There are several ways that you can make the commercial bathroom experience pleasant and enjoyable, rather than routine and unimpressive. As a facility manager, you’ll want to curate a sophisticated space for your occupants when they need to visit the restroom. Most commercial bathrooms are uninspiring and cookie-cutter, without any design implementations to make occupants reflect on how nice or stylish the facilities are. Luckily, there are a few ways to make your commercial bathroom more enjoyable through different designs and materials.

Here are five tips to create a sophisticated commercial bathroom experience for your occupants to enjoy.

Maximizing the Space for Your Commercial Bathroom

Even if you have the space and measurements plotted for the bathroom in your facility, you can still utilize some commercial bathroom design to amplify the space, making it a little more open and cozy. No one likes going to a cramped bathroom, so making use of your space is important. Luckily, you don’t have to scrap your original plan to make use of the space.

Using mirrors can help make your commercial bathroom seem a bit larger and more comfortable. Using a lot of mirrors will help amplify the space and by a slight optical illusion, your bathroom will seem bigger. Not only do mirrors take up very little space, but occupants will have plenty of opportunities to check their appearance before continuing their day.

Use Softer Colors and Proper Lighting

Most commercial restrooms have an unnatural feel to them, mainly because of their lack of character and the harsh lights. You can combat this, and make a more comfortable experience for your occupants, by utilizing softer colors as opposed to the bright and bland white. To add to this experience of warming up the room, you should use softer lights rather than the factory-esque fluorescent lights. Not only is it less harsh on the eyes, but it will give the restroom a more inviting feel.

Aria Partitions in Sandcastle Color

Increase the Privacy

The key to occupants’ comfort in a public restroom is adequate privacy. This means utilizing materials to eliminate sightlines and design flaws. When it’s time to pick out the stalls, be sure to find ones that can help you decrease the exterior visuals. HDPE plastic partitions like Hiny Hider Partitions® and Eclipse Partitions® will help you reduce the sightlines, and they even have hidden hardware that will simply add to the aesthetics.

Preventing Mold from Ruining the Experience

Of the negative criticisms that occupants have of commercial bathrooms, smell ranks pretty high on the list. There’s nothing as off-putting as unpleasant smells emanating from your restrooms. In order to kill the odors where they stand, you’ll need to utilize materials to help counteract mold growth. Mold grows, and thrives, in humid and moist environments, which make your restroom the perfect breeding ground.

Mold tends to find its way into the core of common partition materials, which end up resulting in awful smells and a pricey replacement. But utilizing materials like HDPE plastic can help you prevent mold. HDPE is a solid plastic that can resist mold growth and can go a long distance in keeping your restroom smelling fresh and inviting.

Keeping the Restroom Clean

It’s no secret that your commercial restroom needs to be cleaned daily, but there are ways to ensure that it stays fresh for the occupants who will use it. You learned that HDPE plastic partitions and antibacterial bathroom hardware can help prevent mold growth, but it’s also beneficial to know that this material is also low-maintenance and easy to clean. Utilizing materials like this not only helps keep the facilities clean, but you won’t have to hold up the restroom flow by blocking it off during maintenance. The cleanup will be quick, easy, and efficient.

Want to learn more tips and tricks on how to make the commercial restroom experience more sophisticated and inviting? Check out our free eBook, Restroom Design for Commercial Facilities, from your friends at Scranton Products.

Lighting in School When creating the plans for one of your facilities, one of the main things you’ll be considering is the electricity that the building will require. This is important so you can determine the costs of electric bills and stay in line with regulations.

According to Facilitiesnet.com, “Upgrading lighting systems in institutional and commercial facilities to next-generation lighting technologies can deliver energy and maintenance cost savings of more than 50 percent while maintaining or improving lighting quality.”

It’s easy to underestimate the amount of money that will be spent keeping your facility lit, but it’s crucial to get to the bottom of the true cost. It’s also important to explore how to reduce these costs by understanding lighting control strategies, common equipment types suitable for new and existing buildings, and applicable energy code obligations.

What to Consider When Choosing Lighting Systems

When considering lighting systems, it’s important to make the best decision about which lighting control devices to incorporate. These devices allow you to make a decision about controlling the output. The input can be manual and a person can adjust it or they can be automatic, based on time, occupancy, light levels, or instructions. Utilizing this strategy and controlling the data can provide a light energy cost savings of up to 38%.

Learn more about these different controls to make a more informed decision.

Manual controls: Users can turn lights on or off or reduce the amount of lighting based on how much they need. Being able to adjust the amount of light increases customer satisfaction as well as energy savings. Manual controls are ideal for personal work spaces, private offices, and group work spaces.

Time-based controls: Time-based controls turn lights on and off at a certain time to save energy and maintenance costs. This works best in spaces that are occupied on a steady schedule, allowing the manager to adjust the controls accordingly.

Occupancy-sensing controls: These controls turn off or reduce the lighting based on the occupancy in the room. Occupancy-sensing controls are best used in spaces that people occupy periodically.

Tips for Lighting Maintenance

The lighting in your facility will also require regular maintenance. There are certain maintenance tips that can help to increase the life of your lighting fixtures, thus resulting in decreased costs.

Replacement lamps: When you’re swapping out old lamps with replacement ones, it’s imperative that you make sure that you’re using the correct ones. They may look the same but can perform differently. Always double check before going on appearance.

Clean fixtures regularly: Dust accumulates quickly on light fixtures, which can diminish their output. Make sure that you have them professionally cleaned at least once a year.

Check pre-set controls: Having set controls is beneficial and can drastically reduce the cost of energy bills, but it’s important to make sure that the controls are set properly. If they don’t match up to the original performance requirements, users may end up unhappy, which can cause them to get rid of the controls.

Keep these tips in mind when considering the lighting for your facility.

If you need high-quality materials for your facility, consider Scranton Products, which are created with HDPE plastic. Click here to find out where to buy Scranton Products.