The Green Man team were sent to prison – but we cleaned up our act & were let out for good behaviour…
When we heard that a tv production company required an urgent deep-clean of concrete flooring in Shepton Mallett prison, we were quite intrigued. We offer a wide range of hard floor cleaning options to the commercial sector, but this might be our first prison! Also, because we operate a 6 van team, we are often able to accommodate large scale work at short notice.
The brief:
We were required to deep-clean the concrete floors in one of the prison canteen areas, as well as the floor of one of the original large wings of this notoriously grim Victorian prison.
When we arrived, we quickly realised that neither of the floors to be cleaned were concrete!
They were both dulled down and of a dour grey appearance, so it was an honest mistake.
The initial survey revealed that they were hard-wearing vinyl floors.
During the short survey, we also learned that the prison is supposed to be very haunted… …
Preparing the surface
The floor in the canteen appeared to have been recently laid, perhaps by the Art Department of the production & was not glued to the sub-floor. There was a large amount of loose debris on the surface, which we swept & removed.
Applying a pre-spray
This type of flooring will usually respond well to an alkali cleaning solution. We mixed this but, unusually, but did not apply with a pressure sprayer…
Agitation
The level of soiling on the floors in both areas suggested that we would need to agitate the floor relatively aggressively. For this task, we used a Numatic Hurricane rotary machine with a green scrubbing pad – these type of floor pads come in a variety of colours indicating varying levels of abrasion. Because of the large area to be covered, we attached a solution tank to the machine, meaning we could apply the cleaning solution simultaneously while scrubbing the floors.
Extraction
We worked as a two-man team: one of us applied solution & scrubbed the floor, the other followed behind with a commercial Numatic wet-vac, picking up the slurry.
The result
Although we didn’t take many “before & after” images, the photos below give an indication of what was achieved. Both areas had significant amounts of loose material on top of a high level of soiling.
By specifying an efficient & effective method, we were able to restore the floors to a good level of cleanliness that would also look good on camera.
If you have any questions regarding commercial floor cleaning, please use the Contact page or give us a call.
Thanks for reading!
