Mistakes to Avoid When Shopping for An Industrial Floor Cleaning Machine

You’re ready to invest in an industrial floor cleaning machine. Avoid these mistakes to make the best choice for your business.

When you’re looking for the right industrial floor cleaning machine for your business, it’s not a cookie-cutter approach. What’s right for one facility may not be right for yours.

An industrial floor cleaning machine – floor scrubber or sweeper – will make quick work of just about any commercial floor, large or small. Their efficiency is unmatched and the quality of clean – sanitized and streak-free –  there’s a wide range of models, not to mention power sources and operating modes, to choose from. It can be quite overwhelming to find the machine that’s perfect for you.

So whether yours is retail, hospital, gym, school, restaurant or any other kind of business, we want you to choose the floor cleaning machine that will be the best for your facility, your type of floor surface, and the operator of the equipment. So, we help to identify the common mistakes managers and owners make when they shop for their industrial floor cleaners – and help you avoid the same potentially costly errors!

1. Unable to find replacement parts

When we purchase a new cleaning machine, particularly new, it’s easy to assume it will continue to perform and last forever. And, the fact is, no matter how good an industrial floor scrubber or sweeper is, it’s going to need maintenance and repairs. That’s why it’s so important to know the availability of replacement parts for a given machine before you buy it. Ensure that any parts you might need are readily available when your equipment needs maintenance.

Knowing where and how to get any necessary replacement parts will help prevent wasting time, productivity, and money when maintenance is needed. There’s nothing worse than having a machine down and waiting for parts – losing time and money! Keep in mind that when you buy a new machine, the more easily you’ll be able to find replacement parts.

And, when it comes to parts, the most likely will be the squeegee blade set, valves, pads or brushes, and the battery charger. If you find it too difficult to find parts for a particular machine, you might just be wasting money.

2. Type of floor surface

It’s vital that you purchase an industrial floor sweeper or floor scrubber suited to the type of floor surface or surfaces in your facility. For example, if you have laminate floors, a machine for concrete floors will not be the choice for you. Assess all of your floor surfaces and know the materials from which they’re made.

There are different floor treatments for different floor materials. If you choose the wrong floor cleaning machine for your type of flooring, not only could you compromise the quality of your floors, but also the cleaning capacity of the machine. An easy way to identify the best floor cleaning practices for your type of flooring is to consult the flooring manufacturer for recommendations. They’ll let you know the best machine for their product.

3. Size and width of your industrial floor cleaning machine

When it comes to floor cleaning machines – sweepers and scrubbers – size absolutely matters! And bigger isn’t always better. Yes, larger machines can carry more water, reducing how many times the operator needs to dump and refill the tank. When you shop for a machine, before you get tempted by the biggest model, consider the size of your space(s), including hallways to ensure you choose a machine that fits all of the areas of your facilities.

In addition to hallways, measure the doorways and aisles a floor cleaning machine needs to access. Note any particularly tight spaces such as restrooms and kitchens in your evaluation. And, don’t forget, it isn’t just the width of the body of the machine, but the squeegees as they are the widest part of the unit.

Have you considered machine storage? Obviously, any industrial floor cleaning machine is going to take up more space than a mop and bucket. Be sure to allocate a safe, secure, and easily accessible location to store your machine.

If you don’t identify the various sizes of your spaces before purchasing, it could be an oversight that ends up being rather costly.

4. Floor cleaning machine budget

As with size, cost matters. We know that. But we also know that the cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best way to go. Cutting costs and purchasing a “cheap” machine might actually cost you more in a ton of maintenance down the line.

As you calculate your budget be sure to include necessary maintenance equipment and tools. Depending on your cleaning machine, you may need to replace tires, squeegee blades, brushes, hoses, and other parts. Get out ahead to become aware of potential future costs so that you can accurately calculate the lifetime cost to determine your machine budget.

An industrial floor cleaning machine is a great investment for many businesses. Compared to cleaning floors manually with a mop and bucket, a floor cleaning machine can condense 20 hours of work into about an hour. Consequently, an industrial floor cleaning machine will pay for itself pretty quickly. Particularly, when you take into account the cost of labour – accounting for up to 90% of all cleaning costs!

What IS the BEST machine for you?

Increase floor cleaning productivity and efficiency for your business while you save staff hours, labour, and energy. And the right machine is out there for you and your business — we know so!