University of Utah

Project Snapshot

PROJECT: Campus Library and Lecture-Hall Classrooms
INSTITUTION: University of Utah
LOCATION: Salt Lake City, UT
COMPANY NAME: ProTeam, the Vacuum Company
WEBSITE: www.pro-team.com

THE CHALLENGE

The University of Utah’s facilities include century-old buildings and brand-new ones. Every square foot must be maintained to a high standard in spite of heavy usage. According to Director of Custodial Sam Robertson, his focus is creating an environment where quality learning can take place.

“We’re here to create a wonderful environment for students, visitors, staff and faculty,” said Robertson in an interview in 2012. “The school must be clean so there is no delay or stigma on learning.”

The campus library serves 1,500,000 patrons each year. A standard backpack vacuum cord is 50 feet long, but each row of books in the library is over 50 feet long. Before employing cordless backpack vacuums, it was impossible for a custodian to clean down a single aisle in the library without stopping to change outlets.

In the university’s lecture-style classrooms, chairs on posts are arranged on semi-circular tiers. Like the rows of library books, these classrooms are more than 50 feet wide, creating time losses from changing outlets and, due to the chairs being bolted down, vacuum cords were prone to getting tangled around them during cleaning.

University of Utah

University of Utah

The implementation of battery-powered backpack vacuums for use by the custodial staff at the University of Utah has resulted in increased flexibility and accessibility to difficult-to-reach areas of campus facilities. These gains were also accompanied by labor savings over equipment used for previous methods of cleaning.

THE SOLUTION

Robertson and four other supervisors use every trick in the book to meet the diverse demands of each building, including adopting ProTeam’s battery-powered backpack vacuum, the GoFree® Pro, to help manage different cleaning challenges on campus.

“We did a field test with the GoFree Pro, and the crew came back and said they cut their library vacuuming time in half,” says Custodial Supervisor Todd Stoneking.

“They were spending two to three hours a day cleaning the lecture classrooms. They have cut that back to do it with one 50-minute battery charge,” he adds.

IMPACT ON LEARNING

Giving students a clean place to learn is important, but only one of many concerns that custodial staffs must navigate. With GoFree Pro, the University of Utah custodial staff is able to give students a clean place to learn, as well as one that appeals to the eye and is a healthy environment for everyone, both in the library and in lecture classrooms.

“Health is the biggest reason we clean, but we also want someone to walk in and think, ‘Oh, how nice this looks,’” says Stoneking. “If we didn’t have ProTeam, we would have to do a lot more work.” Proteam mitigates cleaning challenges by saving the staff time and gives students the healthiest possible place to learn and grow.

Editor's Review

The U.S. EPA’s 2010 study “How does Indoor Air Quality Impact Student Health and Academic Performance?” indicates that substandard environmental conditions in schools, such as insufficient cleaning or inadequate ventilation, can cause serious health problems for students and also directly impacts student academic performance. This project is an example of providing a better learning environment where students can feel safe and confident that they are learning within a healthy environment. This denotes an attention to detail that reflects positively on all aspects of campus management.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Spaces4Learning Announces Winners of 2025 Product Awards

    Spaces4Learning has just announced the winners of the 2025 Product Awards! The award program recognizes innovation and excellence in products that enhance learning environments in K–12 schools and institutions of higher education.

  • i-PRO, NovoTrax Partner for New School Emergency Response Solution

    i-PRO Americas, Inc., which manufactures edge computing cameras, recently announced a partnership with NovoTrax, provider of end-to-end life safety and mass notification solutions, to address gaps in emergency response workflows at K–12 schools, according to a news release.

  • AP Construction Breaks Ground on Two Projects for Austin ISD

    Adolfson & Peterson Construction (AP) recently announced that it has broken ground on two renovation projects for the Austin Independent School District, according to a news release. The work at McCallum and Anderson High Schools totals 97,350 square feet and is scheduled for completion in January 2027.

  • cutaway view of a modern school building, showing various rooms and zones

    Layering AI into HVAC Systems Shows Reduction in Carbon Emissions

    Heating and cooling systems are just one of the many new ways that AI can be integrated into schools. According to a new study from Schneider Electric's Sustainability Research Institute, AI-powered HVAC systems in schools can lead to significant carbon emissions savings.

Digital Edition