How To Shop for Your Next Floor Buffer or Floor Scrubber

 

 These machines are used for cleaning and polishing Hard Surface Floors, including Tile, Concrete or Stone.

Whether you call them Floor Scrubbers, Floor Buffers, Autoscrubbers, Burnishers or Floor Polishers these high quality commercial machines make the work go faster and your floors really shine!

Things to consider before choosing your next floor buffer or floor scrubber:

 1. Style

2. Cleaning Path

3. Power Source

  So now let's take a closer look at each choice:

 1. Style - There are 3 basic styles of floor scrubbers and floor buffers:

A. Automatic Floor Scrubbers:

Self Contained Machines for cleaning and maintaining hard surface floors, including tile, concrete or stone. Automatic Floor Scrubbers dispense cleaning solution, scrubs, then vacuums away dirty water, leaving floors clean and dry in one pass! No need for mops and buckets!

 B. Standard Floor Buffers, Scrubbers:

Known as "swing machines", "rotary floor machines", or "motors on a stick", these machines have been around longer than Granpa, and still do a very good job in scrubbing, stripping or polishing. This was the original invention by Clarke for motorizing a floor buffer and floor scrubber. Today, the 1.5 HP, 175 rpm standard floor buffers and floor scrubbers can strip, scrub and polish tile floors, sand wood floors and even scrub carpet clean!

C. High Speed Floor Buffers, Burnishers:

Machines with rpm's from 1500 to 2000 for polishing and maintaining high gloss shine on hard surface floors, including tile, concrete or stone. Includes standard electric cord, batttery and propane buffers. These machines are designed just for polishing a clean, waxed floor. Not for scrubbing or stripping.

 2. Cleaning Path - How large an area you need to clean and aisles and doorway widths will impact the "Cleaning path" of machine you should buy.

Cleaning path or the "width" in inches that a machine cleans is the first size consideration. CleaningStuff.Net offers width sizes from 11 inches up to 44 inches. The most popular width in both floor scrubbers and floor buffers is 20 inches, without a doubt. Therefore more models are available to choose from in 20 inch cleaning path widths, and pricing is the most reasonable.

With automatic floor scrubbers, machines with onboard tanks for both the clean water and picked up dirty water, "tank size" is an additional consideration. The larger the tanks, the more square footage of floors can be cleaned before emtying the dirty water tank and refilling the clean water tank. The downside of very large tanks is the extra weight will drain battery power quicker, however.

CleaningStuff.Net offers "tank sizes" from one gallon up to 31 gallons, with the most often chosen around 11 to 15 gallons.

 3. Power Source - You can choose from Cord Electric powered floor scrubbers and floor buffers or Battery Powered or even Propane Powered models.

Each Power Source type has it's own advantages and disadvantages:

A. Cord Electric Powered floor scrubbers and floor buffers:

Advantages: Low initial purchase price, strong durable motors, durable machines with unlimited time usage. This was the original invention by Clarke for motorizing a floor buffer and floor scrubber. Today, the 1.5 HP, 175 rpm standard floor buffers and floor scrubbers can strip, scrub and polish tile floors, sand wood floors and even scrub carpet clean!

Disadvantages: The cord must be moved regularly, slowing productivity.

B. Battery Powered floor scrubbers and floor buffers:

Advantages: No cord in the way for fast, improved productivity.

Disadvantages: Higher initial purchase price, smaller motors, limited time usage before recharging is required.

C. Propane Powered floor buffers and floor scrubbers:

Advantages: No cord in the way for fast, improved productivity. Also, with the extra horse power of the propane engine comes addtional weight and size opportunities. More weight means increased friction for a better gloss shine. The large sizes offer imcreased productivity for large buildings. Weights average 250 to 300 pounds and sizes offered are 21, 24, 27 inches in width with 21 inch being the best seller by far.

Disadvantages: Higher initial purchase price, loud, and smelly. Difficult to get approval to use at the same time as customers or employees are working.

Be sure to call us with any questions you may have, we are here to help!

Cleaning Stuff customer service is available Monday throught Friday, 8am till 5pm ET at 1-866-497-2056!

 

Shop now at CleaningStuff.Net for your next floor scrubber or floor buffer!

Also find Floor Pads, Floor Scrubber Brushes, Sanding Screens, Floor Cleaning Chemicals and Waxes and other accessories.

Choose from several premium brands including: Viper, Clarke, Hawk, Aztec, Koblenz, Sanitaire, Mercury, NaceCare, Eagle, Pioneer-Eclipse, Onyx, 3M, Malish, Carlisle, ETC, Twister, and others. We carry all of the top brands at lower than "wholesale" prices.