Revolutionising Escalator Cleaning with Proquip NZ
There are numerous challenges that face commercial cleaners on a daily basis. With over 30 years of experience supplying the commercial and industrial cleaning industries, Proquip NZ prides itself on outside-the-box thinking, with a comprehensive and diverse range of products that can be customised according to a business’s specific needs.
So, when one of our customers came to us with the conundrum of cleaning escalators efficiently and effectively, we were able to provide the perfect solution. In this blog, we delve into the importance of keeping escalators clean and dust-free, the challenges of this task, and how one of our unique products solved this common problem.
Escalating Safety: Why Keeping Escalators Clean is So Important
Keeping escalators free of dust and debris is vital for ensuring both the safety and smooth operation of these moving walkways. If an accumulation of dust or dirt gets into the internal workings of an escalator, this can pose a significant fire risk. Moreover, debris buildup can obstruct the mechanical components of the escalator, hindering its smooth operation. A well-maintained and clean escalator ensures that its mechanical parts, such as steps, handrails, and the motor system, remain unobstructed and functional, reducing the likelihood of malfunctions or breakdowns, and ensuring the longevity and efficient performance of the escalator.
The Ups and Downs: Common Challenges of Cleaning Escalators
Cleaning an escalators is no simple feat. Traditionally, cleaners face numerous challenges in ensuring these high-traffic areas are properly maintained.
The most common challenges of cleaning escalators are:
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Cleaning Escalators is Time-consuming:
Most often, cleaners will use a small, dust brush attachment at the end of a vacuum cleaner and spend hours manually vacuuming the escalator steps as they cycle through. This method is both time-consuming and labour-intensive and requires the cleaner getting close to the moving parts of the escalator.
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Escalators have Irregular Surfaces that make cleaning them difficult:
The varying depth of the tread or ridges of the steps, as well as the varying angles and shapes, make it harder to reach certain areas and often leading to incomplete cleaning.
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Cleaning Escalators Creates Safety Concerns:
Escalators are not the easiest nor safest things to tread on let alone clean. Cleaners have to mindful of how they move on and around the escalator in order to do their job safely. This includes being mindful of the equipment or supplies goes on or near the escalator in order avoid falling or creating an entanglement with moving parts.
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Escalators are a High Traffic Area:
Escalators are often high-traffic zones, which means cleaners must work swiftly to clean them without disrupting the flow of people.
Rising to the Occasion: The Front Mount Vacuum Tool
Compatible with a selection of our industrial vacuum range, the Front Mount Vacuum Tool is an optional accessory that fits directly to the vacuum cannister. This tool can clean 230m2 of floor in just 15minutes, and in the case of escalators, allows the operator to simply park the vacuum cleaner at the base of the escalator, set the floor tool down onto the treads and let it get to work.
Being operational from the base of the escalator, ensures no heavy equipment or cords are taken onto the escalator itself. With this attachment, the cleaner’s hands are safely out of the way of the moving parts of the escalator, allowing the vacuum cleaner do all the heavy lifting.
Depending on the size of the escalator, the vacuum cleaner can be repositioned in order to cover the entire width of the treads, for a much less labour intensive and faster cleaning method.
Bristling with Innovation
The floor mount tool includes an extra wide, ProFlo Brush nozzle.
The bristles of the floor mount vacuum tool effortlessly navigate the irregular surface of the escalator steps, picking up dust and dirt from deep within the treads with ease.
This floor tool negates the need for labour-intensive, detail vacuuming with a dusting brush or similar, for superior cleaning results in a fraction of the time.
Dirt’s Descent: The Results
The machine in these pictures was brand new and unused prior to this cleaning session. After completing one full cleaning cycle of the escalators with the floor mount tool attachment, THIS is what it looked like inside the cannister – showing just how much dust gets trapped in the grooves of the escalator steps and how much the vacuum tool was able to extract.
In just a short amount of time with minimal effort from the cleaner, the floor mount tool allowed a significant amount of dust, dirt and debris to be cleaned from deep within the treads of the escalator steps.