[Fox]

Sorry - still dont agree with any of you 'dont seal' diehards.  As for liability surely this would be judged upon the circumstances for the slip like all cases - was a bucket of water left puddled on the floor?  Were no wet floor signs left out?  Were cables left trailing?

But hey what do I know - I shouldn't be in the business according to mr know it all martin19842! 

Fox

[martin19842]

hi there

ideology, -- no its a great thing

we are presently on two jobs putting right what previouse contractors have completed incorrectly, OK its not cleaning,  but the principle is the same.  do the job correclty

i dont mind at all we are earning a very nice amount  out of this type of work, so let them carry on, its great for us.

have a great weeknd everybody.

regards

martin

[Robert Parry]

Thought this might help

http://www.hse-databases.co.uk/pubns/web/slips02.pdf

Regards,

Rob

[gerrystyles]

I always tell companies to try to choose a different type of anti slip flooring than altro as I find it a nightmare to clean.

Gerrystyles -

whats the point of sealing Altro? - (to avoid time and effort of maintaining it correctly)

Do you actually do commercial cleaning? 

I am lucky to have one of my clients who has an altro floor that is not suitable for sealing pay extra to have the cleaners use a rotary machine and wet vac to keep it clean, but most clients (well aware of the risks) in a warehouse office environment would opt for sealing of the floor rather than up their cleaning budget for the extra cleaning and yes you can refuse, but the next contractor won't and I for one would not lose a job through refusal to seal an altro floor when the anti slip is not essential.  (This is putting it ott but nevertheless).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with sealing an altro floor with emulsion polish in certain areas where a risk assessment has been carried out  and agreement from the client knowing all the risks has been sought.

Fox 

Yes we do commercial cleaning. We clean a site with 60m2 of Altro which is machine scrubbed every day. There is no point in sealing safety flooring in order to make the cleaners life easier or to cut costs. If a cleaning company cannot get out there and do a proper and safe job then they should not bother. It is companies like them that are keeping the reputation of the industry and the pay of cleaners at the bottom of the scale. We should all be out there promoting safe and effective cleaning an raising the profile of the industry. After all we work for our benefit.

Modifying the risk assessment and getting agreement from the client would not be a defence in law should someone get injured as a result of your actions.

[Mr BSF]

I know this is off topic, but BSF's reccomendation about battery powered machinery interests me, recently looked at this option for a daytime cleaning operation, but after a demo from my local supplier decided not to go ahead due to the poor battery life, the machinery also did not appear to do a very good job compared to standard machinery, just wondering if you know something that I dont, you can e-mail privately if you want.

Regards,

Rob

The smaller cabled machines are fine for small areas, but the larger much heavier battery powered machines come into their own on larger floor areas, no trailing cable, larger tank capacity etc etc, 2-3 hrs running time... is ample

regards

BSF

[ColinD]

Hi, Altro flooring. To seal or not to seal, that is the question?
 To put it bluntly. It's an impervious floor, whatever you put on it, will just lay happily onto top, not adhering, not doing anything other than, stop the floor from doing what was intended. It's a none slip floor!

So they next question. Do we polish AMTICO floors? Answers in less than three words and before school breaks up for half term.

Seriously. Millions of pounds have been and are spent on deveolping flooring that is supposed to prevent accidents. Then we as an industery come along an undermone all that good work. And we considere ourselves as professionals.

Here's a good idea. Talk to the Manufactuers, because if you don't and you do something to their product that they do not recoomend, you could possibly, ever slightly, be in contravention of HEALTH & SAFETY and worst still your insurance company may be a little upset if there was a claim against them as a result of an accident.

As the Beatle once said. HELP!

[DP]

Lol The level of hypocrisy and ignorance on here cracks me up.

Ok How many of you have ONLY ever applied polish to floors that were designed for polish? Anyone!

How many of you understand that even if there was a manufacturers agreement, you would still be held responsible for the application?

Here's an even easier one. How many of you even know which floors were ever designed for liquid emulsion polish?

Lastly and think really hard about this one.
How many floors have you applied polish to in the last 12 months?

Oh dear! Pot and kettle spring to mind.
Have you ever applied polish to an Altro floor, no neither have I, but I have stood on one in a toilet which was wet from sinks and it had almost zero grip loss if any at all.

In area's of low risk it would qualify way above comparable and acceptable floor surfaces being polished by you really naughty people every day, especially in the wet. tut tut!

But lets forget about that so we can all be experts on what’s right and wrong with Altro and pretend that its others that are responsible for our high insurance.

Martin:
I’m curious why you need to work outside your field, does that mean you are only a "sometimes cleaner" or can you not find enough work within it? You might be surprised to know that many people are doing well on here, they just don’t need to talk about it, because that usually means the complete opposite. Don’t worry about the ideology, it goes away with experience.

Robert Parry
Thanks for the link. Not quite sure how it helped, I couldn’t find anything about polish on Altro, maybe I missed it.  

[Robert Parry]

Try the bit where it explains about improper maintenance DP,

Regards,

Rob

[ColinD]

Hi, It's me again.

Rob, (Parry) very confusing with all you Rob's.

I have actually, much to the shock of those that attend for work, polished a flloor this year. Well to tell the truth I applied an emulsion solution, spread it about a bit and then down the Parsimonious Perwinkle for a pint whilst it dried.

It is fact that we, as an Industry pop along to the local, Cleaning Supplies Company, purchase soemthing that we are told will fit the bill and hey ho, down it goes.  A word springs to mind.. elusive, important I know it is, it will come.

Tell you what I have done more times this year than putting down polish and that is, tking the damn stuff off.

No names, no pat drill but a BIG retailer with a penchant for nice, pseud woooden floors has no idea what should be put on them. His contractors likewise have no idea.  So when the floors start to peel because Emulsion Polish has been liberally applied, gues which mug or mugs have to go in an rectify the problem. Well let's not be so boing as to answer the question.

Ah, your know that word I could not remember earlier. The brain cell has kicked in. It's TRAINING.

Dosvedanya

[martin19842]

hi there,

dp, don't be curious!!

I enjoy a great position, by running a property services company, and therefore I will choose what work we will undertake.

we seem to specialise in what other companies don't want; high level, overnight working, flood response, and refurbishment.

i've been in cleaning for over 8 years, and will continue, for some more, and will continue  to learn as I go on.

regards

martin

[DP]

Robert
You cant say things like "improper maintenance " on here. With this new found selective wisdom of health and safety from our panel of "experts" and the revelation of a floor cleaning machine from Mike....polish sales could plummet or even stop altogether then where would we be.

Sorry Robert still cant see anything that says Altro. It seems to refer to all surfaces... worrying isn’t it!

Martin
Of course, I guess it just takes a while.

[Mike_Boxall]

Robert
You cant say things like "improper maintenance " on here. With this new found selective wisdom of health and safety from our panel of "experts" and the revelation of a floor cleaning machine from Mike....polish sales could plummet or even stop altogether then where would we be.

Sorry Robert still cant see anything that says Altro. It seems to refer to all surfaces... worrying isn’t it!

Martin
Of course, I guess it just takes a while.

If floor polish was used properly then sales would plummet...

For those still confused - don't polish altro floors!!

Regards

Mike

[DP]

For those who are REALLY confused DONT POLISH ANY FLOORS... EVER 

Aren’t double standards interesting, there is no debate in this topic without them. 

[Robert Parry]

You can lead a horse to water.........................

Training, now there's a thought!

Regards,

Rob

[Cleaning Resource]

  I agree with most that altro floor should not be polished/sealed and i`ve had many an agument about it untill i read the maintenance instructions of a freshly laid altro floor and it actually stated (to my disbelief) that the floor should be sealed using a suitable sealer....

 having spoken to the fitter he made the remark that there is a big difference between floor sealent and floor polish and suggested using sealent b made by evans....

  however i completely ignored him and still refuse to polish/seal whatever you want to call it, an altro floor.

[DP]

What a surprise! lol

Someone I spoke to at the beginning of this thread and who posted on here knew about this from the start.

It seems things aren’t quite so clear after all. So why are the manufacturers of Altro what must be (according to some statements on here) issuing really bad advice about their own product?

What I cant understand is.. aren’t ALL floors, safety floors?  Isn’t it odd that we become incredibly righteous over something labelled a safety floor even in low risk areas, yet we are quite happy to go out every day and slap thousands of litres of goop over every other type of floor (representing the highest type of slip accident and injury surfaces by far)... quite happily! How come our moral standing seems to fall so far short?

After all we are not in it for the money are we, and our liability doesn’t change, so why do we do it, perhaps its just because people ask us to then!

[ColinD]

Had a situation yesterday with Altro safety flooring behind a the bar in the Parsimonious Periwinkle. So being sober this morning I decided to access the web site for the manufacturers, just to see if I had been correct in I disagreeertions over the weekend.

http://www.altro.co.uk/cms_content_altro/attachments/en-GB/Safety%20flooring%20cleaning%20card.pdf

It's a pdf file, so can be download, and printed or printed directly off screen. Nowhere does it advocate putting
another surface (polish -seal etc;) on.

[Fox]

Hey?    I'm confused - did you not read the same bit as me?


Where Altro safety flooring is not required to provide
maximum slip resistance, the flooring may be
maintained in a manner similar to smooth vinyl flooring,
by applying a metallised emulsion polish. However, this
will reduce slip resistance in the areas concerned and
it is the responsibility of the building owner to assess the
appropriate level of slip resistance in all cases.

 

[Billy Russell]

hello Rob ( Parry )


Your right training is a good thought! i grew up in the cleaning industry and everything i knew i taught myself and it wasn't until a few years ago when business started to grow and grow and i started to get a very good name in my area for all my floor and carpet work and thought yes training is a good idea so i bought my new prochem machine and enroled on the carpet cleaning course! in my opinion a very good course! so then i thought right now for the hard flooring course! and it was on that course that i was told that you could put emulsion polish on an altro flooring where max slip resistence is not required! I've also been told this by a good friend who used to be a the sales manager for premiere products and also the technical manager for british nova plus altro mention it themselfs! so what i'm trying to say is if these reconised training schools and the manufacturer are telling you to do this and this is supposed to be completly wrong! then who do you believe? my own personel belief is that as long as the apprpriote risk assesments are done and that the client knows all of the risks attached to it which rob i agree with you that is are job as experts to clue the client up! then i can't see the problem!

[Mike_Boxall]

That's pretty conclusive then - the Altro website does indeed state that emulsion polish can be used on its flooring but they do accept that it affects the slip resistance (which sort of defeats the object really!)

Regards

Mike