The appearance of the restroom can have an important impact on how a customer or user perceives a facility. A clean and fresh restroom will leave the customer with a positive overall experience in the facility, but a dirty or odorous restroom may cause the customer to avoid the facility in the future.>/p>

Needless to say, restroom care is crucial in facility maintenance, and being up to date on restroom care trends can help ensure that your restroom is clean, fresh, and leaving your customers satisfied.

Here are a few trends in restroom care that are becoming more popular recently and that we can expect to see more of in the future.

Lower Maintenance Flooring

For years and years, the most common flooring choice in restrooms has been 4″ square glazed tile floors with grout. The problem with these floors is the grout: it is so porous it gets embedded with soils and odors and needs to be restored to eliminate these problems.

Many facilities are switching from this traditional tile design to 12″, 18″, and 24″ tiles, which can drastically reduce the grout lines in the restroom and cut down on grout maintenance.

High Quality Surfaces

Many facilities are getting rid of their traditional laminate countertops in favor of other materials, like stone and composite. Quartz is a popular choice, as it provides a less expensive alternative to granite with a similar look. Composite materials typically are made from acrylic resins with natural materials mixed in.

These newer countertops are nonporous, which helps them stay cleaner for longer. This reduces maintenance cost and offsets the higher material price.

Hands-Free

Most visitors try to avoid touching restroom surfaces with their hands, in an attempt to avoid germs. This has led facility managers to switch over to automated equipment, such as soap dispensers, faucets, towel dispensers, hand dryers, and toilets.

Using automated equipment has other benefits as well. Automated dispensers use less product, cutting the costs of wasted material, and also reduces waste in the restroom itself, making the maintenance crew’s job easier.

Touchless Technology

More and more facilities are using touchless cleaning devices in their restroom care programs. This eliminates the risk of cross-contamination and cuts down on labor.

Touchless cleaning machines work by spraying surfaces with various cleaners (shower cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, disinfectant) and then the surfaces can be squeegeed dry or air-dried.

Water Conservation

Waterless urinals are becoming more popular in recent years, as product changes have eliminated odor issues that had previously stemmed from the technology. It’s important when cleaning a waterless urinal to not use any harsh chemicals, as this will erode the sealant inside the urinal and cause odor issues.

Cleaning tools that conserve water are also becoming more widely used. Using microfiber cleaning cloths rather than the traditional mop-and-bucket method provides numerous benefits. Cross-contamination is reduced by eliminating the bucket full of water which becomes contaminated and then spreads soil and germs. Large mop buckets don’t have to be hauled around the facility to different restrooms. Less water is used in cleaning, reducing drying times, down times, and slip-and-fall accidents.

All of these trends are going to be more prevalent in the near future, all with the same end goal in mind: to create a positive experience for the user that will keep them coming back.

For more information on restroom care, check out our Restroom Care webpage.