Houston janitorial services must be tailored to your facility’s needs, including the cleaning chemicals used in your building. There are many different cleaning chemicals used for different purposes, from removing stubborn grime to killing germs. There are pros and cons for each type of cleaning chemical available, so it’s important to know what your janitorial team is using in your building. One natural chemical that offers several cleaning and disinfection benefits is citric acid, which comes from citrus fruits, pineapples, and in byproducts from a strain of mold known as Aspergillus niger. In this article, we’ll discuss citric acid as a cleaning solution and why it may work well in your facility.
Ask About Cleaning Chemicals Used for Houston Janitorial Services
All building owners and facility managers should know what kinds of cleaning products are being used for Houston janitorial services in their facilities. This is important to ensure safety of your employees and customers. It’s also essential to know whether products used are effective for a particular use.
There are many cleaning solutions with potentially harmful active chemicals. For instance, bleach and ammonia are commonly used for cleaning and disinfecting, but can cause skin, eye, and respiratory irritation. In addition, they can also harm many of the surfaces in your office. Therefore, you should know what your janitorial crew is using to clean and disinfect your building.
Safer Cleaning Solution Alternatives for Houston Janitorial Services
With the pandemic, many people began using harsh, concentrated disinfectants in an effort to destroy the COVID-19 virus. However, this has also raised concerns about the safety of these chemicals. Many of the active ingredients in disinfectants can be harmful to your health and to your property. Because of these concerns, many facilities are now looking for Houston janitorial services that use alternative cleaning solutions with safer active ingredients. One potential option is citric acid.
Citric Acid is a Safe, Effective Cleaning Chemical
Citric acid has been used for centuries as a cleaning solution. Some even believe that the ancient Egyptians used citric acid for cleaning. Citric acid is a mild acid with a pH of between three and six. It can help with degreasing, removing germs, and killing many germs. This makes it a great option as a main ingredient for many types of cleaning solutions. It has many other names as well that you might notice on cleaning labels, including aciletten, citrate, and hydrocerol A.
Of course, it’s always critical to use cleaners according to their labels for safety. However, citric acid is generally considered safe and generally has fewer potential negative impacts on not only human health, but the environment. As such, many facilities now use citric acid based cleaners as part of their green cleaning programs. Here are some of the ways citric acid cleaners can help around your building:
Citric Acid can Help Clean and Degrease Many Surfaces for Houston Janitorial Services
Houston office cleaning services address practically every surface in your building. For many surfaces, that means having a safe, effective all-purpose cleaner handy. One benefit of citric acid cleaners is that they can clean and even decrease most surfaces throughout your commercial building. It actually enhances effectiveness for many surfactants, so a little bit of a surfactant plus citric acid as an active ingredient can go a long way in removing dirt and grime from your office.
Citric Acid Descales and Removes Rust
Another great benefit of citric acid for Houston janitorial services is that it can remove tough things like hard water stains, limescale, and rust. As you may know, these substances are notoriously hard to remove. Yet, they are also common among homes and offices, particularly where moisture is high, such as in restrooms. As a mild acid, citric acid can cut through these things to leave your building clean and sparkling as well as to reduce the damage caused by scale, mineral deposits, and rust.
Citric Acid can Kill Many Germs
Additionally, citric acid is effective at killing many types of germs. Citric acid can alter the pH of germs and kill or inactivate them. It can also break down proteins necessary for viruses to live. Therefore, citric acid may be useful as a disinfectant to help address germs in your workplace.
One recent study looked at how citric acid mixed with vinegar performs against several common microorganisms, like E. coli and MRSA. The researchers saw positive results for citric acid’s germ-killing abilities, particularly when mixed with vinegar. Therefore, citric acid cleaners may help keep your facility healthy and germ-free.
Where can You Use Citric Acid for Houston Janitorial Services?
As we mentioned, there are many ways to use citric acid for a Houston building cleaning program. There are many cleaning solutions available on the market that use citric acid and are designed for various janitorial purposes. Here are some areas that may benefit from a citric acid based cleaner in your building:
Using Citric Acid to Clean Restrooms
Citric acid is great for removing dirt, killing many common germs, and also removing limescale, hard water stains, and rust. These different properties make it an ideal active ingredient for many bathroom cleaners, including toilet bowl cleaner, bathroom floor cleaners, and other bathroom surface cleaners.
Citric Acid can Help Clean Hard Surfaces for Houston Office Cleaning Services
While citric acid isn’t a good option for delicate surfaces like stone or marble, it works great on most commercial-grade surfaces like desks, hard floors, tables, and chairs. It’s commonly used in all-purpose cleaners and disinfectants designed for these types of hard surfaces in a workplace setting.
Citric Acid for Carpet Cleaning
In some cases, we may recommend a cleaner with citric acid for Houston janitorial services for your carpets. Citric acid does really well at reversing browning or yellowing in carpets and for overall brightening. However, it’s important to note that it doesn’t work well for all materials and colors of carpets, so you should check with cleaning experts before ever using citric acid on your workplace carpet.
Use Citric Acid to Clean and Descale the Office Coffee Maker
Another great way to use citric acid for cleaning in the office is to use it to clean out the coffee maker. Citric acid is mild enough to run through the coffee maker to descale it. It’s also typically safe to ingest in small amounts. For instance, if you like sour candies like Sour Patch Kids, the sour salt coating the candy is actually mostly citric acid. To descale the coffee maker with citric acid, start by mixing about one tablespoon of citric acid powder with about a gallon of water for proper dilution. Then, pour it into the reservoir and let the coffee maker run a brewing cycle. Follow up by brewing just clean water to remove any citric acid residue and the coffee machine should work like new.
Trusted Houston Janitorial Services from Accredited Building Services
Get to quality cleaning and maintenance services for your business from our team at Accredited Building Services. We’ve been providing superior janitorial solutions throughout Houston and Beaumont since 1980. We are your trusted partner for making your workplace clean, sanitary, and professional, whether you run an office or an industrial plant. Get in touch today to get a free quote for your commercial cleaning needs!
