Floor Maintenance Made Easy

  • 03/01/16
Floor Maintenance

Diversey’s TASKI Intellibot DUOBOT 1850 streamlined the floor cleaning process for the Upper Merion School District.

Without proper maintenance, floor finish can lose its glossy appearance and the ability to protect floors over the long term. Today, many schools must carefully balance their budget with the desire to have clean floors that can withstand heavy foot traffic from students, faculty and visitors.

Upper Merion School District, located outside of Philadelphia, has over 830,000 square feet of flooring, and a variety of floor types including cement terrazzo, epoxy terrazzo and vinyl composition tile. In 2006, the cleaning staff consisted of 37 people, including two floor care specialists who oversaw weekly burnishing using propane burnishers.

Following the economic downturn, weekly burnishing was not economically feasible and several positions were reassigned or eliminated to cut costs. In 2015, with fewer staff members, the district sought a cost-effective, efficient and sustainable way to keep floors looking their best in between burnishing.

“Through equipment we can increase efficiency despite having fewer members on staff,” says William Dillon, custodial coordinator, Upper Merion School District. “

For years, the district has used floor cleaners from Sealed Air’s Diversey Care division, as well as its TASKI Intellibot DUOBOT 1850 robotic sweeper/scrubber and the Intellibot SWINGOBOT 1650 to maintain floors. Thus, it was a natural next step to incorporate TASKI IntelliPad, Diversey Care’s two-in-one floor care pad that both cleans and burnishes.

“We have been using the 15-inch IntelliPads with our SWINGOBOT and have ordered 19-inch pads for our walk behind floor scrubbers following the positive response from cleaning staff and higher-ups in the district,” adds Dillon. “There’s no training required; it’s as simple as putting the pad on the machine and witnessing the floor’s shine increase after each use.”

“With Diversey Care’s portfolio of floor care solutions, we’ve overcome our cleaning challenges and are now ahead of the curve and able to maintain continuity.”

www.diversey.com

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • 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.

  • Ancient Resilience: How Indigenous Intelligence Shapes the 4Roots Education Building

    As climate change intensifies, educational spaces must evolve beyond basic sustainability toward true resilience – we must design environments that can adapt, respond, and thrive amid shifting, and intensifying, climate hazards. Drawing on indigenous wisdom and nature-based strategies, integrating resilient design offers a path to create learning environments that are not only functional but deeply in tune with their natural surroundings.

  • K–12 Safety Trends Report Reveals Reliance on Training, Technology

    Wearable safety technology provider CENTEGIX recently released its 2025 School Safety Trends Report, according to a news release. The report is based on more than 265,000 incidents during the 2024–25 school year as reported through the CENTEGIX Safety Platform, used by more than 800 school districts across the U.S.

  • Key Considerations for Office-to-Higher-Education Facility Conversions

    Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, office-to-alternative-use conversions have become a recurring subject of urban development discourse. Office utilization rates across major U.S. cities remain below 50%, with vacancy rates exceeding 27% in San Francisco and 16% in New York. Higher education facilities present programmatic and spatial use cases that align readily with the typical characteristics of commercial office buildings.

Digital Edition