Cleaning Equipment

What a floor scrubber does that a rotary polisher cannot:

it lays down water and detergent, scrubs, and pulls the dirty water back up through a rubber squeegee in the same pass, so people can walk on the floor right behind it. A rotary polisher has a single disc and only scrubs, so someone follows with a mop or a wet vac. It is still the machine for stripping old wax. Scrubbers run from micro machines for a shop or a restaurant kitchen to walk-behinds sized for a supermarket and ride-ons from Tennant, Clarke, Kärcher and Nilfisk for a mall or a distribution centre. Where forklifts work all day, a sweeper picks up the grit and shrink-wrap first, or the scrubber’s hoses choke on it. Hot-water pressure washers take the oil drips out of a basement car park, which no floor machine will lift.

Porcelain tile, terrazzo and vinyl floors decide the machine:

most towers in Costa del Este and San Francisco are floored in large porcelain tiles, and a flat pad rides straight over the dirt in their grout lines; a brush deck or cylindrical brushes get into it. Older buildings and many public offices have terrazzo, which a scrubber keeps clean but only a rotary with diamond pads restores. Schools and clinics with vinyl tile need the rotary for stripping and rewaxing as much as a scrubber. Sealed concrete in a Panamá Pacífico warehouse is the easy case a big ride-on is built for. Then measure the building. A ride-on rarely fits in a condo tower’s service lift, and a walk-behind with a deck of about 50 cm is the widest that moves easily between floors and through ordinary doors. Corded machines cost less but trail a cable across the floor being cleaned, which is why battery models are the norm wherever the public walks.

The battery bank in a used scrubber:

it decides most of what the machine is worth. Walk-behinds and ride-ons run on deep-cycle batteries, often four 6-volt units, and a fresh set costs roughly $600 to $1,000 on its own. A new battery walk-behind from an established brand is a purchase of several thousand dollars, so that set is the gap that counts: a used machine on tired batteries is worth its price minus a set, and one with recent batteries and the receipt is worth paying more for. Look for white crust on the terminals. Let it run a good while: one that fades after twenty minutes needs batteries whatever the listing says, and the charger has to suit the battery type.

Where a second-hand scrubber streaks, leaks and smells:

do a pass on a wet floor. Stripes of water left behind mean worn squeegee blades, which are cheap, or a weak vacuum motor or split hose, which are not. A vacuum motor that whines high or smells hot is wearing through its carbon brushes. Open the recovery tank: a sour smell and slime mean it was put away full, and the float and hoses are probably clogged. On a rotary polisher, a grinding gearbox and a taped-up cord are the usual faults; on a pressure washer, drips at the pump head and pressure that pulses instead of holding. Price blades and brushes among industrial parts before you agree a figure.

A wet pass on video when you list a floor scrubber:

film it scrubbing a stretch of floor, then turn the camera to show the floor dry behind it, and the squeegee question is answered before anyone makes the trip. Give make, model and deck width, the battery voltage and type and when they went in, and whether the charger is included. Say what it cleaned, a supermarket floor in Chitré or a tiled lobby, because a machine that lived on smooth tile has had an easier time than one that scrubbed a warehouse. And say how it leaves: a walk-behind goes up a ramp into a pickup with two people, a ride-on needs a truck with a tail lift.