Floor Scrubbing & Floor Work Services [Pros & Cons]

One of the sights that easily leaves a great first impression on your clients at the office or customers at a retail store is the floor. It should be clean and shiny to show the professionalism of your workplace and business.

But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you cannot get it clean. Wear and tear caused the floor to lose its original shine and brightness. In this case, you should hire floor work or floor scrubbing services to restore the floors to their original state.

In this article, we’re going to explain floor scrubbing in detail and talk about its advantages and disadvantages for commercial spaces.

What is Floor Scrubbing?

Floor scrubbing or floor work is a commercial cleaning service that, depending on the type, either restores the floors of offices, retail stores, shopping centres or any other establishment to their original condition or cleans the floor from 0 to 100 in one move.

The first type of floor scrubbing is also called floor polishing or floor restoration, which refers to what is included in a typical floor scrubbing session.

The second type of floor scrubbing is the general floor cleaning service done by all-in-one machinery. This includes soaking the floor, cleaning it and drying the floor in one go.

This cleaning service requires special machinery and skilled machine operators. Depending on the type of floor scrubbing, you might be able to have an in-house floor work specialist or hire them on a regular basis.

How to Choose Floor Scrubbers?

When it comes to floor scrubbers, there are five main types of machinery. Their difference, apart from physical appearance, is the size of the area and the type of floor you want to scrub and clean.

1. Walk-behind Scrubber

Walk-behind scrubbers are machines that the operator holds and walks behind while cleaning and scrubbing the floor. These types of scrubbers might require the operator to push them, or they might have an electric motor that helps them move forward while cleaning.

There are also a variety of walk-behind scrubbers for polishing and floor restoration. They have special brushes and scrubbers underneath them and use floor-scrubbing chemicals to restore the floor’s original look and shine.

They come in different sizes and capacities that make them ideal for small to medium areas like offices, schools and retail stores.

2. Ride-on Scrubber

Ride-on scrubbers are the type of floor scrubbers where the operator sits on it and controls their movement and direction using a steering wheel and pedals. These scrubbers have a large bristle brush, squeegee, vacuum cleaner and water-spraying nozzles underneath them to clean and scrub the floors as they move around.

Also, a variant of these scrubbers is available for polishing and restoring the floor. Similar to walk-behind scrubbers, they have a set of special brushes for floor restoration and polishing.

Ride-on scrubbers are the perfect choice for large areas like shopping centres, leisure centres, airports and similar establishments with large square footage.

3. Portable Scrubber

Portable scrubbers are small and handheld equipment used for thoroughly cleaning and scrubbing a small patch of area or wall. The scrubbing and cleaning process is manual, and the operator should spray cleaning solutions on the surface before scrubbing it with portable scrubbers.

Portable scrubbers may come as dedicated scrubbing equipment or as a set of bits (bristle brush, scrubbing discs and polishing pads). Therefore, they can be attached to angle grinders or other power tools.

4. Autonomous Scrubber

Autonomous scrubbers are the new additions to floor-scrubbing machinery. They are essentially high-tech industrial floor-cleaning robots that use area schematics and various types of sensors to move around to clean the floors.

Although they are new, they are already in use in many businesses around the world. However, autonomous floor-cleaning robots only clean floors and can’t be used for scrubbing and polishing. They are perfect for medium to large areas where there aren’t many obstacles and foot traffic.

5. Industrial Pressure Washer

Pressure washers are used to thoroughly clean outdoor and courtyard hard surfaces using high-pressure water. Due to the nature of their cleaning process, they are only used for outdoor areas, parking, large storage areas and similar places where water splash doesn’t cause any damage to the surroundings.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Floor Scrubbing

Floor work services and floor scrubbing come with some pros and cons. You should know about them before hiring the service. Here, we talked about the pros and cons of floor scrubbing in general. Therefore, it includes general floor cleaning as well as floor scrubbing and polishing.

Advantages of Floor Scrubbing

• Reduce cleaning costs and long-term floor maintenance costs.
• Can restore floor shine and colours when general cleaning doesn’t work.
• Floor scrubbing machines for floor cleaning minimise disruption in commercial spaces.
• Provide an effective level of cleaning at relatively low costs.
• Less physical effort and manual labour are required.
• Increases productivity for cleaning staff.
• It can effectively remove dirt and grime and polish the floor to its original condition.

Disadvantages of Floor Scrubbing

• Floor scrubbing machinery is expensive and not an ideal investment for businesses.
• Operating machinery requires maintenance.
• Operating floor scrubbers requires training and expertise.
• It may cause damage to delicate surfaces if used incorrectly or used too often.

Pros vs. Cons

Although there are some disadvantages, the benefits outweigh them. Therefore, it is an ideal service if you want to restore the floor’s shine and beauty, but not an ideal investment if you want to buy and operate it in-house. The solution is to hire floor work and floor scrubbing services every three to six months to maintain the floors.

Tips for Hiring Floor Scrubbing Service

We established that for services like floor scrubbing and floor restoration, it is ideal to hire commercial cleaning companies. Now, there are some tips you should know about hiring such services for your office, retail store or workplace.

When to Hire Floor Work Services

When the floors are no longer shiny and don’t reflect clearly, or when cleaning doesn’t have any effect in restoring the original look, it’s time to hire floor work services. There are other signs for hiring office cleaning and floor work services, but the main ones are the look and the condition of the floor.

What to do Before Floor Scrubbing

Since floor scrubbing and floor polishing are not effective in cleaning dirt and grime from the floors, you have to make sure the floors are clean before floor work technicians arrive. However, if you hire the right commercial cleaning company, they will do all the pre-scrubbing requirements themselves, and you don’t need to spend time preparing the floors.

How Often Hire Floor Work Services

There is a sweet spot for the frequency of floor scrubbing and floor work maintenance. Too much floor scrubbing can cause irreversible damage, and long gaps between each floor work session may not leave you with the result you want. The best frequency for floor restoration, floor scrubbing and polishing suggested by commercial cleaners is two or three times per year.

Conclusion

Floor work and floor scrubbing is a commercial cleaning service that clean floors and restores them to their original condition. Therefore, it is an ideal choice for improving first impressions for clients and customers when they enter the office or retail store. Floor work and floor scrubbing have two types, which are restoration and cleaning. Also, they have special equipment and machinery that was discussed in full in this article.

However, before hiring commercial floor work services, you should know the advantages and disadvantages. We discussed them in full in this article as well. We also discussed what to do before hiring floor work and floor scrubbing services, and how to prepare the floors before the cleaning staff arrives.

The information provided in this article can help you understand the importance of floor work services for your premises and assess the advantages and disadvantages of the service you are about to receive. Therefore, you can make a logical decision and hire the right floor cleaning company for your floor work requirements.