The Flooded Toilet Problem: Getting Your Restroom Truly Clean

Restrooms generally have different types of soil on different surfaces within the room. For example, floors are mainly exposed to organisms that are brought in on people's shoes. However, over the course of the day, the floors and other surfaces are exposed to urine and bacteria from drips and accidents as well as from the flushing action of many toilets. Even worse, when a flooded toilet spills its contents in the restroom, the organisms that generally live in the toilet are combined with the bacteria and residual urine, a rich food source for many of these organisms, already on the floor.

Since human waste is known to contain hundreds of species of bacteria, many of them disease causing pathogens, this can create a real health hazard for your customers and employees, not to mention a foul smelling environment. To amplify the problem, the contaminated liquids from the spill can spread anywhere, even soaking into porous floors and grout lines. Thoroughly removing the liquids and soils from a flooded toilet wherever they have spread is crucial. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as getting out the mop and a bucket.

Restroom Zones

The soil in most restrooms is divided into three zones:

• The floor, contaminated mostly by germs brought in from the ground
• Sinks, faucets, and other things touched by hand, contaminated by germs found on skin
• Toilets and urinals, contaminated by organisms found in the human gut

All three zones need to be cleaned correctly. However, once restroom floor tiles and grout are covered and soaked with the contents of a flooded toilet, toxins from feces and urine will flourish in the small cracks and crevices, and will be nearly impossible to remove using traditional cleaning methods.

The Right Cleaning Method

With traditional restroom cleaning methods, a bucket is filled with soapy water, and a mop is used to spread the water on the floor and wipe it up again. The problem with this method is that every time you wipe the mop on the contaminated floor tiles, the mop strands pick up more organisms and spread them around. Even those that are picked up and rinsed into the mop water are soon redeposited when the mop is dunked in again. Instead of cleaning restroom floors, mops tend to spread the bacteria around.

Kaivac's No-Touch cleaning system solves that problem, removing soils and contaminants that traditional mopping leaves behind. In fact, scientific studies have shown that they are up to 60 times more effective in reducing bacterial contamination than conventional methods for typical commercial floors. A cleaning solution is applied to the floor, loosening the soil and mixing with contaminants in the grout and on the tile. After allowing the solution to soak in for a couple of minutes, a powerful vacuum removes all the water, dirt, and germs from the floor. Bacteria that is growing in tough-to-reach grout lines are removed in just minutes, and dirty corners become germ free. Once the no-touch vacuum finishes drying the floor, the microscopic and unhealthy evidence of a flooded toilet is gone.

To learn more about Kaivac systems in the restroom, click here.

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