Cleaning the hackspace

We share the cleaning duties in the hackspace. If you see any small spills or dirty patches, please clean them up. This page explains how you can get involved.

Realistic expectations

The hackspace is heavily used, please plan time in your visit to clean up any mess you may generate and put stuff away. If you notice areas that are untidy it is greatly appreciated if you can help maintain the place by doing a little extra tidying. Many of us forget things from time, and on rare occasions fellow hackspacers are less considerate than might be regarded as appropriate. Unfortunately this is where you come in, thank you for helping.

If you notice someone lumping together bin bags and off-cuts for a trip to the bins, feel free to offer help as managing the doors and spilly piles of rubbish can be cumbersome, it is also an opportunity to engage with fellow hack-spacers.

"I hope that keeping things clean will increase respect for the space and encourage people to treat it well" -- 21:02, 10 May 2012 (EST)

Wood off-cuts

The space generates a huge amount of off-cuts, normally these go to the general waste, feel free to use creatively in your own projects. Some members have raided the wood off-cuts bin for burning at bonfire parties and the like, clearly done at your own risk, burning paint and glue found on waste wood and timber composites can generate volatile toxic fumes, also fire, so lets be careful out there.

How to take out the rubbish

Before throwing stuff away, please be aware of our Waste and Recycling Initiative.

The rubbish bins are located outside the ground floor entrance on Roden Street. To reach them, go through the back doors of the hackspace and follow the corridor along and around to the right, where you will reach this goods lift:

This is the lift. It's the most convenient way to get down to the rubbish bins.

Remember to take your RFID door access card.

Go to the ground floor, turn left out of the lift past the stairwell and out of the doors onto Roden street, WARNING prop the doors as they can close and lock you outside on the street. The bins are just outside.

If the lift is busy or unavailable, please use the stairwell near the lift.

Do not dump rubbish anywhere is the shared / public parts of the building. BizSpace are very strict about this, and charge £50 per 'offence'. Remember you are on CCTV in the public parts of the building!

The wheeled trolleys in the Hackspace workshop are useful to shift large amounts of rubbish (when the lift is available).

Mopping the floors

Tips for quick spot cleaning

There is a small (blue) domestic mop and bucket for cleaning small patches. This mop is usually stored in the kitchen. At the moment we don't have any "caution, wet floor" signs, but the large red mop bucket has a "caution" sign on the side, so it can be left out until the spot dries.

Tips for thorough mopping

1. Choose a time when few people are around, so the floors have time to dry.
2. Fold the tables where possible and stack chairs before you begin (this pays off later).
3. (Probably we should put up a "caution, cleaning in progress" sign on the door, but we haven't bothered so far.)
4. Use our water heater to boil the water (it is stored above the cupboards in the kitchen). Note: our kettle is small so you would have to wait for it to boil many times.
5. We have a big red bucket with castors and a blue wringer (see cleaning equipment).
6. We only have one floor cleaning product at the moment (the orange stuff under the kitchen sink) and we're nearly out (21:02, 10 May 2012 (EST)). It is recommended to avoid washing-up liquid, because this can make masses of bubbles and slippery residue that's hard to get off the floor again. TODO: look into appropriate floor cleaning products without bleach.
7. This is a recommended mopping technique to clean a large area quickly, and take up most of the water again so it dries quickly:
   • TODO: describe technique.
8. Important: Only empty the dirty water into the workshop sink, not the kitchen one (for hygiene).
9. Important: After you use the mop, squeeze out the water and leave the mop head loose so it can dry. If the mop is left wet it will rot and get smelly.

Cleaning equipment

We have a mop bucket with a Vileda wringer and an SYR InterChange mop handle (920045). These 16oz replacement mop heads should fit our handle:

• SYR No 16 PY Mop (991983)
• SYR No 16 Twine Socket Mop (991986)

Our mop and bucket. Please look after it, because these are not cheap like domestic ones.