ProTeam Vacuums

Simsbury Public Schools Go Green, Save Green with ProTeam

In 2009, the Connecticut State Legislature passed a bill requiring school districts to implement green cleaning programs using environmentally-friendly products by July 1, 2011. Steven Twitchell, Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds of Simsbury Public Schools in the state, responded by revamping his already forward-thinking green program, which includes ProTeam high-efficiency backpack vacuums for improved indoor air quality (IAQ).

ProTeam backpack vacuums, the Super CoachVac and Super QuarterVac, have given Twitchell’s team of 36 the mobility and flexibility they need to clean a mix of seven old, new and renovated school buildings in Simsbury, Conn.

The facilities, which make up a total of 632,866 square feet, take a beating in the harsh Connecticut winter.

“When we have terrible winters, we change the bags almost daily,” said Twitchell, largely referring to the dual-motor ProTeam upright vacuum, the ProForce 1500, that his team uses to remove sand tracked into the high-traffic lobby. “Before you know it, the filter bags fill up with sand.”

All three vacuums feature ProTeam’s Four Level Filtration that captures 99.9 percent of all indoor pollutants and irritants 1 micron or larger. The four filters sift particles down to the smallest dust mites or pollen, and prevent them from blowing back into the atmosphere. In a school environment, capturing and removing particulates is key to good IAQ, reducing risk to those with asthma or allergies.

“We are vacuuming with high-efficiency vacuum cleaners. The proof is looking at the exhaust and seeing what’s coming out. With the ProTeam vacuum there isn’t any dust or debris blowing back out,” said Twitchell.

Simsbury Public Schools used to budget 2,500 dollars per school for replacement vacuums. For seven schools they were spending 17,000 dollars per year to replace vacuums from two different high-end brands. After switching to ProTeam vacuums, the district’s annual replacement budget is down 14,000 dollars and annual repair costs are down 15,000 dollars.

Caltech Turns to ProTeam for Sustainability on Campus

Five years ago, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) decided to take on an extensive sustainability plan. Fully detailed on their website, the plan addresses everything from office supplies and campus food to the efficiency of the buildings themselves.

Caltech utilizes the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard for green building certification developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, which requires an assessment of custodial effectiveness, as well as the purchase of sustainable cleaning products and equipment.

In order to achieve higher indoor environmental quality, Caltech revolutionized the way it cleans its facilities, according to Delmy Emerson, Director of Buildings and Grounds.

Ironically, this push for sustainable cleaning solutions also came at a tough financial time. Emerson faced cleaning 80 buildings, 3.6 million square feet, with only 74 employees, and still needed to find money in the budget for new equipment, starting with new vacuums. “We had to look closely at a lot more work with less people.”

Prior to the new policy, Emerson’s employees were wrestling with two vacuums each, an upright for carpets and a canister for hard floors and blinds. “It was very cumbersome,” said Emerson. She needed to find an affordable vacuum that would raise indoor air quality but would also be less awkward for her staff.

After extensive research, Emerson tried the Super CoachVac HEPA.

“I really liked it,” Emerson said. “We talked to a lot of people who were using it, and they were satisfied.” Emerson decided to replace 20 percent of her vacuums with the ProTeam high-filtration backpacks every year.

“The backpacks are so flexible. They allow for high cleaning and low cleaning without having to change vacuums or go back later.” Since the vacuum switch, equipment maintenance and repair costs have been reduced, illness on campus has gone down, and vacuuming time has been cut in half.

Lightweight Backpack Vacuum Improves Productivity, Saves Money for Colorado Church

In a congregational structure that balances multi-purpose facility needs ranging from childcare to food preparation, cleanliness is of the utmost importance. That’s the critical reason why Life Fellowship Church in Westminster, Colo. decided to replace their cheap upright vacuums with a high-performance backpack vacuum, the ProTeam Super QuarterVac.

Life Fellowship Church is a center of community. Sunday morning services are flooded with 1,000 people, plus services, classes, and additional programs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Fellowship Café is open on Sunday mornings. And the church’s on-site school buzzes Monday through Friday with 300 students and 30 teachers.

However, Brian Andrews faces more challenges in his job than just high traffic, multi-use areas. He also coordinates a cleaning staff of over 70 people, which includes the 30 teachers at the school and five cleaning teams of eight people, led by team leaders.

“We used to buy the cheapest disposable vacuums at Walmart for 70 dollars,” said Andrews, who was introduced to the Super QuarterVac by his chemical distributor. “Right away, I could see a huge difference in how much the ProTeam vacuum picked up.”

The vacuum has a powerful motor housed in a lightweight durable frame. Four Level Filtration captures and contains 99.9 percent of particles 1 micron or larger. This benefit to indoor air quality goes a long way in a facility with childcare, where preventing the spread of germs and disease can be difficult.

In spite of the tangible benefits that the new vacuum offered, some of Andrews’ staff was resistive to change. “Some of the staff were concerned about discomfort from wearing the backpack, but after they tried it there was no concern. The Super QuarterVac is so small and lightweight, everyone really loves it.”

The Super QuarterVac has a six-quart capacity, but weighs only 10 pounds. Rather than causing discomfort, the backpack vacuum is ergonomically designed to distribute weight evenly on the powerful hip and leg muscles, and prevent the stress to the arm and shoulder caused by pushing an upright vacuum.

“Once our cleaning staff learned how to use the vacuum with a sweeping motion, they cleaned a lot faster. It is easier to clean large areas,” Andrews noted. “We have saved money in time spent cleaning and in bag replacements in just the first few months of using a ProTeam vacuum.”

 

Caltech Turns to ProTeam for Sustainability on Campus

Environmental concerns grow more severe with each passing year. In March 2011, the city of Pasadena, Calif. experienced a critical water shortage. For 10 days, the city’s water was down 40 percent from its usual flow. The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) issued notices advising students to take shorter showers, refrain from doing laundry, and limit water use in the lab.

Fortunately, Caltech’s employees, faculty and students are accustomed to making sacrifices for the environment. Four years ago, the school decided to take on an extensive sustainability plan. Fully detailed on their website, the plan addresses everything from office supplies and campus food to the efficiency of the buildings themselves.

Caltech utilizes the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard for green building certification developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. According to the council’s website, LEED strives to, “[improve] performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.”

In order to achieve higher indoor environmental quality, Caltech revolutionized the way it cleans its facilities, according to Delmy Emerson, Director of Buildings and Grounds. LEED requires the purchase of sustainable cleaning products and equipment as well as an assessment of custodial effectiveness.

Ironically, this push for sustainable cleaning solutions also came at a tough financial time. Emerson faced cleaning 80 buildings, 3.6 million square feet, with only 74 employees, and still needed to find money in the budget for new equipment, starting with new vacuums. “We had to look closely at a lot more work with less people.”

Prior to the new policy, Emerson’s employees were wrestling with two vacuums each, an upright for carpets and a canister for hard floors and blinds. “It was very cumbersome,” said Emerson. She needed to find an affordable vacuum that would raise indoor air quality but would also be less awkward for her staff.

After extensive research, Emerson contacted a local ProTeam representative to try the Super CoachVac HEPA.

“I really liked it,” Emerson said. “We talked to a lot of people who were using it, and they were satisfied.” In order to cope with the added cost, Emerson decided to replace 20 percent of her vacuums with the ProTeam high-filtration backpacks every year.

For Emerson, what began as an environmental initiative ended up a love affair.

“The backpacks are so flexible. They allow for high cleaning and low cleaning without having to change vacuums or go back later.” Since the vacuum switch, equipment maintenance and repair costs have been reduced, illness on campus has gone down, and vacuuming time has been cut in half.

 

Vassar Recruits High-Performance Cleaning Tools, Advisor

Vassar College, set in the scenic Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie N.Y. 75 miles north of New York City, was founded in 1861. Over 100 academic and residential buildings grace the campus, ranging in style from collegiate gothic to modernist, including two National Historic Landmarks. The most recent additions include the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film—with state-of-the-art screening rooms, studios and production facilities, and Kenyon Hall—with a dedicated dance theater.

As the manager of custodial services at Vassar, Cynthia VanTassell is faced with sizeable responsibilities in the comprehensive cleaning and maintenance of the college, seven days a week. Her crew of 68 custodians covers all day-to-day challenges, in addition to cleaning services for special event functions and lodging for summer programs.

Over the years, VanTassell sought out information and help in order to implement the science-based system known as Team Cleaning on her campus. She found salesman and factory reps capable and willing to offer an overview of the program, but she wanted in-depth analysis and training to truly transform the health, productivity and cleanliness at the college.

It was then that a trusted supplier to Vassar, Bill Bostwick of G.C. Bostwick Sales in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., introduced VanTassell to both ProTeam® backpack vacuums and the custodial training resource of Pro-C-Systems, led by Bob Cummings. Cummings draws on 25 years of extensive experience in the cleaning industry to offer custodial efficiency engineering and training services that allow organizations to put progressive high-performance cleaning practices in place.

“If you have know Cynthia for any time at all, it’s evident that she takes a great deal of pride in her job. She stays abreast of the latest cleaning methods and techniques. That’s very important to her,” said Cummings. “She was quick to see that using ProTeam backpack vacuums could improve quality and reduce cleaning times while eliminating costly dust mop purchases and upright vacuum repairs. Then, she quickly found me.”

VanTassell decided to engage Cummings to implement a pilot model building for a “Train the Trainer” program at Vassar to see if his system would work on her campus.

“In short order, it became evident that his approach was unique,” noted VanTassell. “He created a customized cleaning program using some of the great techniques that we already had in place on campus. But he also introduced us to improved vacuuming methods, dusting routines and an overall work flow plan. Bob trained our supervisors to be capable of training our custodians how to perform the required cleaning tasks correctly the first time in one pass, which reduced wasted motion and greatly improved quality.”

The maintenance crew at Vassar has a narrow window of opportunity before classes start early in the morning to finish the academic buildings. They then reroute to the dorms after students have departed. ProTeam backpack vacuums allow them to cover ground over three times as fast and 43 percent more effectively than with commercial uprights. With this dramatic productivity improvement, VanTassell can dedicate time and resources to detail work or pressing concerns. The new system at Vassar is proactive and solutions-based, as opposed to the complaint-driven status quo at many facilities.

“We are on the verge of rolling out our plan in all of the academic buildings. We are very excited about attacking the dorms next,” VanTassell commented. “The cleaning crew actually likes the new system because they know exactly what is expected of them and have a clear road map to follow that shows what, how, when and where they are expected to work. Implementing the system designed by Bob Cummings was a challenging goal for Vassar, and we definitely now see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.”

 

Backpack Vac Improves Health, Speed at Bee Clean

Stuart Bryan became the owner/operator of Bee Clean Janitorial Service six years ago, but his experience in the commercial cleaning world stems back to his twenties, when he first began working for janitorial firms. His company focuses on commercial office buildings, carpet cleaning, stripping and waxing floors, and construction cleanup. With over 12,000 square feet to cover in a typical weekday, and 24,000 square feet to clean on weekends, Stuart takes all the measures he can to make his sizeable daily workload go by faster and with better results.

Six months ago, Stuart found an innovation that made a big impact on his overall productivity, health and bottom line. After years of experimenting with commercial uprights, Stuart bought the ProTeam Super CoachVac, the workhouse backpack vacuum of the commercial cleaning industry with a durable body, powerful motor and advanced filtration system.

“I’ve owned nearly every commercial brand of upright vacuum in the market,” says Stuart. “Sure, they vacuumed OK, but I was continually replacing beater bars, axles and wheels. They could only vacuum for a short amount of time before the bags would fill up and they would lose power.”

Stuart also noticed a few detrimental side effects the commercial uprights had on his health. During vacuuming, his allergies would act up, and afterwards, he noticed a chronic fatigue in his shoulder and arm.

“As the beater bar wore away, the more effort it would take to push, and the more stressful it became on my body,” notes Stuart. “Also, when moving from one pile of carpet to another, or to hard floors, I would often need to bend down to make adjustments to the powerhead, a huge repetitive stress.”

The ProTeam backpack instantly shaved off a third of the time it took him to clean floors. Stuart can now clean the floors of a 7,000 square foot building in 35 minutes, instead of the hour or more the same job once took.

“The backpack has attracted so much attention from staff, people in offices and especially construction crews,” says Stuart. “They’re amazed at what it will pick up. Dirt clods. Construction wire. There’s no beater bar or motor before the filtration system. So there’s nothing to get caught. It sucks up anything and puts it in the bag without damaging the machine. I only need to remember to clean the filters.”

Stuart has also noticed a decrease in his allergies and dusting routines since using the ProTeam backpack. In fact, the green and health benefits of the vacuum’s Four Level® Filtration system were a major consideration in the purchasing decision.

“I used to smell the dust as I was cleaning. I would sneeze throughout the building,” notes Stuart. “Filtration has a lot to do with dust. I felt like my old uprights just spread around dust. I noticed the difference of the backpack right off the bat. I’ve definitely cut down on the need for constant dusting.”

Without even a whisper of a repair issue in six months, Stuart is certain the ProTeam will save him big in the long run.

“My only complaint is that I didn’t get one of these six years ago,” Stuart notes. “Imagine all the time, repairs and body strain I wasted? But I’m glad I have the ProTeam now.”

Backpack Vacuum Gets Fitness Center in Shape

Sonya Price and her husband own Anytime Fitness in Smithville, Missouri—a full-scale workout facility that spans 4,200 square feet. On an average day, 90 to 100 members utilize the gym. With steady daily traffic and dust-emitting exercise equipment of all shapes and sizes, cleanup is critical, but no easy task.

The fitness center was only three months old when the couple decided to look beyond the attachment-laden upright vacuum they had been using. Their sales rep offered an onsite demonstration of the ProTeam backpack vacuum.

“We didn’t realize how dirty our new carpet had gotten in the short amount of time since we opened,” says Sonya. “The amount of dirt and other debris in the filter after just a few minutes of use was unbelievable.”

They purchased a ProTeam Super QuarterVac HEPA for Anytime Fitness, with the knowledge that in a workout facility, a healthy environment is a must. Weighing only 10 pounds, the compact but powerful backpack features Four Level Filtration with HEPA media—a multi-stage, high-efficiency filtration process that extracts and eliminates 99.97 percent of dust, pollutants and allergens down to 0.3 microns in size.

“The filters collect the dirt and dust, not just move it around, and the suction power is awesome,” Sonya remarks. “The overall cleanliness is exceptional. It was hard to get around the equipment with the upright vacuum. Now, not only is it easier to move through the space, but all the attachments are right on the belt, so it’s easy to switch over to handheld detail work.”

Members have taken note of the backpack, calling it the “ghostbuster.”

“Our members love it, and several have asked us where we purchased,” Sonya comments. “I could be a walking billboard. I love the ease and efficiency of the ProTeam vacuum.”

She has become somewhat of a word of mouth marketer, recommending the vacuum to Anytime Fitness owners throughout their footprint. In fact, when a new Anytime Fitness opened up 20 minutes from their location, she made sure they knew all about the health benefits of the backpack.

Nevada School Maintenance Crew Implements Cleaning System to Stop Privatization

Over a decade ago, Rex Morrison, now the custodial field supervisor and training coordinator at Washoe Public Schools in Nevada, developed a cleaning system called Process Cleaning, essentially a Team Cleaning program adapted for a zone environment.

“The national average in K-12 cleaning is 21,000 square feet per man, but we were able to bring that up to 27,000 square feet. Our first year alone, we saved $240,000 with Process Cleaning,” says Morrison. “We don’t clean for appearance anymore, we clean for health. We can go to any school district and guarantee cleaner, more germ free student and staff spaces in less time.”

This summer, he focused on Douglas County School District in Carson, Nevada. The 11 schools desperately needed his help. Due to budget concerns, the school board was considering privatizing the district’s janitorial services.

Bill Blumenthal, the new custodial supervisor for the district, gave his custodians a crash course of the system, which relies on two main tools—ProTeam backpack vacuums and micro-fiber. Two schools are now completely converted over. Custodians there can now clean 30,000 square feet each, compared to only 13,000 to 20,000 square feet before the switch.

“We’re now a hot topic at district office meetings, this time in a good way,” says Blumenthal. “It’s because we have a system. That’s hard to privatize. A contract cleaner might come in with a better price, but we can come back with: do you disinfect the doorknobs, light switches and desktops every night? Do you clean for health? And do you track the results? No way.”

Asthmatic University Custodian Finds Cleaning Method Improves IAQ

Tina Enos, a custodian at University of Michigan (UM), has a personal take on the effect of poor indoor air quality (IAQ) in schools. An asthmatic, Enos regularly suffered attacks from the dust and allergens that became agitated and airborne during and after cleaning.

As a statistic, Enos is not alone. The American Lung Association has found that U.S. students miss more than 14 million school days a year because of asthma exacerbated by poor IAQ. Staff and instructors see increased sick days and lost productivity. The costs of poor IAQ can be hidden in absenteeism and reduced performance, but the effects are experienced every day in campuses across America.

“I am a severe asthmatic, and dust is the biggest factor that can trigger an asthma attack for me,” says Enos. “Personally, I believe that the standard beater bar vacuum was an ineffective tool and threw more dust into the air than it actually picked up.”

Recently, UM began the transition to a Team Cleaning program. When Enos heard about the new cleaning system, she jumped at the chance to be one of three janitorial volunteers to test it out. In place of her upright, she received a ProTeam Super CoachVac, a high-powered backpack vacuum with Four Level® Filtration, a dust capture process that traps up to 99.9 percent of particulates down to 1 micron in size—including dust mites, mold, bacteria and other allergens.

Since the switch, Enos reports, “asthma attacks from dust in the air have become almost nonexistent. And dust bunnies? They’re a thing of the past. Air quality, in my opinion, has improved.”

“With the lightness and increased mobility of the Super CoachVac, productivity has increased significantly,” says Enos. “Cleaning the stairs with a traditional vacuum was difficult, bulky and time consuming. With the Super CoachVac, the bulkiness is gone and maneuvering up and down the stairs is a breeze.”

“I believe the program will be very successful at the University,” says Enos. “I just wish I could have a ProTeam for my home. If given a choice, I will never go back to a push vacuum.”

Clean Art

Art with a Heart is a non-profit organization that provides art education and hands-on experiences to inspire at-risk students in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Many of the city’s youth face any number of learning barriers due to a lack resources and support. The goal of the organization is to positively affect these children emotionally, intellectually and creatively. 

Each week, Executive Director Carol Conrad and her staff teach art classes to between 70 and 100 students, ranging in age from 5 years to adults.  With such a busy schedule and high volume of students, cleaning is a must.  To keep up, they use a QuietPro CN canister vacuum from ProTeam.  

As a result of using the high-filtration and quiet ProTeam canister, overall cleanliness has improved, they have saved an estimated 25% less time to clean the studio than with the uprights, and they have not had to make a single repair to the vacuum.

“The students and parents of the students expect a clean studio. They don’t say anything when it is clean. They do comment, however, when they feel that the studio is not getting cleaned to their satisfaction,” Conrad explained. She added “since we have had the QuietPro, we haven’t had any complaints.”