Proper Sanitizing Practices When Using Disinfectants

Jesse Callison Cleaning Tips

During this pandemic of COVID-19, Pro Clean has received many questions about disinfectants and sanitation, both for personal home use and commercially.

Many of our commercial clients, especially those with “brick & mortar” facilities, will require our electrostatic disinfectant applications and manual disinfectant hand wiping services throughout their properties. However, Pro Clean understands that many of our residential clients will, mostly likely, handle their own cleaning during this time. Therefore, we would like to address a few important points, regarding proper sanitizing, when using disinfectants.

All cleaning products have specific instructions labeled on their containers, to perform as advertised. This seems obvious, right? Why am I telling you about the label of a product that you’ve probably used 100 times? Because the instructions listed on the specific product are crucial to its performance.

Most disinfectants, even your typical over-the-counter products, such as Lysol, require a 3 second “dwell time” to be effective in sanitizing. The same product requires a 10 second “dwell time” to disinfect. If a person is attempting to do their best to rid their home of COVID19, or most other viruses, the goal should be to disinfect, over sanitation. Lastly, this product may require 3 minutes to kill mold, effectively. In the case of mold, removal of the inactive or “dead” spores is still necessary, after using a disinfectant, but I’ll save that for another blog.

What is “dwell time”? This means the product needs to remain wet, for the entire period of 10 seconds for disinfecting. Understanding this, you may come to the conclusion that you have been under-treating the areas you are attempting to rid of germs. You should be fully covering these areas with a mist of product, or fully saturating the areas, to be fully disinfecting, before allowing the sufficient dwell time.

The CDC has put out a full list of recommended products for the treatment and cleaning of Coronavirus. Click here to view list.

If your cleaning needs are beyond what you and/or your staff is prepared to handle, you can always reach out to us with questions by phone (636) 233-6825 ‎or request an estimate to clean and treat your property.

Stay safe out there.

Coats For Cleaning Outreach

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Coats for Cleaning
Coats for Cleaning

For the months of November and December(2014), Pro Clean will be offering a discount of $10.00 for every coat donated, to use towards your carpet cleaning, tile & grout cleaning, furniture or upholstery cleaning, water damage service, or mold cleanup service.
You may donate up to 5 coats per service call.
Coats will be picked up by your cleaning technician, at time of service, and will be donated weekly, to various local shelters.
Please help keep St Louis warm, and save yourself some money while doing it.

Time To Winterize Your Home!

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Our St Louis & St Charles winter weather is here!
Here are some tips to help you save some energy, as well as prepare your home for the winter weather:

-Use foam pipe wrap on your hot water supply lines, to hold in heat during the cold weather.
-Use foam pipe wrap on both hot and cold supply lines that are near the perimeter of your home, to help prevent those pipes from freezing and bursting, during the severely cold days and nights coming soon.
-Consider purchasing a hot water heater blanket wrap and installing it, to hold the temperature of water in your water heater.
-Use 6 mill(or heavier) clear plastic on basement windows, or other windows in your home, that may not get used. This will help reduce the draft at those locations, but will allow sunlight to radiate through.
-Disconnect exterior garden hoses, and close shut-off valves to the spigots. Many pipe freezes occur at exterior hose spigots.
-If you will be traveling during the colder time of winter, consider having your water systems winterized for the duration of your trip, especially if you will be gone for an extended time. Alternatively, have someone check-in on your home twice a day, to insure that your heating system is functioning properly. Many of the water damage service calls we receive, occurred while a client was out of town for an extended period of time.
-Consider installing new insulation in your attic. Often times, you can recover what you spend on insulating your attic in as little as 5 years.
-Don’t forget about your sump pump. Fast snow melts can increase the amount of water headed towards your sump pump. Make sure it is running properly all year round, to avoid costly water damage insurance claims, or possibly out-of-pocket water damage claims, if you’re not covered.

Following these tips can help you save money, both on your heating costs, as well as possibly help prevent costly repairs from water damage, caused by winter weather.

If you do happen to have water damage in your home, we are available 24/7 for emergency services. We work for you, not the insurance company, to make certain you receive everything you are entitled to.

Back To School Carpet Cleaning Specials

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You successfully got through the summer with the kids, and now it’s time for you to get them back to school, and get your home back to normal again.

Pro Clean is here to help you get your carpet and upholstery looking and smelling fresh again.

Pro Clean is offering a back to school carpet cleaning special for $185, for the months of August and September.. This offer includes 3 areas(up to 200 square feet) and one set of stairs cleaned. If you don’t have stairs in need of cleaning, Pro Clean will substitute the stairs for an extra room.

Pro Clean is also offering a back to school special on upholstery cleaning. For the months of August and September, when you have Pro Clean clean your upholstery, we will apply ScotchGard at no charge. This is a value of up to $35 per piece cleaned.

Call, message, or email Pro Clean for scheduling, while this offer is still going. Must mention “back-to-school” special when scheduling service, to receive specials.

Water damage, sump pumps and your homeowners insurance

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Today, we’re seeing more winter weather that we thought was behind us, but spring weather is just around the corner! What does that mean for you, besides sandals and shorts? It’s time to check all of your downspouts, your sump pump and other water drainage around your home.

  • Be sure to take the time to make sure all of your downspouts have piping to divert melting snow and rain water away from your home. A simple $30 corrugated pipe, that diverts water away from your home, can accomplish this. 
  • If you notice any puddling around the perimeter of your home, you may need to consult a professional landscaper to address the possibility of adding drainage relief, or re-grading.
  • Inspect and test your basement or crawlspace sump pump. If your sump pump pit is not a sealed unit, you can typically test the operation of your sump pump by pulling up on the float. If you pump does not engage when lifting the float, there is a problem with your sump pump. You may need to consult a plumber and or an electrician to troubleshoot the sump pump’s failure to operate. Be cautious if you are inspecting your sump pump yourself. If there is a short in any wiring, there is potential for electrocution. The safest bet is to call an electrician or plumber to service your sump pump.
  • Take the time now, rather than after disaster strikes, to contact your homeowner’s insurance agent, to confirm that you have coverage for sewer backup and sump pump coverage. Often times, agents will cut this from the policy, as they are trying to provide the least expensive option. Generally speaking, the additional cost per month for sewer backup and sump pump coverage is very minimal, especially when compared to the cost of water damage cleanup services.

With regards to your homeowner’s insurance policy, water damage occurring from a source outside of your home, typically isn’t covered, not matter what type of policy you have in place. Due to this “rule”, addressing the drainage around your home is crucial. You can purchase separate flood insurance for this type of occurrence, but you may not be happy with the type of coverage.

If you do have a water damage claim, remember that it is always your choice as to which company you hire. Don’t be bullied by your insurance company into thinking that you must use their “preferred” contractor. Pro Clean can handle your water damage from start to finish, and will make sure that you receive every dollar you are entitled to. YOU are our client, not the insurance company.

Pro Clean is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to handle your water damage claim and assure that you are treated fairly and your home and its contents are back to pre-loss conditions, if not better. Add our phone number to your contact list, as you never know when water or fire damage may occur.  If you have a smart phone, we have a system coming that will make it even easier for you to contact us in the unfortunate case of water or fire damage.

Please share this post with a friend or family member. They will thank you if they, unfortunately, happen to have a homeowners claim.

Thank you for stopping by to read!

 

Valentine’s Day LOVE-seat Furniture Cleaning Special

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Throughout the month of February, Pro Clean will be offering a free LOVE-seat cleaning, if you have us clean at least 4 areas, or have four pieces of furniture cleaned. Just mention this ad when scheduling your carpet cleaning or upholstery cleaning for the month of February. Please feel free to share this Valentine’s Day deal with friends, family and co-workers.

Help Local Families

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OFS_LOGO_3_color_horzWith help from our clients, Pro Clean will be helping to feed local families and individuals in need.

During the months of November and December, Pro Clean will be offering $1 off of any service, with 1 food item from OFS “most wanted list”. Pro Clean will have a limit of $75 off of any service, with 75 items, or more, donated. This offer is not limited to any particular client. Existing and new clients alike, will be encouraged to donate and save some money on their professional cleaning services. Even if you do not currently need any cleaning services for your home or business, we encourage you to share this page through social media, as you may be unaware of a friend or family member that may be considering one of Pro Clean’s services.

With your help, we look forward to helping those local residents in need, not going hungry this holiday season. You may not think you can be of benefit to this food drive, but by sharing this special with family & friends, you may be helping those in need, without even knowing it. Thank you for your help in feeding local families!

Most Wanted Food Drive Items

Please, no glass containers

Light Tuna (canned, packed in water)

Canned Chicken

Canned Vegetables

Canned Fruit (in natural juices)

Canned Ravioli (or any canned pasta with meat)

Canned Chili & Soup

Canned Beans (including Pork ‘n Beans)

Low-or-No-Sugar Breakfast Cereal

OperationFoodSearch.org
6282 Olive Boulevard University City, MO 63130
314-726-5355

The mission of Operation Food Search is to nourish and educate our neighbors in need to heal the hurt of hunger.

What does this mean?

Operation Food Search works tirelessly to fight hunger in more ways than one. While we are a leader at collecting and distributing food throughout the bi-state region, we go beyond just supplying agencies with free food. With comprehensive nutrition education programs, an innovative weekend backpack program, and environmentally-friendly green initiatives, Operation Food Search fights hunger with knowledge, empowerment, and hope.
Established in 1981 to tackle the growing problem of hunger, Operation Food Search is a St. Louis area food bank that distributes food – free of charge – to feed the poor and hungry.

Each month, Operation Food Search distributes more than 2.75 million pounds of food and necessities to 220 food pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters in 28 St. Louis-area counties of Missouri and Illinois.

Food close to sell-by dates that is pulled from grocery store shelves is recycled to feed the hungry. Professionally prepared food that is not served is also reclaimed to feed the hungry. We work with all major grocery stores, food manufacturers/distributors, major venues, professional sports teams, universities, hospitals, corporate food service and caterers to save nutritious food from our area landfills, and instead feed the hungry here in our community.

Operation Food Search feeds approximately 150,000 people every single month – more than a third of these recipients are children.

Through our nutrition education programs, including Cooking Matters and Cooking Matters at the Store, we connected last year with over 6,600 individuals to teach those struggling with hunger how to shop for and prepare nutritious, delicious meals on a budget.
We are privately funded. Food and funds are provided by individuals, businesses and organizations here in our St. Louis area community. We do not receive any United Way funds or government food stuffs. This year we will distribute over 33,000,000 pounds of food and services.

Without this private support, our mission to feed and provide nutrition education to the poor and hungry could not be achieved. Quite simply, we are people helping people – and to this end, we are building a healthier, more vibrant St. Louis region.
Together, we can impact lives one meal at a time.

For more information about Operation Food Search’s work:

Holiday Carpet Cleaning Special

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It’s that time again! Time to clean the chocolate from your carpeting and get ScotchGard reapplied to make way for the cranberry sauce that will be likely be spilled on that new white carpet.

Pro Clean is offering our 1 year spot & spill warranty protection for your carpeting, once again.

Have Pro Clean deep clean your carpeting & reapply ScotchGard protection and you will receive a free, one year warranty that covers any spills or spots that may occur from now, until next holiday season.

Please call or email us for details and to schedule your cleaning and protection, while there is still time.

Happy Halloween!

Removing Pet Urine Odor and Stains From Carpet

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Pet urine in your carpet can be the most difficult type of stain to remove.

When urine is introduced to your flooring, it will generally penetrate not only the carpet, but also the carpet pad and sub-floor. Since the urine travels down through the carpet, pad & sub-floor, an effective treatment will have to replicate the path of the pet urine.

For this home remedy, you will need 1 quart of warm water, mixed with 1/2 cup of white vinegar, as well as a wet/dry vacuum and a box fan.

  1. Blot up any remaining urine with a soft, clean, white terry cloth.
  2. Mix water/vinegar cleaning solution in a small bucket.
  3. Test mixture in an inconspicuous area of the carpet for colorfastness, to determine if carpet type can be damaged by mixture(a closet works best).
  4. If mixture does not affect tested area, proceed by saturating soiled area with vinegar/water mixture.
  5. Allow mixture to dwell on area for 5 minutes.
  6. Extract mixture using wet/dry vac, until the majority of dampness has been eliminated.
  7. Accelerate the drying time of carpet by placing a box fan at area until spot has dried fully.

If stain and odor have not been eliminated, it may be time to call an IICRC certified carpet cleaner to inspect and treat the impacted area.

NEVER USE AN “OVER-THE-COUNTER” THAT DOES NOT HAVE THE CRI APPROVED LABEL. USING THESE TYPES OF “OVER-THE-COUNTER” PRODUCTS CAN VOID THE MANUFACTURERS WARRANTY. THE SALESPERSON AT THE RETAIL LOCATION YOU PURCHASE PRODUCTS AT ARE PROBABLY NOT AWARE OF THE RESTRICTIONS PUT INTO PLACE BY THE MANUFACTURER.

Visit www.ProCleanSTL.com for more tips to keep your floors looking great for years to come.

Terrazzo Floor Cleaning & Polishing

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Do you own a home built in the early 20th century that has beautiful, unique terrazzo floors?

Did you know those floors can be restored to like new condition?

Terrazzo consists of chips of marble, glass or other aggregates embedded in tinted cement, ground smooth and polished to a silky sheen. In the 15th century, mosaic artisans in Northern Italy swept waste marble chips out onto their terraces, terrazzi, and smoothed the surface simply by walking over it. When workers learned to press the chips into a more permanent clay base, then grind and polish them with heavy stones, terrazzo caught on. Michelangelo used it in St. Peter’s Basilica. George Washington strode over it in his cherished Mount Vernon. In the 1950s, Richard Neutra and other modernist architects specified terrazzo in their designs, and by the ’60s, it covered floors in developer houses across the Southeast and Southwest. But as installation costs rose, terrazzo once again became a relatively pricey option at approx. $10 or more a square foot for custom-built houses.

Restore the beauty of this unique flooring by having Pro Clean clean and polish your terrazzo flooring, rather than remove or cover such a timepiece in the history of America.

 

www.procleanstl.com