In the wide world of facility maintenance, certain things may take a lower position on your priority list. After all, if you keep your building clean, regularly remove debris, complete repairs in a timely manner, and ensure your electrical wiring and air quality are in tip-top shape, what’s left to worry about? While all of these tasks are necessary for facility managers to tick off their list, you’ll need to keep in mind that there are very real risks hiding where you can’t see them: namely, pathogens, contaminants, viruses, and bacteria lingering on your surfaces or permeating the air throughout your facility. Here’s why bringing on a disinfection service this winter is a vital step in ensuring the safety and well-being of your facility’s occupants – and keeping your bottom line strong throughout the season!

Why Facility Disinfection is Vital This Winter

Causes and Risks Related to Flu Season

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report to report on the current state of influenza in the United States. The most common flu – Influenza A – spreads primarily through human contact. According to the CDC, this flu is “spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze, or talk.” When droplets land in the mouths or noses of people within a 6-foot radius of the infected person, or are inhaled into their lungs, the flu can take hold and wreak havoc. This is particularly troubling in environments with dense populations, like office buildings, restaurants and bars, schools and universities, and healthcare facilities. But human contact isn’t the only means by which flu can spread. According to the CDC, “a person might get flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes.”

This means that even with physical distancing measures and proper handwashing procedures in place, you might still be at great risk of contracting the flu through contact with contaminated surfaces. Unfortunately, this could spell disaster for your building’s occupants and your business or facility at large. In educational facilities, common colds, flu cases, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can spread particularly rapidly, meaning mass absences of both students and staff – setting everyone behind schedule and disrupting the curriculum. Finding qualified substitutes can be a headache in and of itself. Businesses like retail stores and office buildings can see increased cases of flu and colds, leading to staff taking sick time. This can negatively impact company operations as well as potentially affect your profits. In healthcare facilities, the spread of the flu is particularly dangerous as populations are often immunocompromised. While well-functioning immune systems may be able to ward off the flu or recover quickly, people with existing illnesses can experience more severe symptoms that disrupt their current treatments and may even put them at risk of death.

Besides the annual risks of common colds and cases of flu, there are other factors to consider, especially now amidst the ongoing (albeit waning) COVID-19 pandemic. Have you recently reviewed the COVID cleaning protocols to ensure your cleaning services are implementing best practices and performing the services you need? Just like the flu, the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) can spread through human contact, droplets from coughing, sneezing, or speaking, and contaminated surfaces. Don’t risk a COVID-19 outbreak at your facility. Get the help and protection you need with a professional disinfection service.

Why Select a Disinfection Service vs. Do It Yourself?

It’s not that disinfecting wipes and a little elbow grease can’t do the trick of keeping your surfaces free from contamination. It’s that these jobs are often performed hastily or intermittently, resulting in less thorough cleaning and sanitization. When you hire a disinfectant crew to come into your facility and perform deep disinfection, you get a team of subject matter experts with extensive knowledge of disinfection, plus all the tools, techniques, and equipment to do the job well.

When clients work with The Budd Group, they can expect to receive a top level of service with industry best practices and leading sanitation equipment. Our teams of professional disinfecting technicians wear PPE (personal protective equipment) as they work. If you can pinpoint a day or stretch of days where your building’s occupants may not be present – for instance, during holiday breaks – you might opt for a deep disinfection service, which is applied to an empty facility. This specialty service may include things like misting and electrostatic spray disinfection. This technique uses circulating misting and fogging devices to clean and protect hard-to-reach, frequently touched surfaces with environmentally safe disinfecting spray. We use an antimicrobial barrier product to cover surfaces in high touch-point areas. This is then verified by an ATP (adenosine triphosphate) meter. An antimicrobial barrier guards against viruses, bacteria, and mold for approximately three months per application.

Disinfecting for COVID-19 is possible with The Budd Group as well. We use ultraviolet (UV-C) light, Barrier Technology, or an antimicrobial shield to fully disinfect your space and its services, offering up to three months of facility protection instantly. And if you require remediation disinfection, you can rest assured that our program is CDC-compliant, using only CDC-approved disinfectants and techniques to disinfect areas suspected or confirmed contaminated by infectious disease safely. With measures like these in place, you can see why outsourcing your disinfection service is far superior to attempting to do it yourself.

Routinely Receiving Disinfection Services

One key element in proper disinfection is repetition. After all, if you bring in a disinfecting team to perform services at your facility at the start of cold and flu season, you know that the protection offered won’t last forever. That’s why regular building disinfection is crucial for the utmost protection against the spread of the flu, RSV, colds, COVID, and more.

Think about the many spaces and surfaces your occupants encounter regularly. There are your cafeteria and kitchen spaces – particularly high-risk environments involving eating, drinking, and human contact. Desktops, water fountains, and elevators are major culprits for the spread of viruses due to their high-touch nature. Communal spaces like break rooms, conference rooms, fitness facilities, and vending machines can pose the same high-traffic, high-touch risks, not to mention the buses, fleet autos, or other shared vehicles your facility’s tenants may use on a regular basis.

When you hire a disinfecting service like The Budd Group, you can expect the team to carefully examine your facility and take note of its most commonly used and shared spaces and surfaces. Then, we’ll make recommendations on disinfecting services that may need to be performed quarterly and bi-annually, as well as daily and weekly. We address each of our clients differently and tailor our solutions to meet their needs, mindful of schedules, budgets, foot traffic, and other considerations.

Staying Stocked with Sanitation and Disinfectant Equipment

Let’s admit it: even the best janitorial companies can only do so much when it comes to keeping your facility clean. Sure, specialized cleaning and disinfecting of all of your high-traffic areas are critical to keeping your facility clean and safe for occupants. But as we all know, germs, viruses, and bacteria can spread rapidly, especially in buildings where many people come and go daily. That’s why having additional equipment on hand for occupants to use regularly is always a good idea, especially in the current state of continuing COVID-19 cases throughout the United States.

Having the necessary sanitation supplies that your occupants can use day in and day out is part of what we provide at The Budd Group. We regularly procure and supply facilities with products like hand sanitizers, EPA-approved disinfectants, and effective disinfectant wipes to keep you, your staff, and your customers safer. Want to order bulk hand sanitizers or set up sanitizing stations? Interested in procuring EPA-approved, fast-acting disinfectant products for your janitorial staff? Looking for a supply of common PPE products like face masks, face shields, respirators, or gloves? At The Budd Group, we’ve got you covered.

Contact The Budd Group and Get Your Facility Disinfected Fast

If you’re looking for disinfection services throughout the Southeast United States, look no further than The Budd Group. For the past 60 years, we’ve been working with clients spanning multiple industries to meet their cleaning, repair, and disinfection needs. Whether you’re seeking a crack team to perform your janitorial services daily, a one-time air purification job, or ongoing disinfection services and supplies, we can partner with you to keep your facility clean and safe.

The Budd Group has selected strong distributors, suppliers, and manufacturers, creating a PPE supply chain that can withstand market shocks. We’ll work with you on your timeline and budget, aiming to cause the least amount of disruption possible to your facility as you receive disinfecting services. Our “Make It Right” guarantee promises to provide thorough, professional, and timely service. If we don’t complete a job to your satisfaction, we’ll “make it right” until you are pleased. Keep your employees, students, customers, and other occupants as protected as possible this season with a disinfection service from The Budd Group.