How to Keep Your Gym Clean
How to Keep Your Gym Clean
Cleaning an important, vital and necessary function of a gym, but it’s not the most glamorous side of owning a business. It has always been important, but since the covid pandemic it has become even more important.
WHY KEEPING YOUR GYM CLEAN IS IMPORTANT
Keeping your place of business sanitized is important to prevent the spread of harmful germs, and keep the dirt and grime off of equipment. Your members will inevitably touch and sweat on the equipment so regular cleaning and disinfection must be part of your regular upkeep.
Cleaning the equipment also keeps the equipment working correctly, and you see signs of equipment needing to be replaced before it breaks. Your members also sense when you have a clean and tidy place, making them feel good about coming into your space. Member retention is a key driver of maintaining your cleaning schedule.
We hired Birch Specialty Cleaning Company to provide some information about the types of cleaning services they perform around the gym and the cleaning products they use.
CLEANING A GYM BY MICHAL COFFIN, OWNER BIRCH SPECIALTY CLEANING COMPANY
To start things off, cleaning a gym is a unique proposition. There is a ton of equipment and surfaces to clean, as well as wet areas like bathrooms and showers. In a typical home, these areas only get used by the home owners, but in a gym they are used by potentially hundreds of even thousands of people. These are high traffic areas and they can get very dirty, very quickly.
Here are some thoughts on cleaning a gym, but they really overlap with other types of business.
GENERAL CLEANING AGENT
An essential ingredient of any cleaning is your base general cleaning agent. This is basically a solvent of some type that aids in removing and disinfecting while applying pressure. We avoid using harsh chemicals on expensive equipment, which can damage them over time.
DISINFECTING AGENT
The goal of a disinfectant is to kill germs and pathogens. The thing to remember about using these agents is that they need to be allowed to remain wet on the surfaces for a set amount of time to work correctly. The product you use will indicate the recommended amount of time. What this means is that using a minimum amount of agent and just lightly wiping (which will evaporate quickly) will not have the desired effect.
DUSTING
Remember that dusting and cleaning are not necessarily the same thing. You should probably dust first, which will often simply move the dust from one place to another (the floor usually). However, in most places simply removing the surface dust is the only cleaning needed.
VACUUMING AND FLOOR CLEANING
Want to save yourself a ton of time? Buy a commercial quality backpack vacuum cleaner. It will pay you back in time saved x1000. Be sure to vacuum
before you mop (duh!). The rule of thumb is start high with dusting, then clean the surfaces, then vacuum, then mop the floors last. The floors will need to be wet to allow the disinfectant to do its job. See above.
How to Clean Gym Equipment
Your facility might have different equipment than we list below, but you can likely infer what you might need to do. Each piece of equipment needs to be cleaned but some have some slight differences depending on the material or electronics involved.
FREE WEIGHTS: DUMBELLS, PLATES, and KETTLEBELLS
Sometimes hand held equipment gets chalk or other grime built up on it and you’ll need to use a medium strength bristle brush to clean it off. Spray your cleaning agent onto a cloth (microfiber works well) and wipe all the surfaces off. Do not spray the agent onto the equipment as it might pool up and rust.
CLEANING FOAM EQUIPMENT AND FLOOR MATS (YOGA)
In this case spraying directly onto the surfaces is usually a good idea. Use a cloth that will not damage the surface, such as a microfiber cloth. You can also check with the manufacturer to see if they have any recommendations. Quite often you will want to wipe in the same direction as the grain on the surface. Remember that mats need to be air dried.
CLEANING TREADMILLS AND OTHER MACHINERY WITH ELECTRONICS
The big thing to remember is that you cannot drip liquid into the mechanical or electrical areas of the machines. That can damage or destroy them. Make sure that you clean and disinfect all the surfaces that members touch. It’s not a bad idea to unplug them first.
Article by Birch Specialty Cleaning Company
