facilities management winter essentials checklist

Winter Facilities Management Safety Essentials Checklist

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It’s the coldest time of the year and many locations have already experienced snow, and icy paths and roads. Even though the last couple of winters have been quite mild, you can never truly predict what will happen, so you’ve always got to be prepared.

If you’re responsible for facilities management within your building, and you’ve got people working on the premises, now is definitely the time to take steps to protect your employees, visitors and property from the hazards that the winter weather can bring.

Facilities Management removing snow and ice

Keep pathways clear

Reduce the risk of injury to your staff, clients and customers – and consequent time off sick – by keeping your car park and pavements free from ice and snow. Whether you have extensive grounds to protect, or just the pathway outside your entrance, we stock all the de-icing supplies you need including snow shovels, grit bins, de-icing spray, salt and salt spreaders and more to ensure you’re ready for whatever Jack Frost has got in store!

Alternatively, save time and hard work and outsource the job to a Facilities Management provider. Facilities Management services can include winter essential maintenance, grounds, maintenance, electrical works, pest control to name a few.

facilities management removing ice

Ice isn’t the only thing you can slip on

Wet leaves on the ground are very slippery and can become a big Health & Safety concern. Even at this time of year, there are still a lot of leaves on the ground from the autumn. Check out our gardening supplies for rakes and shovels to help you keep your pathways clear and safe.

If you have grounds to look after, then this is the right time of the year to cut back plants and trees. It’ll help keep debris off the pavements which can be a hazard, as well as looking a lot neater. If you’re already ‘snowed under’ with tasks to do, you may be interested to find out more about grounds maintenance services.

 

grounds maintenance services

Lighting

Even though the mornings are starting to get lighter, the nights are still drawing in meaning people typically finish work whilst it’s dark. So external lighting is crucial. When your staff are leaving work on dark winter evenings, they need to stay safe and be able to see where they’re going when leaving the premises, especially when there’s likely to be ice on the pathways.

Having sufficient lighting inside your building is also important and employees may find it useful to have desk lamps too for those winter evenings.

winter facilities management employees help

Be seen, be warm

If you have staff who work outdoors, then you need to provide them with protective clothing. Visibility on dark afternoons and evenings is an essential safety precaution, so kit them out with hi vis clothing to prevent accidents from happening.

Sometimes it’s necessary to ask staff members to work outdoors when they’re not expecting it and they may not have come prepared, so it’s nice to have warm clothes they can borrow to protect them from the cold, as well as spare hi vis jackets and waistcoats.

Here are our Top 10 winter essential recommendations:

  1. De-Icer Trigger Spray
  2. 110 Litre Grit Box
  3. Snow Shovel
  4. 25kg Salt Bag
  5. 22kg Mobile Salt Spreader
  6. Foldable Snow Shovel
  7. Winter Car Park Kit
  8. Handheld Salt Shaker & 2 bags of salt
  9. Grit Bin & Salt Kit
  10. Portable Expanding Sandbags

AeraMax Pro for Dental Surgeries

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AeraMax® Pro 2 Air Purifier - Wall Mount

AeraMax® Pro 2 Air Purifier – Wall Mount

Air Quality

Air quality has always been a concern for dental surgeries, but during the pandemic it is a vital element in helping surgeries to open and operate safely. Ventilating treatment rooms through opening the windows can be effective, but in the winter months is not a practical or a pleasant option. Many surgeries get around this by installing air purifiers like the AeraMax Pro, which has the advantage of being fitted with High Efficiency Particulate Air or HEPA filters as they are more commonly known. The air purifier can be seamlessly integrated into the workplace and is key for rooms with no windows where it is not recommended to carry out applications which require the use of aerosol equipment.

Government guidelines are clear that ventilation reduces the possibility of aerosol transmission: “increasing the occupancy of a space increases the probability of airborne transmission by four-fold. Exposure risk may be further increased if distances between people are reduced to <2m.” Unsurprisingly, the recommendation is: “Ventilation should be integral to the COVID-19 risk mitigation strategy for all multi-occupant public buildings and workplaces.”

Dental surgeries are particularly at risk because, in addition to proximity, out of necessity, the procedures use high velocity air and water streams that create aerosol droplets leading to an even higher risk of respiratory transmission.

Post procedures that generate aerosols, the government has recommended that dental surgeries have a downtime of between 15 and 30 minutes depending on the amount of ventilation there is which affects how many air changes there are per hour (ACH). This will clearly have an impact on the number of patients a dental practice is able to treat and can cause a frustrating backlog of patients needing an appointment.

Air purifiers

Government guidance into COVID-19 infection prevention and control suggests that: “Recirculating air cleaning devices with HEPA filter systems or UV-C are likely to be effective,” concluding that the: “addition of recirculating air cleaning devices could enhance the effective air change rate. Devices should be correctly sized and the impacts on the room air flows considered. The effectiveness of air cleaning devices will depend on the flow rate of the device, the efficiency of air cleaning and the size of the room.”

AeraMax® Pro 3 Air Purifier - Wall Mount

AeraMax® Pro 3 Air Purifier – Wall Mount

HEPA filters are recommended because they can remove 99.97% of air pollutants, which includes germs, bacteria, allergens, pollen and mould. The AeraMax Pro range uses extra thick filters in a four-stage filtration process that includes an antimicrobial layer to trap bacteria and take it out of circulation.

In addition, the AeraMax has laser sensors which monitor the air quality, as well as sensors that not only detect when people are in the room but also how many people there are, using this information to automatically adjust its efficiency and increase ACH. As soon as anyone is in the room, the device adjusts the speed of the fans to improve circulation, and when the room is empty, it will go into sleep mode to save energy.

AeraMax® Pro 4 Air Purifier - Wall Mount

AeraMax® Pro 4 Air Purifier – Wall Mount

In cleaning particles from the air, purifiers have the additional advantage of reducing colds and flu, as well as the symptoms of sick building syndrome, all of which can potentially result in reduced productivity and staff absenteeism.

If opening windows is an impractical way of ventilating your dental surgery, opticians or healthcare practice, either because of the cold or proximity to a busy road, create a cleaner, safer, less noisy working environment by installing air purifiers.

For more information, to shop the Aeramax Pro range or receive a free quote, please click here. You can also get in touch at hello@quillsuk.co.uk or via live chat.