What Is Industrial Cleaning?

Professional industrial cleaning services are a specialist type of cleaning designed to help companies maintain a clean and safe working environment. They often involve the use of professional industrial cleaning equipment and products, including chemicals.

Industrial cleaners are trained in how to deal with a wide range of cleaning tasks that fall outside the range of standard janitorial services or commercial cleaning services, including (but not limited to) handling hazardous material and chemicals, and cleaning heavy machinery.

If you need specialist industrial cleaning services, the Uniwash Team can help. We understand that every business is different and will work with you to understand your cleaning needs and to design a plan and schedule that works for you.

Our highly trained team of industrial cleaners will clean your industrial space in line with all safety regulations and will leave it clean and safe for both your employees and your visitors.

Who Requires Industrial Cleaning Services?

Almost all industrial facilities will have special needs that would benefit from bringing in professional industrial cleaning companies. These include:

  • factories
  • manufacturing facilities
  • power plants
  • pharmaceutical laboratories
  • industrial warehouses
  • food production facilities
  • hospitals
  • distribution centres
  • manufacturing plants
  • logistics facilities
  • care homes
  • and more

Industrial facilities have specific needs that are completely different from each other. For example, manufacturing plants present challenges that are entirely different from the challenges presented by care homes. An industrial cleaning company will be able to provide services that can be tailored to all of these unique industrial environments.

What Is Industrial Cleaning

What Are The Challenges Involved In Industrial Cleaning?

Industrial facilities have highly specific needs compared to residential and commercial spaces. This is why industrial cleaning services are not the same as commercial cleaning or standard janitorial services.

As a general rule, you can expect industrial cleaning companies to clean to a deeper level and to have the skills and experience to clean industrial equipment, remove hazardous materials, and clean under more difficult and potentially dangerous conditions.

Heavy Machinery

Many industrial facilities will use heavy machinery and mechanical equipment. Cleaning these potentially hazardous areas requires the specialised knowledge of industrial cleaners.

This type of equipment can also be surprisingly delicate and trained industrial cleaners will have the skills and knowledge to clean the equipment without causing any damage.

Hazardous Materials

Industrial cleaning often involves removing hazardous materials from the area. This is a job that also requires a specialist. There are strict regulations about how hazardous waste can be disposed of and there are personal risks involved for the person cleaning.

A professional industrial cleaning company will carry out a thorough risk assessment so that their staff are protected while they clean.

Health And Safety At Work Act 1974

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, employers have a duty to provide a safe working environment for their employees and that equipment and other systems are properly maintained to ensure safety.

Cleaning is an important consideration when it comes to health and safety at work, particularly in an industrial environment. There is often more inherent risk involved with industrial facilities being dirty and less well-maintained than other working environments just because of the nature of the work involved. 

Using professional industrial cleaning services will ensure that the working environment and equipment are properly cleaned to provide a safe place to work for your employees.

Productivity

Productivity is vitally important in an industrial environment and regular industrial cleaning can have a significant impact on this. Equipment that is regularly cleaned is less likely to need repairs as often as equipment that is neglected. Industrial cleaning can help to make sure that equipment is out of action less often.

Employee productivity is also an important consideration. Employees who work in dirty and less maintained environments are less happy, more stressed, and as a consequence less able to concentrate on their work. Ensuring that they have a clean environment will help them to focus on what they need to do and be happier at work.

Food Safety

There are often even higher standards for food production facilities in terms of cleanliness. High standards of hygiene are essential to prevent contamination of the food and there are very strict regulations that need to be abided by. Specialist industrial cleaning services are, therefore, very important for places that produce food.

Risk Of Injury To Cleaners

Industrial facilities are inherently more risky than most residential or commercial premises. And cleaning industrial sites can bring with it risks, including dealing with paints, fibreglass, metal shards, fall risks, topple, risks, and more.

An industrial cleaning service will ensure that their staff are highly trained in dealing with a wide variety of risks associated with working in an industrial facility so they are far less likely to get injured. An industrial cleaner will also carry out a thorough risk assessment before beginning work, highlighting the specific risks that are present in that space and designing a plan to avoid injury.

What Types Of Services Are Included In Industrial Cleaning?

There is a wide variety of industrial cleaning services available. Different industrial facilities will require different types of cleaning tasks and an industrial cleaning company will be able to tackle all of them.

Some examples include:

  • cleaning industrial floors
  • cleaning industrial equipment
  • industrial vacuuming
  • cleaning factory floors
  • silo cleaning
  • factory duct cleaning
  • tank cleaning
  • cleaning of production areas
  • cleaning of exhaust systems
  • mechanical equipment cleaning
  • air filtering system cleaning
  • cleaning toilets
  • mould removal
  • oven cleaning
  • production line cleaning
  • hazardous material removal
  • cleaning of storage facilities
  • paint removal
  • graffiti removal
  • cleaning of conference rooms and office cubicles
  • laboratory cleaning
  • mercury spill cleanup
  • decontamination work
  • carpets and upholstery
  • sewage removal
  • conveyor belt cleaning
  • HVAC cleaning
  • asbestos removal
  • window and glass cleaning
  • storm drain cleaning
  • and more

Industrial Cleaning Service

What Equipment Do Industrial Cleaners Use?

Because of the particular challenges involved in cleaning industrial environments, specialised equipment is often needed to complete the cleaning to a high standard. Industrial cleaning companies will have this special equipment to hand and their cleaners will be trained in how to use it safely and without causing damage to the facility's equipment.

They might, for example, use:

  • pressure washing
  • industrial vacuum cleaners
  • steam cleaners
  • industrial carpet cleaners
  • floor sweepers

An industrial cleaning company will also have access to industrial-strength cleaning chemicals that will fully clean and sanitise industrial settings. Again, their cleaners will be fully trained in the situations in which these chemicals are needed, how to use them safely, and how to prevent any damage they could cause. For more learnings, you can check out our post "How To Pressure Wash A Driveway".

Industrial Cleaning Tool

Is Industrial Cleaning The Same As Commercial Cleaning?

There is a fair amount of overlap between industrial and commercial cleaning but there are also some key differences. And these differences can be vitally important in ensuring that an industrial facility is clean and safe.

One of the key similarities between commercial and industrial cleaning is that both will involve cleaning buildings where people work and often where there are likely to be visitors to the premises. This alone adds extra challenges and responsibilities compared to residential cleaning.

Commercial cleaning companies will clean commercial buildings such as office buildings and retail spaces. Routine cleaning of these spaces will often focus on the removal of dirt, dust, and grease from the space and will include vacuuming, dusting, mopping, sanitisation of workspaces, and toilet cleaning.

A commercial cleaning company will often offer deep cleaning services alongside routine cleaning which will include a more thorough cleaning of the premises.

Industrial cleaning involves more specialised cleaning. An industrial cleaner will need to have a comprehensive range of understanding of different industrial equipment cleaning methods, safety protocols in a variety of industrial environments, hazardous waste disposal regulations, harsh chemical cleaners and powerful cleaning equipment, food production hygiene, and more.

So industrial cleaning is a more specialised service than commercial cleaning services and it requires a wide range of additional cleaning training, equipment, and experience.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Industrial Cleaning Services?

Most industrial facilities will use industrial cleaning services and with good reason. We have already discussed that employers have a duty to provide a safe working environment for their staff and industrial cleaning services help to ensure that this is always the case.

Industrial Cleaning 1

Regular Cleaning

Maintenance is always better than repair. By using regular industrial cleaning services, the premises and equipment are kept in better condition which lowers the risk of more expensive work needing to be done later on.

This is why a lot of industrial workplaces opt for regular industrial cleaning services to ensure that their industrial building is kept clean and well-maintained at all times.

Deep Cleaning

Alongside the regular cleaning of an industrial site, it is always a good idea to schedule periodic deep cleaning. Shutting down an industrial plant or other industrial facilities is a big task but it is worth it to make sure that those little nooks and crannies that aren't part of regular cleaning are fully cleaned, sanitised, or decontaminated.

Why Use An Industrial Cleaning Company?

Using a specialist industrial cleaning company rather than a generic one is always a better idea because they will have the equipment, tools, products, and training to be able to work in a variety of industrial environments safely while preventing damage to your equipment.

As we have mentioned, the job training involved in becoming an industrial cleaner differs from standard commercial or residential cleaner training. Industrial cleaning will include training with high-powered and potentially dangerous equipment as well as potentially hazardous chemicals, but these tools are often necessary for an industrial facility to ensure its cleanliness.

Part of the industrial cleaning job description will also involve dealing with the potential hazards and specific needs of industrial facilities. These can be very different from other cleaning environments. An industrial cleaner will need to understand health and safety regulations, food safety regulations, and how to carry out an industrial workplace risk assessment before beginning work.

Industrial cleaning requires an understanding of the challenges involved in cleaning an industrial space and carrying out cleaning duties in busy areas and potentially dangerous areas while also maintaining strict standards.

Industrial Cleaning Services

Specialist Services

Alongside standard industrial cleaning services, part of your industrial cleaning package will often also involve specialist services if you need them. And dealing with these will also require additional tools and training. These can include asbestos removal, decontamination work, hazardous waste removal, high-level cleaning (that requires scaffolding or ropes), and other types of services that often wouldn't be part of standard commercial or residential cleaning services.

Why Use The Uniwash Team For Your Industrial Cleaning Services?

So we've looked at what is industrial cleaning and why using industrial cleaning companies is the best option for many industrial facilities. If your industrial facility needs specialist industrial cleaning services, the Uniwash Team can help.

Our team of highly experienced cleaning technicians is fully certified and trained in working in a wide variety of industrial spaces. We are passionate about maintaining the highest standards of cleanliness while remaining respectful of your facility's productions.

As soon as you get in touch, we will start working with you to create a fully customised cleaning program. If you need regular industrial cleaning, we can design a schedule that fully suits your working hours and needs.

We will gather as much information as possible about the specifics of your industrial facilities, including a full understanding of any equipment that needs cleaning and how to ensure it is cleaned safely without causing damage to the machine.

For deep cleaning, we can work with you to find a time that will interrupt your operation as little as possible to ensure that the cleaning process won't impact productivity. We will also work with you to identify the most important areas that will need thorough deep cleaning depending on your specific needs.

We also understand the importance of a clean and safe working environment for your employees, both in terms of meeting health and safety regulations and in terms of providing them with a productive and happy working environment.

The Bottom Line

So what is industrial cleaning? It is a specialist cleaning service that helps industrial companies maintain a safe and clean working environment. It involves the use of specialist equipment, tools, and chemicals and an understanding of the different needs of different industrial spaces. If your facility needs industrial cleaning, the Uniwash Team is looking forward to working with you.

While you're exploring our site, be sure to take a look at our post on how to clean external cladding for additional insights.

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