Keep the floor you already have. Use less water doing it.
The biggest saving is not replacing the floor. For carpet maintenance, low-moisture encapsulation is the default — and the numbers against steam are not close.
Encapsulation versus steam, on the same commercial program.
Nine times out of 10, commercial carpets can be maintained using low moisture encapsulation. Steam is a restoration tool, not everyday maintenance. How the method works lives on the carpet cleaning page.
From the same commercial program, low-moisture encapsulation uses:
- as much as 76% less water than steam
- as much as 81% less energy
- as much as 100% less waste water
- 96% of dirt removed
- dry 45–90 minutes vs 24+ hours
Other floors are not a carpet recipe. Hard floors, stone, Bolon, Comcork and Tretford have their own pages on floor cleaning.
Repair and maintain. Replace last.
A periodical program keeps flooring and furniture assets in service nationally. Flood, mould, slip testing and replacement can sit on the same account. When the floor does have to come out, that work is Premrest Flooring.
On vinyl installs, Premrest partners with ResiLoop, an initiative by the Australian Resilient Flooring Association (ARFA). Together we run a closed-loop system that recovers, recycles and reuses waste from vinyl installation projects to minimise landfill.
In Australia alone, over 9,000 tonnes of excess and offcuts never get walked on. Vinyl installation waste is being repurposed into construction products. Currently, all collected waste material is being recycled into a PVC garden edging product sold at Bunnings.
That is a product-stewardship partnership, not an accreditation.
