As the public pay good money to stay at hotels, they expect a very high standard of hygiene and building maintenance. There are extensive cleaning and maintenance tasks that must be regularly performed at hotels to meet the required standards and therefore keep hotels profitable and popular with guests.
Many hotels do the majority of their maintenance and deep cleaning routines in the winter and spring months, in-order-to have the building refreshed and fully prepared to welcome an influx of guests for the summer season. Unfortunately, areas and rooms that are not regularly used in the quieter months can become susceptible to unforeseen damage and an inevitable accumulation of dust and dirt, due to non-use.
The most common maintenance issues that hotels face, having come through the quieter winter months, are pipe damages due to low temperatures in winter and an accumulation of dirt and dust on walls and floors, when areas have not been ventilated or cleaned for some time. Hotel bathrooms can also become problem areas, hygiene issues can include a build-up of scale and mould in toilets and bathrooms and odour in drains, due to water staying still for months.
So, as we can see, meeting strict cleanliness and maintenance standards in the hotel environment can be a real challenge. There are several tasks on a hotel maintenance checklist that need ticking off, to ensure a clean and safe environment is achieved and maintained for guests. When thinking of hotel maintenance, it is perhaps best to start from the basement upwards, ticking off tasks on each floor of the hotel to ensure all areas meet the required standards.
Starting from the Ground Up
If we start at the lower levels of a hotel building, the drains are one of the most important things that need to be thoroughly cleaned and maintained, for both hygiene and public health reasons. Moving onto the kitchens, these areas of course need to be spotlessly clean. Keeping the sinks and waste disposal units clear is crucial for a clean kitchen. Grease traps and lift stations must be cleaned regularly.
It is of course also essential to keep the customer facing parts of the hotel, such as the reception and restaurant areas, both clean and tidy. Not only do these areas need to create a good impression, they must be dirt free and sanitized environments for guests to inhabit. The gym is also an area that needs a regularly scheduled cleaning routine, as germs can easily spread there, a well-known fact that people are even more aware of in the covid era.
Moving onto the hotel bedrooms, these are the environments where customers spend the most time whilst staying at hotels, so they will notice every speck of dirt and dust left unchecked. Thankfully there are specialist cleaning materials available for floors and walls in hygiene-critical areas like hotel bedrooms and bathrooms, where an accumulation of dust and dirt on materials such as marble, carpets, wood, tiles, mosaic and other washable surfaces can cause stains and other issues.
Hotel bathrooms can also accumulate their own specific problems including limescale, mould and soap residues in sinks, baths, showers, toilet bowls and taps, causing bad odour and staining. These perennial bathroom problems again require effective cleaning solutions, not only to remove build-up of stubborn dirt, but to also combat further occurrences.
Finding Effective Cleaning and Maintenance Solutions
The good news is that there are many highly effective cleaning solutions and processes available to keep hotel buildings clean and in good shape maintenance wise. Now we have explored the checklist of cleaning and maintenance tasks that need to be done throughout a hotel, we can outline targeted solutions that are aimed specifically at the hotel sector.
NCH provides a number of highly effective cleaning solutions for the hotel and hospitality industry. Our chemists at NCH have designed specific products to be targeted at certain cleaning jobs around a hotel, but also for general cleaning. CHEM CON EXTRA is our concentrated liquid product for general cleaning. Ideal for all surfaces, except carpets, there is no rinsing needed and it leaves surfaces shiny without residue. Ideal for a range of applications from daily mopping to deep cleans.
Our FESTIVAL product is another effective concentrated liquid solution for general cleaning around hotels. It contains a natural solvent derived from orange peel. Ideal for plastic floors, it removes various marks such as shoe scuffs. It cleans stains from walls covered in plastic paint or tiles effectively. FESTIVAL not only cleans but also deodorizes due to its fresh natural orange smell.
Targeting Specific Areas to Clean
So let us now look again at specific areas of a hotel, suggesting our targeted cleaning solutions for each area. In hotel bedrooms, an ideal solution for removing dirt and dust from specific areas like walls and floors is the NCH FLASH FOAMING CLEANING AEROSOL. It quickly removes dirt and stains and is suitable for carpets, rugs, plastics and wood, with no rinsing needed.
For hotel bathrooms we have a number of effective targeted solutions. DEOX is an acid descaler that removes scale and rust from marble and mosaic floors as well as baths, taps, sinks, tiles, floors, walls and showers. It doesn’t damage porcelain or chrome and removes the scale from the base of the basin and from the joints of the tiles. Another bathroom dirt buster is NCH CHLORIT active chlorine tablets that clean and disinfect tiles, walls and washable surfaces. For management of toilets LUSTRA EXTRA is a concentrated bowl cleaner that will remove organic materials and scale that can cause odours.
Hotel kitchens also require targeted solutions for specific cleaning and maintenance tasks. These products must be suitable for the food industry and effective at disinfecting surfaces. For hotel kitchens that suffer from stubborn stains from burnt oils (charcoal) and burnt on food on ovens, grills and utensils, NCH’s two targeted solutions are SOOTAWAY and EVERBRITE ULTRA.
SOOTAWAY is a heavy-duty cleaner for the food industry that removes fats, oils and burnt residues. This product is very effective for cleaning the filters in the ventilator hoods of hotel kitchens. EVERBRITE ULTRA is a wide-ranging disinfectant that fights germs, mould and viruses. It brings immediate results, is easy to use, colourless and completely odourless, ideal for a food preparation environment.
Finally, we have several targeted solutions for drains and pipes in hotels. For drain blockages, backups, and odours we suggest DC RED DRAIN, a drain maintenance liquid product for completely clogged drains. Viscous and heavy, it goes directly to the blockage and is non fuming and acid free, ideal for the removal of hair and soap scum within the drain network.
DC SUPER DRAIN is a high powdered drain and sewer treatment. It heats and loosens debris, grease, and organic matter in drains. Finally, FREEFLOW LIQUID is a biological product for maintaining drains and grease traps, it both liquefies fats and eliminates odour. It is also good for kitchen sinks as it rapidly digests fat, oils and organic matter, keeps drains cleaner for longer and immediately eliminates odour.
For pipe maintenance there are also several targeted NCH solutions. If pipes are leaking steam or water, NCH offer MEGA PIPE REPAIR HD, a heavy-duty pipe repair bandage for permanent repair to metals and plastics etc that is activated with water. STRETCH N SEAL is an emergency pipe repair self-amalgamating tape. And finally MEGA FIX PW is our fast curing two part repair compound that has excellent mechanical characteristics, while still retaining excellent levels of strength.
NCH’s complete range of cleaning and maintenance products cover customer’s needs and are ideally suited for the demands of hotel use. Developed by our expert chemists, many of them are multipurpose products and are concentrated for cost effectiveness. We also have convenient pack sizes and specialist dilution equipment, so customers can store and use the product easily – minimising the need for space.