Districts have one genuine installation window a year, a custodial team that will partly turn over before the next one, and a cafeteria that is inspected twice a school year. Those three facts shape the whole implementation. This is the sequence we use.
About claims on this page
EcoloxTech generators produce a hypochlorous acid solution on site. They are regulated by the EPA as devices, are not registered disinfectants, and we make no efficacy claims for them or for the solution they produce. The only EcoloxTech product with disinfection claims is HOCl-AS200 (EPA Reg. No. 101112-1), used according to its label. Research cited here describes published studies of hypochlorous acid and electrolysed water under their own test conditions; it is not a claim for any product.
1. Survey, in spring
Survey before the summer, so the install can happen in it.
- Buildings: square footage, restroom count, classroom count, cafeteria volume, athletics facilities, early-years rooms.
- Water: hardness and iron at each candidate site; feed treatment is sized per site, not per district.
- Space and services: a custodial area with water, drainage, power and access — usually next to an existing janitorial closet or in a maintenance space.
- Distribution: per-building units, central generation with a delivery round, or hybrid. Include the bus depot explicitly.
- Current practice: what is actually used and where, including wipes bought at school level, and the current high-touch completion rate.
- Constraints: health-office procedures, state childcare licensing for early-years rooms, green-cleaning statute, athletics equipment manufacturer requirements.
2. Task inventory by area
List every cleaning task by area — classroom, restroom, cafeteria dining, kitchen, gym, mats, locker room, early years, bus, health office, office — with surface, current product, method, frequency and owner. Then classify each: move to generated solution, keep on a specified or registered product, or fix with scheduling rather than chemistry. Mark the kitchen tasks separately, because they belong to the written food safety programme and carry their own record requirements.
3. Install over the summer
- Feed-water treatment, generator, filling station, containers and labelling, in the summer window.
- Commission: set output, measure free available chlorine and pH at the filling point and at the furthest point of use, record both as the baseline.
- For a central model, prove the distribution round: fill, deliver, and test strength on arrival at the receiving building before the year starts.
- Record commissioning readings, set points and sign-off where the next facilities director will find them.
4. Write short procedures
One page per area, short enough to be read by a custodian at the start of a shift. Each answers seven questions:
| Question | What goes in the procedure |
|---|---|
| What and where? | Surfaces, room type |
| When? | Daily, between sessions, at turnaround, weekly |
| Cleaned how? | Detergent and mechanical step first |
| Which solution? | Generated solution at the set point, or the specified product |
| Applied how? | Spray and wipe, cloth, mop, mat method |
| How long? | Contact time, and whether a rinse or air-dry follows |
| Verified how? | Strength check, visual, and where it is recorded |
Write the cafeteria procedures separately and name the product in the written food safety programme, with the strength record that the adopted Food Code’s test-kit requirement implies.
5. Write the illness escalation plan
Most districts do not have one, and it is cheap to produce. State, for each trigger, what changes: a vomiting incident, absence rising in one class, absence rising building-wide, health department involvement. Include who decides, what frequency changes, what gets communicated to staff and families, and who is watching absence data weekly. Then rehearse the vomiting-incident procedure once with the people who will actually run it.
6. Train for turnover
- What the solution is, and why it is never mixed with other chemicals.
- How to fill, test strength, and what to do when a reading is out of range.
- The sequence: clean first, apply at strength, keep wet for the contact time, allow to dry.
- Which areas have their own rules — kitchen, health office, early years, mats.
- Labelling bottles with contents and fill date.
- Handling salt or brine inputs, for whoever refills the system.
- Where the SDSs are; who to call when the generator faults.
Record training by name and date, and repeat it at the start of every school year and at every new hire, not annually in the abstract. Custodial turnover is the main reason district programmes decay, and this cadence is the counter to it.
7. The first school year
| Milestone | What to check |
|---|---|
| First month | Strength at every filling point and at the furthest use point; whether custodians are actually using it; where people are still reaching for wipes |
| First illness escalation | Whether the plan was followed; whether supply kept up; what the absence data showed |
| First cafeteria inspection | Product named in the food safety programme; test kit present; strength records complete |
| Mid-year | Consumption against forecast; high-touch completion rate against baseline; training gaps from mid-year hires |
| End of year | Full-year cost against the model; what to change for next year; summer deep-clean plan |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Usual cause | First action |
|---|---|---|
| Custodians still buying wipes | The filling point is inconvenient, or nobody explained the change | Move the filling point; retrain; keep a small wipe stock deliberately rather than by default |
| Strength lower at the point of use | Storage time, warm or bright storage, or old solution in bottles | Shorter fill cycle; opaque closed containers; label bottles with fill date and discard on a rule |
| Output drifting over months | Feed-water hardness scaling the cell | Check softener and filters; service per the manual |
| Cafeteria inspection query | Product not named in the written food safety programme, or no test kit | Update the programme; buy the kit; record the checks |
| Complaints about smell | Over-concentration, or another product being used on the same surfaces | Verify the set point; find out what else is in use in that room |
| Mats still not cleaned properly | Timetable, not chemistry | Build dwell time into the session schedule and assign the task to a named role |
| Programme decayed by second year | Training cadence | Retrain at the start of the year and at new hire; simplify the procedure |
The document set
- Task inventory by area, with the kitchen separated.
- One-page procedure per area, with set points and contact times.
- Written food safety programme naming the cafeteria sanitiser, with strength records.
- Illness escalation plan and vomiting-incident procedure, with incident records.
- Commissioning record and set-point change control.
- Training records by name and date, including new hires.
- Maintenance records for generator, softener and filters.
- SDSs and product documentation; approved product list.
Printable templates for several of these are in the free HOCl Compliance Pack.
Filling points, and why they decide everything
The most common reason a district programme underperforms is that the filling point is in the wrong place. If a custodian has to cross a building or climb a floor to refill, bottles get run down, solution gets stretched with water, and the high-touch round gets shortened. Every one of those is invisible in a report.
Plan filling points with the custodial team and a floor plan, not from a drawing: one near the main janitorial area, one at the cafeteria, one in the gym or athletics corridor, one in early years if the building has it, and one at the bus depot for districts that run transport. Keep the walk short, keep the stations tidy enough that people use them, and label every outlet with contents and set point.
Two practical rules. Bottles get labelled with contents and fill date, and a discard rule applies — solution decays with light, heat and time, and a bottle that has lived on a warm windowsill for a fortnight is not what the procedure assumes. And test at the point of use rather than at the generator, because that is the number the cleaning actually depends on.
For a central-generation district, the same logic applies to the delivery round. Confirm the cadence before the year starts, agree who signs for a delivery at each building, and test strength on arrival rather than assuming it travelled well. A round that slips from weekly to fortnightly in November, unnoticed, is the commonest way a central model quietly stops working.
Frequently asked questions
When should we install?
Summer, in almost every case. Survey in spring so the install fits the window and staff are trained before the first day.
Do we have to do the whole district at once?
No, and most should not. Pilot one building, measure, then roll out on a schedule that fits the budget cycle.
Who owns the programme?
Facilities or operations for the building, with food service owning the kitchen tasks and the health office owning its own procedures. Write the boundaries down.
How do we handle custodial turnover?
Train at the start of every school year and at every new hire, and keep procedures to one page. This is the main maintenance task.
Can you write the procedures for us?
The audit produces a written recommendation including draft procedures for the areas it covers; your team owns and approves the final documents.