In the midst of a pandemic, to sanitize railings in public places is more important than ever. While copper doorknobs may self sanitize, iron and steel have no such power. The question is, how do you properly clean your railings? Are there special rules to account for? How do you know if you’ll end up damaging your railings? Pro Weld has put together a short how-to for all of our business owner clients looking to protect themselves and their customers. Let’s check it out.
The Effect of Soap
The first thing to note about COVID-19 is that is can be killed with soap. Any soap. A common misconception is that you must use antibacterial soap to kill the coronavirus. This is completely false! COVID-19 is not a bacteria; it’s a virus! The two things are easy to categorize under the ‘germ’ category in your mind, but they’re very different and are effected by different things. Therefore, antibacterial soap is no better or worse than any other.
The way soap kills COVID-19 is by dissolving the lipids holding it together. Because a virus isn’t a living, breathing organism the same way you and I are, it works a bit differently. Suffice to say, soap deactivates it completely and washes it away.
Steel Railings
Now that we have some basics down for fighting a the coronavirus, let’s talk cleaning railings. Steel railings are some of the most common in public spaces. Fortunately, these are also some of the easiest to clean. Simply using soap and water is sufficient for sanitizing them.
Indoor
For indoor, steel railings, after closing time, use a bucket of hot, soapy water and a cloth. Wash down railings throughout the building. Follow the soapy washdown with a plain water washdown to remove soap.
Washing down the vertical railings is recommended for maximum safety. However, if your business or office doesn’t get much traffic, just washing down the top railing may be sufficient. However, if you ever have small children in the building, you’ll want to wash the vertical railings no matter how popular your business is. Small hands can quickly go from a vertical, support railing and then directly into the mouth, making even support railings dangerous.
If your business or office has moderate to heavy traffic, it is highly recommended that an employee use a spray bottle of alcohol along with a rag to wipe down railings during business hours. This will minimize spread and ensure that, during the many hours your business or office is open, nothing will transfer from your railings.
Outdoor
Outdoor steel railings are even easier. This is because you have the benefit of running water outdoors. After doing your soapy washdown, you can simply use a hose to spray soap off of the railings. If you don’t have a hose, using a bucket and slowly pouring water out as you move along the railing can still be much easier than manually wiping each surface a second time.
Sanitize Railings of Other Kinds
If you don’t have steel railings to protect from COVID-19 transfer, you’ll want to check out part 2. There, we’ll talk about how to sanitize railings of other materials. If you’d rather speak to a Pro Weld professional, give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.
