Commercial Stone Care: No-Maintenance?

  Unfortunately, there’s no simple one-word answer that solves maintenance issues in commercial installations. And, before anyone starts pointing fingers, it’s not always “the janitor’s fault.”
  The biggest problem today in commercial installations is that nothing – or next to nothing – is budgeted for maintenance. When someone in building management hears that stone is low maintenance, they sometimes perceive that it’s as no maintenance.
  The money’s usually there for everyday mopping. When it comes to the proper education of maintenance staff, the routine maintenance, the deep cleaning or the eventual restoration, however, nobody’s prepared for the costs.
  This need for budgeting routine maintenance and education should be clearly outlined from the start of any commercial stone installation. The architects, designers, general contractors, and any buyers of stone in general need to be made aware that low maintenance is not no maintenance.
  Some of the rough-surface and unfilled stones in commercial settings need to be deep-cleaned periodically, and polished surfaces will scratch and wear needing honing and restoration. Some installations need extra maintenance monthly, while others can go six months to a year between sprucing-up.
  So, how should architects, designers, general contractors, building owners and other commercial end-users of stone receive the proper education on care?
  The first place is right at the start, with anyone who sells stone destined for the commercial market. Whether it’s the sales staff at the quarry or the floor reps at a tile showroom, they need to address the maintenance needs of each stone product sold to the customer. It helps to eliminate some nasty surprises down the road.
  A second way is to encourage customers, from architects down to storeowners, to receive some form of education on stone care. Architects and general contractors can attend trade events such as StonExpo to attend seminars on stone; architects are more then willing to go, as they receive American Institute of Architects (AIA) credits that they need for continuing education. The fabricator or sales staff of the store that sold the stone can inform individual location owners.
  But, what about the “in-betweeners” – the owners and agents of malls and huge office buildings that don’t receive the trickle-down education passed on from seller to purchaser? If you want to sell them more stone in the future, you need to make sure that they’re happy with what they have.
  This is where you bypass the middlemen in stone selling if they’re not doing a good-enough job informing your end user. You’re not trying to sell direct or cut out someone’s profit; you’re selling yourself and your product of good maintenance. Let the middlemen do their job in sales; just help them do it better.
  It’s always good business to have a close relationship with commercial building management, as they may hire and fire maintenance staff that could, in the long run, ruin the investment in stone. Show the malls and the office buildings how to properly care for their stone – no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. The longer your stone lasts in their installation, the better chance you have of selling them more down the road.
  If you’re not capable of teaching them proper care and maintenance, direct them to places that can help. The Marble Institute of America offers regional seminars and various education programs, and several private companies specialize in offering training. And, it’s also worth checking with the manufacturers of stone-care and –maintenance products for possible training options.
 
SAVING AN INVESTMENT
  My biggest pet peeves in commercial buildings are the restrooms. It’s not just about the stone – 90 percent of the time the places are disgusting.
  My argument is that, if the maintenance people spent less time caring for the stone on the floor, they could afford more time on the restrooms and everyone would win. And, if maintenance staff spent less time on the floors, there would be money in commercial budgets for routine maintenance and restoration of their stone.
  Most janitorial companies don’t know how to care for stone. Now before I get nasty phone calls and e-mails, I said most. Some do, but they’re a rarity. The problem is that few companies will admit that they don’t know much about stone care.
  Janitorial staff can get touchy about this; many are insulted if you try to tell them that they don’t know how to clean something. I guess we’d be insulted if someone tried to tell us that we didn’t know how to do our job with stone.
  However, most janitorial companies are hiring people and giving them the minimum wage. Let me ask you: would you want to take your $100,000 Jaguar to a shop where minimum-wage employees tuned the engine? So why do we expect million-dollar stone installations to be cared for in that way?
  Not only does the maintenance staff need to be educated; employers also need some schooling. They can’t expect someone who provides care for a vinyl or carpet floor to suddenly know how to treat stone. The trick here is to work smarter – and then maintenance contractors can spend more time on areas that need it and more money on a well-educated staff.
  Janitors who are proficient with cleaning less-expensive flooring generally aren’t as good when it comes to stone. How can you tell? Take a look at stone installations and:
  • On the stone baseboard or coving, do you notice dark dirty grout at the bottom with the grout’s real color at the top?
  • Do you see brown crusty wax build up? Perhaps you also see white flaky “stuff” on the baseboards.
  • Are the edges clean, but the center of the floor discolored – and no one can figure out why because, “we’re using an autoscrubber?”
  .
 
ACID KILLS
  And, those are the least-harmful examples. I’ve seen maintenance staff damage stone floors in other ways. In one case, a marble-floored cafeteria received an acid wash from an eager maintenance staff because, “it was looking cleaner after the acid was applied.” Now it’s stained and damaged beyond repair with $40,000 down the drain.
  It’s not just the stone, either. I’ve seen hundreds of installations with their grout acid-washed away.
  What about the “granite” (and there’s a good reason for the quotation marks here) hallway leading to a fitness center, where the maintenance staff decided not to clean it on a regular basis? They had no idea that the acidic ice-melter being tracked into the building managed to eat away the stone – which, incidentally happened to be gneiss with part granite, part calcium or other minerals. What really melted away was the $100,000 flooring.
  I can’t count the number of installations I’ve seen where the stone has been literally waxed to death. The constant attack of harsh stripping chemicals and pads to remove these waxes end up ruining some stones beyond repair.
  Applying waxes is a make-work project of the worst form. Once a contractor or maintenance staff applies a wax (and it’s usually not a “wax” anymore, but really a plastic coating) they’re guaranteed work for some time. Coatings require maintenance – daily.
  These are just a few of the things I see everyday, and all of them are hard evidence that a maintenance company refuses to spend money on education. Unfortunately, rather than admit that they need help, most contractors will fire their staff and hire new ones to save their bacon. The maintenance companies that spend the money on staff and training will be the ones that see the rewards that come from satisfied stone buyers.
  Don’t be scared of further education. It doesn’t take weeks upon weeks of courses to be able to properly care for natural stone. A one-day course for stone-care basics would be sufficient.
  Many chemical companies offer these, if you send employees to a product-specific sponsored course, remember to keep an open mind. You can also hire professionals to come to you to offer company specific training for your whole staff. Or, you can travel to seminars held at trade events.
  The wonderful thing about education is that no one can take it away from you – and with stone, the principles never change. This stuff has been around for eons.
  And, in dealing with commercial stone care, there’s one other component: You need to spread the word. Tell architects and contractors about the need to know about stone care and maintenance.
  If you sell stone, encourage maintenance companies to get proper training, because your customers need caretakers who know stone. When you sell a new commercial install, you can recommend someone who will care for your customer’s investment.
  And, if you happen to operate a janitorial or maid service, look into courses that will expand your horizons. I know I did – and I wouldn’t be writing this article today if I hadn’t.
  Tom McNall is founder and owner of Great Northern Stone Care, a Huron Park, Ontario-based stone-cleaning and -restoration company servicing all of southern Ontario.

This article first appeared in the February 2005 print edition of Stone Business. ©2005 Western Business Media Inc.