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

  • University of West Florida Opens New Laboratory Facility

    The University of West Florida recently announced that renovation work is complete on a new lab building for its campus in Pensacola, Fla., according to university news. Building 80 will serve as the home to the university’s civil engineering program and the Tyler Chase Norwood Construction Management Program.

  • DLR Group Hires Higher Education Business Development Leader

    Integrated design firm DLR Group recently announced that Senior Associate Megan Todd will serve as its new Higher Education Business Development Leader, according to a news release. Her responsibilities will include building the firm’s reach and client relationships in the California higher education sector, based out of San Diego.

  • Colorado State University Global, SCTE Launch Online Certificate Program

    Colorado State University Global (CSU Global), based in Denver, Colo., recently announced a partnership with CableLabs subsidiary the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) to launch an online certificate training program for broadband professionals, according to a news release.

  • Construction Begins on East Austin CTE-Focused High School

    The Del Valle Independent School District recently announced that construction has begun on a new CTE-focused high school in Austin, Texas, according to a news release. Del Valle High School will measure in at 473,338 square feet and have the capacity for 2,400 students.

Digital Edition