While the kids from Barfield Elementary School in Tennessee spent their summer swimming, playing ball or traveling, the custodial staff was hard at work preparing the school's floors for the upcoming school year. Like a lot of schools, Barfield Elementary School has primarily VCT floors with some ceramic tile and of course gym floors mixed in.

To prepare for the upcoming school season, Kim Spence, Lead Custodian at the elementary school, requested that the school purchase a Square Scrub Floor Preparation machine.

"I had been talking to Wayne Huggins at Todd Janitorial and he was just raving about them,” says Spence. “He was telling me how they save so much time and how thorough of a job they do. I came back and talked to Judy Goodwin, our principal at Barfield."

After gaining approval for the purchase from the principal, Spence called her supplier.

"We were able to get it that day,” she says. “Best decision I have ever made on a piece of equipment. We Love it.”

The primary reason for her decision: Safety.

"We used regular stripper and wax before we got it," says Spence. "You had to be so careful for safety's sake. Now that we have the Square Scrub, it saves us time so that allows us to be so much more thorough."

It's not just Spence that feels more safe using the Square Scrub equipment. She says that now that they are using the dry preparation method with the Square Scrub, "Everyone is willing to lend a hand to help because they are no longer afraid to fall and get hurt."

With chemical stripping, users run the risk of slipping and falling as they slide around trying to control a disobedient machine. Square Scrub's dry preparation process allows users to remove floor finish in a dry application. Operators are able to move in smooth, efficient lines while the machine removes the top few layers of finish. This is not only a much safer process, but it is more efficient and saves money.

Because the dry preparation process only removes the top few layers of finish, Spence saves money by having to re-apply less finish to the surface. She also saves the time it would take to re-apply those layers of finish.

Spence believes that utilizing the Dry Preparation process with a Square Scrub machine "...has made a very positive impact on everyone." She said that “it makes the job much more enjoyable and cuts the steps literally in half."

When asked what advice she could offer to someone considering a floor machine, Spence says, "I have been doing this for 17 years and this machine is amazing. I wish we would have had it long ago. No telling how many broken bones it could have prevented."