How to Solve Restroom Odors

How to Solve Restroom Odors

Restroom cleanliness not only has a direct impact upon business and workplace perception, but also performance. In fact, 95% of facility cleanliness complaints are restroom-related.

Dirty restrooms are easy to identify and hard to forget.  Un-flushed toilets, sticky floors and foul odors are clear indicators of dirty restrooms, which result in negative perceptions of businesses:

  • 69% of consumers say they wouldn’t visit a gas station with poor cleanliness
  • 79% said they would not visit a restaurant with poor bathroom cleanliness. As the old adage goes, “a dirty restroom means a dirty kitchen.”

There are many sources of odor in a restroom. For complete odor control, each one needs to be addressed. Using the combination of Fresh Products at the source will ensure that every inch of your restroom is fresh.

Urinals

Urinals are one of the filthiest fixtures in the restroom, as well as the spaces around it. The hard surface of a urinal causes major splash back, resulting in urine being scattered up to 5 feet of the impact zone. This causes stains in the grout around the urinal, user’s shoes are dirtied, and leaves a lingering odor from dried urine.

The Wave 3D urinal screen is specially designed to capture urine under its elevated frame and comes in a variety of pleasant fragrances to keep the facility smelling clean. The Wave 3D lasts for 30 days and contains bacteria that not only breaks down odors in the urinal, but also in the urinal drain.

Uric acid can cause discoloration in floor tile, resulting in costly repairs in the men’s restroom. To protect for floors around the urinal, urinal mats can be placed below the urinal. Fresh’s urinal mats use a diaper-like material with absorbent gels with double the absorbing power of standard urinal mats. Unlike typical mats, the Fresh urinal mat is slip resistant, so it won’t move around the restroom.

Stalls & Commodes

Like urinals, commodes are a major source of foul odors. While automatic toilets alleviate some pain points, they neglect odors that linger around it. Many restrooms use gel cups or unsanitary aerosol spray cans that blast clouds of air freshener and often leave a film of residue on everything.

The Eco Bowl Clip is a passive air freshener that has 20 times the fragrance load of typical toilet bowl clips. The Eco Bowl Clip easily attaches to the side of the toilet bowl and eliminates odors directly at the source. The Eco Bowl Clip’s flexible design allows it to be attached to most commodes, the stall partition, the fixture piping, or anywhere else it can wrap around. The Eco Bowl Clip is a great air freshening solution for high traffic restrooms and will keep the commode smelling fresh for 30 days.

Plus, it’s 100% recyclable.

Drains and floors can cause major odor problems in the restroom

Floors and drains

If a restroom has a tile flooring or some other porous surface, then it’s going to absorb moisture, resulting in long term damage and foul odors . Improper mopping techniques tend to move dirty water around the floor, causing urine and dirt to seep deeper into the flooring. This often leads to cleaning staff adding more and more cleaning product to their wash buckets, which results in floors becoming sticky with chemicals and uric acid. The fluid that doesn’t seep into the floors ends up going into the floor drains causing bacteria to build up in the drain trap. In addition, the use of strong cleaners to try and reduce the drain odor problems often damages the drain and causing harmful fumes to be released.

Bio Conqueror 105 is the perfect solution. While many cleaning chemicals are extremely toxic, Bio Conqueror 105 is made using surfactants and odor fighting bacteria. Adding Bio Conqueror 105 to mop water daily equips the restroom with a long-term odor fighter. Bio Conqueror 105 seeps deep into the tiles, encapsulating odor causing bacteria. Over time, the bacteria in Bio Conqueror 105 will build up in your grout and will protect your floors from odors! To treat drains, pour roughly 2oz of Bio Conqueror 105 directly into the floor drain to eliminate odors that have built up in the trap.

Trashcans also produce odors. In addition to paper towels, restroom users frequently throw items like food and drinks in the trashcan. Holes in the plastic liners allow moisture to seep into the can, allowing bacteria to grow in the base. This is where Citro-Fresh comes in. Sprinkling a little Citro-Fresh at the bottom of the can will eliminate odors that build up and also act as an insect repellent. Citro-Fresh contains natural citronella oil, leaving behind a pleasant citrus scent.

The Restroom Entrance

Air freshening at the entrance is essential. The movement of the door opening and closing creates significant air flow into and out of the restroom. Installing a whole room air freshener by the door moves fragrant air both into and out of the restroom for fresher experiences.

For restrooms roughly 100 sq. ft. or less, use Eco Air, a passive air freshener designed to last for 30 days. Requiring no batteries, the Eco Air releases natural fragrance oils into the air. Designed to fit in most popular dispenser, the Eco Air is a cost effective and safe alternative to gel air fresheners or metered aerosols.

For restrooms larger than 150sq. ft., use Easy Fresh air freshener or two. The Easy Fresh is an active air freshener that releases consistent amounts of fragrance over 30 days. When it’s time to change out the Easy Fresh cover, the unit gives you a visual and audible notice. When it’s time to replace the cover, simply switch out the battery and the cover at the same time!

By addressing these sources of odor with this combination of Fresh Products you can be very confident that you will be creating fresher restrooms and better experiences. If you have any additional questions regarding our products and solutions, reach out to our inside sales team at customerservice@freshproducts.com. If you want to keep in touch or learn about the latest news from Fresh Products, follow us on social media.