For our present and future customers who are thinking about how to clean their learning environments to protect against the Coronavirus, here are our easy to implement guidelines to cleaning your Natural Pod furniture.
Cleaning: To clean our products, dampen a soft cloth with warm and slightly soapy water to wipe the dirty surface. Avoid excess water. Immediately wipe dry afterwards and do not soak the wood in liquid. We recommend no harsh cleaning products on Natural Pod’s furniture and manipulatives as it may mar the integrity of our environmentally friendly finishes.
Sanitizing: If regulations stipulate that you must sanitize your Natural Pod furniture, we recommend using a gentle cleaner with a very low PH content. Ideally, a hydrogen peroxide solution that is mixed with water. Check the Supplier instructions for the cleaning agent you use. Always test a small area with the product before cleaning the entire piece. Never spray / soak the product directly. Instead, spray the sanitizing agent onto a soft damp cloth and wipe the required surfaces. Follow with a dry cloth to ensure minimal moisture is left behind.
We’ve also been asking existing customers for their feedback, particularly in early learning environments, where cleaning has always needed to be more thorough and frequent than for elementary and older years learning spaces.
Here is what Ileana Gavrila from Frog Hollow, a daycare and early learning centre in British Columbia who has been cleaning their Natural Pod furniture for seven years had to say:
How have you changed the way you clean your Natural Pod furniture since Covid-19?
“We have maintained our cleaning procedures for the tables and all our other lovely Natural Pod pieces. We first clean all surfaces with soapy water, then we wipe them all clean. After that we will spray all surfaces with a bleach mixture ( 5 ml bleach to 500 ml water), leave it to rest for a few minutes and then we wipe all surfaces dry. We have increased our cleaning from ‘when needed and snack time’ to ‘morning, snack, lunch, afternoon and closing time’. We clean more often but follow the same steps.”
How has this extra cleaning affected the furniture?
“I think all the tables are simply GREAT. All our furniture is holding up with the increased cleaning and increased bleaching. I see no effects to the furniture caused by cleaning. In a different childcare center, where we also had Natural Pod furniture, after 11 years of cleaning like this, the pieces still looked perfect – like it was day one of use. We really appreciate how wonderful all the pieces are.”
We’ve received the same feedback from other educators we’ve asked, so you can feel confident in our specific maintenance and care instructions for your Natural Pod furniture.
If you would like to talk directly with a member of our team about caring for your Natural Pod furniture, please contact us at 604.630.1619.