Northern Alberta is a unique and amazing place for a parkade maintenance company to operate.
An indoor parkade is very different from an outdoor parking lot. A typical single parking stall in Edmonton can generate up to 3 gallons of dirt per year. In Ft. McMurray that number can soar to as much as the equivalent of a 5 gallon bucket! This compares to temperate Vancouver or even heavily salted Toronto where some parkades may not accumulate much more than a single bucket or two for the entire structure over the course of an entire year.
The principle culprit is the traction sand we use on our roads that collects in the vehicle fenders as you drive around then melts in the warm parkade. These large grains of sand are quickly ground into a fine talcum-like powder under the tires of moving traffic within the parking structure.
The accumulated dust and dirt in the parked contribute to a number of known building envelope maintenance issues from premature carpet wear, plugged drains and elevator problems to membrane wear, spalled concrete and even burnt out light ballasts.
The dust you see on cars and pipes is generally a result of the 24/7 vehicle traffic stirring up this powder. Seems unlikely? Place a sheet of paper anywhere inconspicuous in your parkade during the winter months and come back and check it every other week and you’ll be surprised by the amount of dust you see accumulating with each inspection.
As such, we are often asked by customers about “wet sweeps” as a solution. When a parkade is cleaned, even if it is also scheduled to be washed, it must first be thoroughly swept clean and all possible dirt and debris removed prior to the introduction of water. This is due to the fact that you cannot effectively sweep “mud” and the resulting slurry will leave a visible smear on the surface and will infiltrate drains and plug up drainage pipes.
Dust and its intensity is more often associated with factors the property itself controls such as a functioning make up air unit, floor surface condition and cleaning frequency. Alberta Sweeprite prides itself on generating the least dust in the industry and also offers premium sweeping at no additional cost with our own designed atomized misting system that does not wet the floor but rather some of the fugitive dust.
BE WARY of companies where parkade cleaning is a sideline and that purport to spray water or prewet your floor for dust control. They don’t know what they’re doing and you’re paying extra for it with prematurely plugged drains and who knows what other problems.
When it comes to sweeping, Alberta Sweeprite uses only soft nylon brooms. It takes a little longer for us to clean because these brooms aren’t as abrasive as some of the alternatives so there is even a little more manual effort on our part but the result is a much cleaner parkade with absolutely no surface damage. This is because nylon brooms ensures the surface sealants, paints, urethane deck coatings and stall line stripings are not scratched or damaged in any way during the cleaning process.
BE WARY of competitors that use promex or poly/wire combination brushes which are favoured by many who clean parkades as a sideline simply because it takes a much longer time for their broom to wear out and they are far more concerned about that cost savings rather than the overall state of the customer’s property.