Appearance matters with any commercial property. Though it is especially important for professional office spaces and retail stores. Ultimately, your office’s appearance makes a powerful first impression on guests, clients, and potential customers. If they find the place disheveled, disorganized, and foul-smelling chances are they aren’t coming back or aren’t going to take your business as seriously as you do. Even when times are tough it’s critical to keep your office spaces smelling fresh, well organized, clean, and clear of clutter.
While all this might sound fine and good, there are a lot of other areas in an office or professional space that might not seem so obvious to you. However, they can send a powerful message to all who visit your place of business.
Take A Look At Your Office Ceilings
One with the most upside turns out to be your office’s ceiling. In fact, take a moment to take your eyes off the screen and take a good hard look up at your ceilings. Sure things like watermarks, blotches, cracked ceiling tiles, and large stains are an eyesore, but they aren’t the only things visitors will notice.
Take a closer look at the corners and the edges where your ceilings and walls meet. You might notice things like faint cobwebs, dust, pollen, dirt, and perhaps even a little trapped pet hair.
The Risks Of Not Cleaning Your Office Ceilings
While you might not think about them as much, cleaning your office ceiling tiles can be arguably as important as cleaning the floor, restrooms, cafeteria, breakroom, meeting room, or personal office spaces.
The unfortunate truth is that even faint cobwebs can build up in a relatively short amount of time. Especially in the summer when the tiny spiders that make them are at their most active. On their own, these faint little cobwebs can give your office a dingy and neglected look.
As time goes on, lingering cobwebs in corners and where ceilings meet the walls can also start to grow. Not to mention their sticky ability to capture things like dust, pollen grains, and even pet hair from when you have your dig visit the office.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that a lot of a buildings’ mechanical systems, like wires, baffles, light fixture hardware HVAC ducts, conduits, ethernet cables, phone lines, and other structural elements often run behind or above a drop tile ceiling. When left neglected for too long these ceiling tiles have the potential to become unseen fire hazards.
Of course, dirt and stains on the visible part of ceiling tiles do more than simply make your office look dirty. It also suggests that there are other overlooked maintenance issues and that your business might not be as detail-oriented as you portray.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that water spots and splotches that appear on ceiling tiles are often a symptom of a more serious water problem. It takes a fair amount of water to saturate completely through a tile. With this much moisture be left unaddressed, it could put your office at increased risk for an indoor mold issue.
The Benefits Of Cleaning Your Ceiling Tiles
Beyond the cosmetic benefits of sending the right message to clients and customers, there are a lot of other good nuts & bolts reasons for periodically cleaning your ceiling tiles.
When properly cleaned and maintained, your ceiling tiles will last longer while providing a great first impression and cost savings in the long term. This leads to fewer cracks and fewer replacement costs. In this, you also need to consider that manufacturers have a knack for making stylistic changes in ceiling tile textures as well as the fact that ceiling tiles can slightly change over time.
This means that when one or two ceiling tiles are stained or damaged, replacing them leaves an obvious eyesore that will attract even more attention to your poorly maintained office ceilings. The only answer to a problem like this is to replace all your outdated, slightly ugly ceiling tiles at a much higher cost compared to what you need to do to properly maintain them.
There are other mechanical benefits to cleaning and maintaining your office’s ceiling tiles. When cleaning them you can also take the time to inspect the ventilation system components, as well as look for leaks and damage to wires. More than one company who procrastinated taking down and cleaning their ceiling tiles discovered a hideous mouse nest or three living in the sub ceiling.
How To Clean Ceiling Tiles
When it comes to cleaning your ceiling tiles, there are simple maintenance things that you should be doing every week or two. This includes using a light broom to take down any cobwebs as soon as you see them. If you notice water spots of splotches on a tile, you should replace it as soon as possible. Then take the time to figure out what caused it and have the plumbing problem or roof leak repaired as soon as possible.
Seasonal Or Annual Ceiling Tile Cleaning
Some office spaces choose to take down their ceiling tiles to give the entire ceiling and the sub ceiling void a thorough cleaning each spring or fall. This is also a great opportunity to perform some other routine ceiling maintenance such as replacing light bulbs, checking and replacing light fixtures, updating wiring, and inspecting the ventilation system. This is also a good time to check all the ceiling tile support brackets and fix any bends or misalignment issues.
Cleaning the tiles can be done in a few different ways. If everything is in good order, you might be able to simply dust and vacuum each tile individually. A vacuum with a dust brush tool can be handy for cleaning the dust that often accumulates on supply or return air vents.
Brightening Ceiling Tiles
If you have older ceiling tiles that have become discolored over time, you might want to try brightening them closer to their original shade of white. This can often be done with either a hydrogen peroxide spray or an enzymatic cleaner that is specifically formulated to help clean ceiling tiles.
Professional Ceiling Tile Cleaning
If you don’t necessarily feel up to the task of cleaning your office ceiling tiles, it’s completely understandable. A lot of businesses reach out to Building Services Inc. to have our highly trained team of professionals bring their experience and commercial-grade cleaning products to bear. This lets you and your employees stay focused on growing your business, while we take care of your ceiling tiles with ease.
