Janitorial Supply Closet and Facility Maintenance Storage Essentials
Maintenance and utility closets play a pivotal role in ensuring operations run smoothly in a wide variety of industries. When organized correctly, these areas provide a clean, safe, and accessible workspace and make facility maintenance more efficient. Whether you call it a maintenance, supply, or janitor's closet, let's examine these spaces and what you need to get the most out of your facility maintenance resources.
Janitorial and Supply Closets
The primary role of a janitorial or supply closet is to store the equipment and supplies necessary to provide and maintain a hygienic and organized working environment. Essential to any workplace, a maintenance closet is typically stocked with a variety of cleaning tools and supplies including mops, buckets, vacuums, brooms, cleaning chemicals, paper products, and more. As such, it should be checked regularly to ensure supplies are plentiful, allowing maintenance staff to carry out their duties without any downtime. Having a clean and well-organized supply closet will help your staff find what they need and identify low inventories quickly and easily. Keep your utility closet well-stocked and organized to uphold high standards of cleanliness for employees, visitors, and clients.
Cleaning Supplies and Accessories
Depending on your industry, you will need a wide range of cleaning products and chemicals in your supply closets. This includes, but is not limited to, lubricants, detergents, disinfectants, degreasers, urinal cakes, and floor cleaners. You will also need an adequate supply of cleaning cloths, sponges, mop heads, buckets, scrubbing pads, shop towels, and scrapers.
Maintenance and Storage Spaces
Facility maintenance and storage areas are similar in function to janitorial/supply closets but on a much larger scale. These spaces are usually dedicated areas – think basements, alcoves, and considerable sectioned or fenced-off areas of a warehouse or facility – that often act as centralized repositories and sometimes even double as a workshop. In addition to storing all of the contents of a supply closet, these spaces can also include a wide range of maintenance, repair, and operations supplies, including:
- Floor care machines (sweepers, scrubbers)
- Hand and power tools
- Utility carts and hand trucks
- Maintenance equipment
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Replacement parts (filters, light bulbs)
- Heavy-duty shelving and cabinets
- Specialized storage for hazardous materials
- Office equipment and supplies
- Seasonal supplies (portable HVAC, outdoor furniture, snow shovels, etc.)
If you and your team keep these areas maintained and stocked regularly (creating a schedule makes life a lot easier), it leads to more efficient operations, improved productivity, enhanced safety, less waste, and faster repairs and maintenance across so many business sectors.
HOW INDUSTRIES RELY ON JANITORIAL CLOSETS & MAINTENANCE SPACES
Manufacturing, MRO & Warehousing
These facilities often have extensive areas that require regular cleaning and upkeep to maintain a safe, efficient, and hygienic work environment. Properly organized and equipped spaces ensure that cleaning supplies, tools, and equipment are readily available when needed, minimizing downtime and enhancing productivity. In large facilities, accurate wayfinding makes it easier to locate what you need quickly.
Healthcare
Hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities have strict standards of cleanliness and hygiene to prevent the spread of infections, maintaining a safe and sterile environment for patients and staff. Here, a well-equipped maintenance closet is essential, and often includes disinfectants and equipment to sanitize patient rooms, operating theaters, and common spaces.
Hospitality
Hotels, resorts, leisure centers, restaurants and must provide exceptional customer service for guests to ensure repeat visits and great reviews. A comprehensive supply of cleaning and maintenance equipment is essential for creating that all-importance first impression, and a satisfied stay whether it’s a few hours, or a few weeks. Housekeeping closets often serve as a utility closet for an entire floor, storing hospitality carts, linens, and guestroom amenities.
Education andGovernment
From small schools to large university campuses and administrative complexes, a robust maintenance infrastructure is essential to support daily operations. This ranges from compact janitor's closets in classroom buildings to expansive facilities serving entire campuses.
In classroom and office buildings, supply closets allow custodial staff to efficiently clean high-traffic areas like hallways, classrooms, libraries, and cafeterias. However, larger educational campuses and government complexes often need dedicated maintenance buildings or even entire wings of the facility. These spaces are centralized hubs for groundskeeping, facilities management, and major repairs. They may also include workshops for tradespeople, storage for heavy-duty equipment and vehicles, and inventory management for campus-wide supplies.
MAINTENANCE STORAGE SOLUTIONS
From an extensive variety of shelving options to bins, tool storage, and pallet racking, these items are usually the first ones you buy when outfitting your maintenance closet and storage spaces.
Please note
before purchasing anything we highly recommend taking accurate measurements of the areas you want to outfit, including square footage, height, weight restrictions, and anything else that could determine limitations to the storage items you can use. Focus on setting up efficient storage and organization systems to maximize smaller spaces, and prioritize products and equipment that are most frequently used in these areas.
Shelving (including Wire Shelving & Boltless Shelving)
A must-have for any utility closet or maintenance space, sturdy and versatile shelving units are designed to help you maximize storage space while staying efficiently organized. Available in various sizes and materials, including open steel, aluminum, laminates, and plastic, they can accommodate a wide variety of load capacities and applications for your specific storage needs.
A large subset of this category are metal wire shelving racks, which have become very popular due to their strength (e.g. heavy-duty wire shelving), excellent visibility, and superior airflow. From chrome and black epoxy to stainless steel and zinc plated, these wire storage racks are ideal for dry storage areas and supply/cleaning closets.
And if you need quick and easy assembly, combined with strength and durability, boltless shelving is just the ticket. They require no tools or hardware for installation and are designed to be set up quickly with minimal maintenance.
Wire Shelf Truck
Mobile wire shelving units with casters allow easy transportation of stored materials within any facility. These wheeled wonders are great for restocking, inventory management, and order picking.
Pallet Racks
Pallet racking is designed to provide heavy-duty storage and accessibility for large-scale or palletized goods, supplies, and equipment. Available in various sizes and designs, racks can accommodate many different pallet dimensions and weights.
Bulk Storage Racks
If you need to store and organize large quantities of bulk items, including boxes, crates, and drums, these robust racking systems are ideal for warehouses, distribution centers, and industrial facilities.
Cabinets
Let’s start with janitorial cabinets. These lockable units are designed specifically for storing and organizing janitorial supplies, cleaning equipment, and chemicals. Many are also equipped with ventilation and leak-proof shelves. If you want to securely store and organize smaller items, hardware, tools, and important documents, enclosed storage units have cabinet shelves and drawers, and come in an extensive variety of sizes, styles, and materials. And if you need added security, Safety storage cabinets are specially designed to store flammable, combustible, and hazardous materials. Some units are available with spill containment and may be constructed from fire-resistant materials. Cabinets also offer the added benefit of controlling access to certain supplies within a shared or common area.
Ventilated Cabinet Bins
Some items in storage need adequate air circulation, such as textiles, paper, and electronics. Bin storage cabinets with built-in ventilation can store these items without the worry of moisture, mold, and mildew.
Tool Storage
Durable storage solutions, such as tool chests, cabinets, or racks, are designed to securely store and organize hand tools, power tools, and related accessories.
Bins, Totes & Containers
From basements and backyards to sprawling commercial warehouses and storage facilities, humble bins, totes, containers, and a variety of other boxes are essential for staying organized. In fact you could call them the unsung heroes of organization, helping staff and facility managers to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and stay on top of stock and supplies. When coupled with custom shelving and/or louvered panels, they become efficient and easily accessible storage solutions.
OTHER SUPPLIES & EQUIPMENT
Shadow Boards
These pegboard-style storage systems come with handy outlines/shadows of tools. This makes organizing and identifying tolls very easy, and also gives you an instant visual indictor of any missing items.
Bottle Fillers
Not to be confused with bottle filling stations, these dispensing equipment is needed to accurately fill and distribute various liquids, such as cleaning solutions or chemicals, into smaller bottles or containers.
Floor Signs
Wet areas and hazards must be marked to avoid slipping and injuries. These highly visible signs or markers (sometimes reflective) are used for wet floors, hazards, and areas under maintenance or out of order.
PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)
Including general-purpose work gloves, disposable gloves, masks, hard hats, eye protection, vests, ear plugs, and more, your PPE supplies should be customized to your industry (e.g. healthcare vs constriction) and are essential for protecting your staff, and visitors.
Trash Liners
Made for an easy way to quickly change out a full trash can, these plastic bags line trash cans or containers, making it easy to dispose of trash and waste.
Personal Care
Finally, don’t forget those products and supplies for personal hygiene and grooming. That includes soaps (liquid and block), hand sanitizers, paper towels, and toilet tissue.
Global Industrial is a leader in MR¹ and industrial supplies, with over 75 years of experience serving multiple industries. At Global Industrial, we have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly, so get in touch with one of our experts and they'll be happy to help you find just what you're looking for.
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