Recommended plans: the traffic survey
About 80% of the soil in a building is walked in, and most of it lands in the first steps inside the door. The traffic survey uses that to rate each carpeted area and recommend how often to clean it.
Answer
- People coming in per day — staff, visitors, patrons.
- Days open per week.
- Walk-off matting inside the entrance (feet).
- Snow, rain or ice melt season (on by default).
- Food or drinks served or carried.
- Entrances — check the rooms people walk into first.
Tap Measure Steps on the Floor Plan to count steps from the nearest entrance (room center to room center, about 2½ ft a step) on arranged floor plans. Type steps for any room the plan can't reach.
Protector
Plans built from the survey put fiber protector on every hot-water extraction visit (deep cleans and extra deep cleans), when your rates have a protector add-on and it's turned on in Services Offered. Encap visits don't get it. Untick it on any visit you don't want it on.
The formula
Soil load = people per day × (days open ÷ 5) × 1.5 in a snow/rain season × 1.25 with food × the soil the matting doesn't catch × the zone.
| Matting catches | 5 ft ≈ 40% · 10 ft ≈ 65% · 15 ft or more ≈ 80% |
|---|---|
| Entry zone (20 steps or less) | × 1.0 |
| Main path (60 steps or less) | × 0.5 |
| Off the path | × 0.15 |
| Soil load | Traffic | Deep clean / yr | Interim (encap) / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 60 | Light | 1 | 0 |
| 60 – 250 | Moderate | 2 | 2 |
| 250 – 800 | Heavy | 4 | 12 |
| Over 800 | Extra heavy | 12 | 52 |
The visit counts follow carpet manufacturers' commercial maintenance guidelines. An area you marked heavy traffic or heavy soil while measuring is never rated lower than that.
Vacuuming
Vacuumed per week (janitorial or staff) changes the soil load: never vacuumed ×1.3, a good vacuuming every day it's open ×0.7, in between by how many open days get a good vacuuming. Then pick how good it is:
- Typical (the default) counts as half a good vacuuming — what customers report is usually a lighter job than you'd do.
- Quick pass counts as a quarter.
- Thorough counts in full.
So "we vacuum weekly" (typical) barely moves the load (×1.24), and even "every day" (typical) only brings it to ×1.0. Most soil is dry and comes out with a good vacuum before it grinds into the fibers, so this is also a talking point: better vacuuming means fewer cleanings. Leave the field blank if you don't know (no adjustment). The numbers are in Settings → Maintenance Guide → Conditions.
Small buildings: Whole building
In a small office, clinic or suite, everyone walks every area — a side office isn't really "off the path." Turn on Whole building at the top of the survey:
- Visitors per day and Staff working there (staff count extra; they're on the floors all day).
- The survey shows visitors a week, people a day per 1,000 sq ft of carpet, and one soil load and level for the building.
- Every carpeted area gets that level (you can still set an area by hand). Entrances and steps aren't needed.
The formula: (visitors + staff × 2) × (days open ÷ 5) × weather × food × soil not caught by matting × vacuuming × 1,000 ÷ carpet sq ft × 2. For example, 20 visitors and 4 staff, 5 days a week, on 650 sq ft of carpet with a snow season: about 37 people a day per 1,000 sq ft, soil load 129 — moderate (2 deep cleans a year with the standard guide). Both 2s can be changed in Settings → Maintenance Guide → Whole Building.
On the office web page
Open an estimate with measured carpet rooms → Service Plan → Traffic Survey. Same questions and the same math as the app (Whole building, staff, vacuuming, entrances, steps, zones, levels by hand), all on one screen — then Build Plan. Steps are typed rather than measured on the floor plan. The Maintenance Guide is in Settings → Maintenance Guide on the web too; changes show in both places.
Adjust
- Change any area's zone or steps, or tap its level to set it by hand.
- Build Plan creates: a deep clean of all carpet, extra deep cleans for busier rooms, and encap visits in heavy areas (if you offer encapsulation).
- Every visit stays editable afterward.
Your own numbers
Owners and admins can change every number above in Settings → Maintenance Guide: zone steps and shares, weather and food multipliers, where each traffic level starts, and visits a year. Reset to Standard brings back the defaults.