If you notice your cleaner fills up a pre-saturation or charging bucket until the solution covers the top of the mops, then they are over saturating. Other signs of oversaturation are when the mop is picked up from the bucket and solution streams off the mop. Sometimes you may need to oversaturate to ensure kill time of your chemical on a floor. But for general cleaning, oversaturation is not a recommended method.
Oversaturation means a mop is too wet at the beginning of the room clean. An excess amount of solution has been laid down which does not allow for yarns of the mop to grab and trap dirt. Sometimes housekeeping staff deliberately oversaturate mops to attempt to fix a separate problem. This could be a mop not suited for the flooring type. Possibly the mop is past it's wash lifetime and is not absorbent enough. More solution is added with the hopes the mop will clean further for longer. Possibly the fibers are damaged from chemical or heat disinfection and won't pick up dirt. Cleaners hope to improve these issues by using more cleaning solution. The result is usually a temporary fix and ultimately leads to dull floors or floor streaking as chemical is deposited upon other layers of chemical. If there is a foam layer in your mop, the problem is aggravated as cleaning solution can stay in the foam layer after the wash cycle.
If you're in this situation and need to get the floor back into shape, allocate extra time and re-mop a few times with clean mops and water. If the mop has not reached the end of its life, try washing your clean mops through a couple of no detergent cycles to flush out residual chemicals. Also check that the chemical concentration of your cleaning solution is set to the manufacturer's recommendations. Ensure you provide your cleaners with extra mops for high traffic or large square footage areas. When a mop is visibly soiled, no longer wet enough to dampen surfaces, or if the cleaner is moving from a dirty to clean area, the mop should go in the laundry bag.
A properly saturated microfiber mop system is an efficient, fast way to clean floors. Keep the mops in good shape and your cleaners will thank you. © FLATFLoor Products ® 2020-2025
