inch of your facility’s floors is imperative.

Clean Floors Offer Improved Visibility

It’s much eas­i­er to spot for­eign debris and floor dam­age when your floors are clear­ly defined. A dirty con­crete floor doesn’t just present an imme­di­ate health and safe­ty haz­ard – it also makes it hard­er to spot pro­trud­ing objects and oth­er issues that deserve your atten­tion. A well-main­tained and coat­ed or pol­ished con­crete floor, on the oth­er hand, is reflec­tive and, as men­tioned ear­li­er, easy to keep clean. These fac­tors lend them­selves to greater vis­i­bil­i­ty, increas­ing the odds of some­one spot­ting FOD on the job before it becomes a seri­ous problem.

Lay­ing the Foun­da­tion for Prop­er Containment

For an indus­tri­al work­place to remain safe and effi­cient, all areas must be clear­ly defined and prop­er­ly con­tained. Main­tain­ing your floor­ing is a nec­es­sary step for mit­i­gat­ing dust and pre­vent­ing FOD-relat­ed issues with­in your facil­i­ty. At Kaloutas, we take safe­ty and con­tain­ment seri­ous­ly. We get to know the lay­outs, sched­ules, and oper­a­tions of each and every client to pro­vide the opti­mal ser­vices for every sit­u­a­tion. To learn more about us and all that we do, con­tact us online or give us a call at 978−532−1414 today!