Once the gritters are out, salt starts coming into every building on the bottom of people’s shoes. By the end of a wet week you can end up with white marks across reception, dull patches on vinyl and a gritty film that just won’t mop away. Left too long it can damage the floor itself, not just the look of it.
Why Salt Is Bad For Floors
Rock salt and the grit that comes with it do two kinds of damage. The grit is sharp, so every footstep grinds it into the surface and wears away the finish. The salt then dries into a white crust that soaks into porous floors like stone, concrete and wood, and it can break down floor polish on vinyl and safety flooring.
Carpets suffer too. Salt pulls in moisture, so carpet near the entrance stays damp and gets dirty quicker.
Stop It At The Door
The cheapest fix is to stop as much salt as you can before it gets inside. Good entrance matting, long enough for people to take a few steps on, catches a lot of it. Clean the matting often though. A mat that’s full of salt and water just passes it straight on to the floor behind it.
Take The Grit Up First
Before you put any water down, get the loose grit up with a sweeper or a vacuum. If you go straight in with a mop or a wet machine you’ll just drag the grit around and scratch the floor.
Then Deal With The Salt
Mopping on its own usually spreads salty water around and it dries back as a haze. What works better is a cleaning solution made for salt residue, put down and then picked straight back up. That’s where a scrubber drier really earns its keep. It scrubs the solution in and sucks the dirty water back up in one go, so the salt goes in the tank instead of drying back on the floor.
For smaller entrances a compact walk behind machine is plenty. Shopping centres, warehouses and car park lobbies with a lot of footfall usually get on better with a bigger machine that can cover the area in one pass.
Check with your chemical supplier which products are safe for your floor type, especially on natural stone.
Carpets And Matting
For carpet tiles near the entrance, a carpet extraction machine gets the salt out of the fibres rather than just off the top. Doing it every week or so through the worst of the winter stops it building up. You can find carpet cleaners in our steam, vacuum and carpet cleaner range.
Make It Part Of The Routine
Salt damage builds up slowly, so little and often is the way to go. A daily clean of the entrance area in bad weather does far more than one big clean at the end of winter. For more general tips have a look at our guide on keeping floors clean in autumn and winter.
If you only need a machine for the winter months, our hire and lease options mean you dont have to buy one outright.
Contact Us
Columbus UK, based in Darlington, County Durham, is your total solution for all types of indoor and outdoor cleaning equipment. We supply high-quality industrial cleaning machines to all industries and commercial businesses across mainland Britain.
Our friendly, dedicated team provides expert purchasing advice, professional installation, servicing, and repair support to ensure you have the correct machine for your application at an affordable and cost-effective price.
We cover all areas from Scotland and the North East of England through the West Midlands and down to London, with mobile service and repair support available nationwide.
📧 Email: info@columbusuk.co.uk
📞 Tel: 01325 371 439
🌐 Web: columbusuk.co.uk
