The best practice for server rooms, network rooms, and data centers is utilizing raised access floors to ventilate and carry cool air to your servers and other vital equipment. They’re an important part of keeping your equipment from overheating but raised access floors can easily get clogged with dust, dirt, and grime. Let’s cover the proper care and maintenance of raised access floors to keep your ventilation working as intended. And if you need to know how to clean and disinfect your sensitive electronic equipment, click here.
Cleaning and Care
In order to assure your raised floors are thoroughly cleaned, you should consider the recommendations below to best preserve your raised flooring and keep the ventilation clean of dust and debris.
- Dust or vacuum the floors of your server and data rooms daily.
- Dampen a mop with warm water and use mild ammoniated floor cleaner to sanitize the raised floorings. Do not use excessive amounts of water, or you may damage the adhesive of the lamination.
- Avoid using abrasive cleaning tools or strong solvents to remove stains, as you’ll damage the laminate of the flooring.
- At least once a year, hire a service for professional raised floor cleaning to inspect and provide maintenance for your raised flooring that you would not be able to accomplish on your own.
- Clean out the airflow and perforated panels at least twice a year.
- If your raised flooring has carpet, vacuum the carpeting with a static dissipating vacuum and clean the carpet using dry foams or powders.
Structural Maintenance
After sanitation, the next step in the care and maintenance of raised access floors is to inspect and address any structural compromises or damages. As with cleaning, have a professional maintenance service look at your raised flooring at least once a year. On your part, you should keep an eye on the paneling of your flooring and replace any panels that are damaged, worn, warped, or de-laminating.
Environmental Adjustments
This is the simplest aspect to maintain, as it simply involves adjusting the temperature and humidity of the room to avoid damaging your equipment. But, if you notice your server rooms getting hotter than usual, that may be an indication that your raised floor ventilation is clogged. The ideal temperature for these rooms is between 40 and 80 degrees, while the humidity levels should be between 40 and 70 percent.
For professional inspection and maintenance of your raised access floors, contact us and we’ll be happy to work with you to keep your facilities and equipment running at their very best.
Learn More: Key tips for server room cleaning.