Your Step-by-Step Guide to Cleaning Your Office Whiteboard
An office whiteboard is a great tool and can provide a variety of benefits; everything from constructive planning to employee engagement. However, over time your whiteboard is going to start looking grey and dirty. No matter how often you wipe it down, it can be impossible to get rid of those lingering stains.Here’s our step-by-step guide to help you clean your whiteboard properly.
Step 1 – Check your eraser
Before you do anything, you need to check whether your eraser is actually clean. Using an eraser continuously for months could mean you’re wiping a dirty surface with a dirty surface, and this certainly isn’t going to help the situation.Either look at buying a new eraser or peel off one of the layers like you can do with this one.
Step 2 – Wipe the board
Once your eraser is actually clean, begin wiping the board slowly and methodically. This will ensure that all areas of the board are covered. When you come across a section that is particularly stained, use small circular motions to wipe the surface.If this hasn’t sufficiently cleaned all of it, then try using a damp cloth to give the board a wipe down. There’s no guarantee that this will work, but it can definitely help.
Alternatively, you could invest in some whiteboard wet wipes that use a specially-formulated whiteboard cleaning solution.
Step 3 – Use a cleaner
If there are still stains and marks on the board then it may be high time to buy a whiteboard cleaner. Spray the cleaner approximately 30cm away from the surface of the board. Only spray once and lightly cover the whole surface you are looking to clean.Use a cloth or your clean eraser to wipe the board down. If you come across stubborn stains, again, use circular motions.
Step 4 – Dry it correctly
Once you’ve given the board a thorough clean, it then needs to be dried. Do this with a clean cloth or some paper towels. Make sure the whole board is completely dry before using it. If it isn’t, this may damage your board pens and cause the ink to run.Is it permanent?
If you’ve gone through all these stages and you still have stains on the board, you may need to consider whether these marks have been made by a permanent marker instead of a standard whiteboard pen.
Whilst permanent marker isn’t impossible to get rid of – just take a look at our handy guide – it’s important to identify why and how this has happened.
In most scenarios, it’s likely that this was a simple mistake and whoever is responsible knew instantly. In some cases, employees aren’t aware that they’ve used a permanent marker and so it will be important to ensure everyone understands which pens should and shouldn’t be used on the board. This could easily be done in a round robin email, or putting a notice up on the office notice board. Alternatively, find the permanent markers that are being used and keep them separate to the whiteboard pens.
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