Cleaning Equipment

Scrubber-dryers do the daily wash, rotary machines the wax:

buying one for the other’s job is the usual mistake. A scrubber-dryer lays down water and detergent, scrubs with a brush or pad and pulls the dirty water back through a rubber squeegee into a recovery tank, so people can walk on the floor straight away. Walk-behind models suit clinics, schools and shops. Ride-on machines from Tennant, Nilfisk or Kärcher earn their keep in supermarkets and warehouses, including on the black tyre marks that forklifts leave on concrete. A single-disc rotary machine on a long handle does what a scrubber cannot: strip old wax, lay new coats, get into stairs and corners. A high-speed burnisher only brings up the shine on a floor that has already been waxed and does nothing for bare tile. Wet-and-dry vacuums and pressure washers take the car parks and spills.

Disc or cylindrical brushes, battery or cable:

those two choices decide whether a scrubber suits your floor. Disc heads with pads work best on smooth concrete, vinyl and polished stone. Cylindrical brushes reach into the grout lines of ceramic tile and pick up grit as they scrub, which saves a pass with the broom. A cable machine costs less and never runs flat, but the lead trails behind it and keeps it to small areas near a socket. Battery machines can work through opening hours with no cable across the corridor, which is why malls and hospitals run them. Measure the narrowest doorway and the lift before choosing a width: a ride-on that will not fit in the lift only ever cleans the ground floor. Where ash from Fuego or Pacaya settles, in Escuintla, Antigua or the capital’s car parks, a scrubber is the wrong first tool, because wet ash turns into an abrasive paste that clogs the recovery hose and wears through squeegee blades. Sweep or vacuum it dry, then scrub.

The battery set on a second-hand scrubber:

often accounts for more of the asking price than the machine around it. A full set of deep-cycle batteries is one of the dearest parts to replace, so a used scrubber with tired cells should be priced as if you were buying that set the following week. Ask how old they are and whether they are wet lead-acid, sealed or lithium. On a wet set, open the caps and look for plates covered by water and clean terminals, not white crust. Then ask to see it run from a full charge: a machine that dies early needs batteries, whatever the listing says. The squeegee should leave dry floor with no tails of water at its ends; streaks mean worn blades, a cheap fix, while puddles point to the vacuum motor or a split hose. Lift the lid of the recovery tank: a sour smell and black sludge mean it was put away dirty. On a rotary machine, listen to the gearbox and check the cable along its full length. Pads, brushes and blades are consumables and sit under industrial parts.

Letting a buyer drive your scrubber across a wet floor:

settles most questions in a few minutes. In the listing, give the make, the cleaning width, battery or cable, the battery type and age, whether the charger goes with it and the hours on the display if it has one. Photograph both tanks open, the batteries with their date labels, the squeegee and the brush or pad driver. Spare pads and brushes are worth including, since a contractor in Chimaltenango kitting out a new site will want them. Wet batteries travel upright and capped. Charge it fully the night before, wet a stretch of floor and hand over the controls: one pass that leaves dry floor behind proves the vacuum, the blades and the batteries at once.