You have choices – Part III

This will be the last of this series -You have choices- and hope that you come away with a better understanding of the different equipment available. Most of these equipment manufacturers are happy to demo their equipment at your facility. All you have to do is ask.

So, in the last series, we stop at giving you choices of different sweeper and scrubber manufacturers to accommodate varying facility square foot sizes. As you have read, we discussed equipment for 10-25K, 25-50K and 50-100K square foot facilities. Today, we will continue going up the scale with 100-250K, 250-500K and finally 500K-1M square foot.

Again, one of the major decision in all of this is whether you need a sweeper, scrubber or a sweeper/scrubber combination. You must decide this first. For many companies it is a very simple decision. But for some, you could go either way. Let’s discuss just of few because I am going to discuss this subject at some point in the future.

Companies with very dusty environments such as cement factories, furniture manufacturing and steel or aluminum foundries are situations where a sweeper is the best cleaning machine. These are common sense decisions for these companies when you think about it. If you were to use a scrubber for example or a sweeper/scrubber for that matter at a cement factory, what do you think is going to happen? The cement dust is going to be scrubbed and vacuumed into the recovery tank. And, we all know what you get when you mix cement and water. So in my opinion a sweeper is the -no brainer- solution.

Besides these factors, there is the cost of maintaining the equipment. A company will spend five times the amount to maintain a rider scrubber versus a rider sweeper. If you are planning to spend $1K on parts per year to maintain a sweeper, figure $5K annually for a scrubber and more for a sweeper/scrubber. Why? It’s simple. There are more high fatality parts that need to be replaced on a scrubber than a sweeper. For a sweeper you need to regularly replace the 1) Main broom and side broom, and 2) Vacuum chamber and hopper skirts, the hopper filter and engine maintenance if gas/lp. However, for a scrubber you will need to regularly purchase and stock 1) Cleaning/scrubbing detergent and regularly purchase 2) Main brushes (there are usually two main brushes on a scrubber) and the side scrub brush, 3) Rear squeegees, 4) side squeegees, 5) scrub deck squeegees and 6) vacuum motor. When it comes to a sweeper/scrubber you then have the best of both worlds when it comes to buying parts. Some dealers refer to them as -money pits.- Don’t misunderstand me. Today’s sweeper/scrubbers do an extremely good job of sweeping and scrubbing. There are just a lot of high fatality parts that go into its makeup. So, be aware of these facts. Another item is the battery/electric versus gas/lp. The only battery/electric rider scrubber that stands out is the Tennant T17 Rider Scrubber. It has the ability to scrub for 7-8 hours on a single charge.

So, this is what I recommend:
Building size 100 -” 250K thousand square foot

• Tennant S30 LP sweeper
• Tennant T17 battery/electric rider scrubber
• PowerBoss Nautilus scrubber
• PowerBoss Commander T82 LP sweeper/scrubber

Building size 250 -” 500K thousand square foot

• Tennant 800 LP sweeper
• Tennant T17 battery/electric rider scrubber
• Nilfisk-Advance SC8000 rider scrubber
• Nilfisk-Advance CS7010 rider sweeper/scrubber(1st LPG/gas hybrid)
• PowerBoss Commander T90 LP sweeper/scrubber

Building size 500 -” 1,000M million square foot

• Tennant 800 LP sweeper
• Nilfisk-Advance SW8000 rider sweeper
• Tennant T17 battery/electric rider scrubber
• Nilfisk-Advance SC8000 rider scrubber
• Nilfisk-Advance CS7010 rider sweeper/scrubber(1st LPG/gas hybrid
• PowerBoss Commander T90 LP sweeper/scrubber

Thanks for reading and hope you do your -due diligence- on this equipment. However, if you need assistance or insight, e-mail me.

Creamer’s Corner is a monthly conversation with Hi-Gear’s Mike Creamer giving you advice, technical assistance, brand comparisons and on the job stories on repairing, maintaining or replacing your sweeper/scrubber. For your comments or questions, please e-mail Mike at networkeditorial@wcinet.com.