That venerable floor-care machine — the autoscrubber — has been around a long time. It was originally designed to be a combination wet pick-up vacuum, a floor machine and a solution tank. It has done its job pretty darn well since it was developed in the late 1920s; it has also come a long way since its early days.

No mechanical device is maintenance-free, but experts such as Fred Beecher, equipment manager for Olmsted-Kirk Equipment and Supply, Dallas, and Dan Harrison, service manager for ISG Champion Inc., Toronto, tell SM that today’s autoscrubbers have progressed to the point that they are head and shoulders above machines built as recently as the 1980s.

“Today’s autoscrubbers are very durable, reliable machines,” Harrison says. “But they must be properly maintained to perform optimally,” he cautions. “If you take good care of them, you’ll get many years of very satisfactory service from them.”

Autoscrubber manufacturers have also made strides in their machines’ versatility. In the past, autoscrubbers, were big, heavy — not to mention costly — machines. That’s no longer the case. Newcomers to the market include a wide selection of small, lightweight and inexpensive walk-behind autoscrubbers, ideal for restrooms, kitchens and other confined spaces.

Not only are these machines more productive, but more important, they actually remove soil with clean water, also an improvement over a mop and an instantly dirty bucket of water.

Feature-Filled Choices
Today’s autoscrubbers come in a variety of sizes with widths ranging from 17 inches to 32 inches or more. The 17-inch models, called mini-scrubbers, are almost as maneuverable as more nimble, rotary floor machines. In schools, for instance, they’re ideal for stripping classroom floors. In offices and hospitals, there are many areas that are too small for a big autoscrubber but just right for a miniscrubber.

Manufacturers tout the mid-sized machines’ versatility. These autoscrubbers come in several models, from pad-propelled battery-powered machines, featuring wheel-drive propulsion, to cord-electric models and the recently released propane-powered machines. Some feature tight turning radiuses and “lock-down” scrub heads that make them appropriate for 20,000 to 30,000 square-foot areas.

Other manufacturers have developed polishing systems, suitable for all types of heavier autoscrubbers. With these systems, users can transform dull and worn terrazzo or marble floor to a uniform, glossy appearance in just a few weeks. The system consists of polishing pads with a combination of brushes and diamond polishing segments. They are available in different grit sizes to cover a full polishing sequence from cleaning and initial grinding to final polishing and ongoing maintenance.

The standard-size pads are mounted on plastic rings available in different sizes, and fit any type of autoscrubber, but to get a full effect it has to be a machine with enough weight to apply sufficient pressure to the pads.

The Powers That Be
More than 90 percent of autoscrubbers on the market today are battery-powered, according to Harrison. Most others are cord-electric, and a few are propane-powered.

A battery-powered scrubber has the distinct advantage of being self-contained. There’s no cord to trip over, or that will drag dirt onto clean floors, and you don’t have to backtrack to remove the plug and take it to another electrical outlet. The larger, battery-operated machines can run from about two to six hours at a time.

Cord-powered autoscrubbers, on the other hand, usually cost and weigh less than their battery-powered counterparts. Weight can be an important consideration if a customer is transporting a machine a considerable distance. If elevators are handy, or transportation is not a problem, battery-powered machines are usually a good fit.

Maintenance Checklist
“As durable and reliable as these machines are, they must be properly maintained,” Harrison advises. “We recommend preventative maintenance and have a checklist that we make available to our customers.”

The checklist includes the following advice: Inspect all hoses for cracks, damage and leaks; check and clean the solution tank filter screen; inspect all wheels and casters for proper operation; lubricate all wheels and apply grease to all fittings; check and test brake system operation; inspect and adjust drive chains; lubricate all chains, pins and shafts at pivot points; check skirts, housings, latches and hinges; scrutinize the float shut-off operation; check all sealing lids and gaskets; inspect the squeegee, straighten or adjust it, and flip or change blades as needed; check the squeegee cable; look carefully at the solution valve operation; inspect the vacuum operation and resurface as needed; and deodorize the recovery tank if necessary.

James D. Galvin, facility maintenance consultant for E.A. Morse & Co., Middletown, N.Y., strongly suggests giving autoscrubbers a regular top-to-bottom checkup to make sure they are in good working condition, and then ordering replacement parts if necessary.

“Inspect the machine’s storage conditions, and be sure to inspect all of its safety components,” he suggests. “Make sure that it shuts itself off when backing up and hitting something. Check its traction drive system and inspect and adjust all the control systems. Be sure to inspect and clean all filters and hoses, too.”

Clean Bill Of Health
Battery upkeep is key to the maintenance of battery-powered autoscrubbers, says Harrison, as well as Dan Martin, vice president, Janitor Equipment Co., Springfield, Ohio. According to Harrison, that’s where the most attention should go, and that’s where the most common maintenance problems crop up. “You’ve got to make sure that distilled water is added as needed and that the battery is kept charged and the terminals kept clean and tight. That, ideally, should be done weekly. But some stretch it to once a month and that’s usually adequate.”

Cleaning the machine and flushing the unit after each use is most important, says Martin. “Ninety percent of service calls are due to neglecting to clean or flush, or because a floor wasn’t swept properly before using the machine. And keeping the solution in it an extended period of time may plug or clog solution lines,” he says.

Beecher believes that the biggest mistake autoscrubber users commonly make, besides not properly maintaining the battery, is neglecting to do a thorough, general cleaning after each use. “A lot of people stick a charger on it after they’ve done their job, put it in a corner and walk away from it,” he says of autoscrubbers. “As with all machinery, parts begin to wear out, but the dirty ones go faster.”

Another thing to avoid, according to Beecher, is using an autoscrubber as a stripping machine. A lot of people will put stripping solution down with a mop and bucket and will come back and scrub it with their autoscrubber, which will pick up the sludge. If they don’t go back and totally clean that machine — take the squeegee apart and pull the pad drivers or brushes off and clean all the stripper away from it — then the stripper builds up on and in the machine and that will cause serious problems.”

Problem Areas
Galvin considers school cafeteria floors, littered and stained with food, and floors tracked with salt and ice melters, to be among the most demanding chores for the typical autoscrubber. “We encourage our school-district customers to use entrance mats, the first defense against dirt. The second defense is the autoscrubber,” he says.

According to Beecher, scrubbing a very rough floor, such as an exposed aggregate floor or a urethane-coated concrete floor, speeds autoscrubber wear and tear. “That’s got to be hard on brushes or squeegees,” he explains. “And any time you’re working on a floor that’s broken up with sharp cracks, holes or rough surfaces, that makes it harder to maintain your autoscrubber.”

Harrison says scrubbing tile floors with a bumpy grout line can also be rough on a machine. Other facilities pose different cleaning hurdles as well.

“Other tough facilities that are a challenge for an autoscrubber are warehouses, garages and machine shops.” These facilities often have grease or metal filings covering the floors.

Like Beecher, Harrison advises against using an autoscrubber to strip floors. “They’re not recommended for that but people use them anyway. That probably puts the most demand on a machine. You’ve got to use a lot of pad pressure. And you have a lot of slippage on the drive wheels in certain stripping applications.”

Intended use aside, autoscrubbers maintain their must-have status as a formidable cleaning tool for many facility managers, but they require a bit of maintenance themselves. They may be built to last, but even these durable machines need a little help now and then.

The Lease-Or-Buy Dilemma

When it comes to leasing vs. buying autoscrubbers, Dan Harrison, service manager for ISG Champion Inc., Toronto, and James Galvin, E.A. Morse & Co. Middletown, N.Y., both say their companies don’t attempt to influence their customers’ decisions either way. They generally present the financial pros and cons to customers, then let them decide what to do. It has been their experience that many customers lean toward leasing.

“Most of our school district customers are budgeted for equipment expenditures,” says Galvin, “and sometimes it’s good for them to lease over a three-year period. That enables them to spend their money elsewhere.

“I also have contract cleaner customers that like to lease rather than buy because they can stretch out their expenditures while using the machines and getting paid by their customers,” he explains.

“Of course, owning the machine outright saves the customer money. They don’t have to pay the extra costs of leasing,” Galvin adds.

“Whether customers buy or lease, our company benefits,” says Harrison.

“For example, when a customer leases a $15,000 machine, they and the leasing company agree to the terms. We then bill the leasing company for the sales price and they pay us immediately. We deal with three leasing companies, which helps our customers choose the best leasing deal for them.”

Fred Beecher, equipment manager, Olmsted-Kirk, Equipment Supply, Dallas, believes that leasing is “another tool we can put in our bag.”

“If our customers don’t want to pay the interest that leasing requires, they’ll purchase the autoscrubber outright. But if they can’t afford to purchase it and they do lease, we don’t really lose a sale — the leasing company pays us within one or two days. We actually have a sale we wouldn’t have had normally.” — J.F.

Jordan Fox is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer.




POSTED ON: 10/1/2004