Indoor and Outdoor Cleaning Solutions

Maintain Consistent Cleaning Inside and Out

Tennant’s new guide, The Dirt on Floor Care for Large Facilities, offers information on efficient, cost-effective maintenance.

The following text is Chapter 4 of the guide, “Indoor and Outdoor Cleaning Solutions: How to Maintain Consistent Cleanliness Inside and Out”

A first impression means everything. When it’s time to clean your facility both indoors and out, you can’t afford to rely on labor-intensive processes, outdated machinery, or an unreliable service provider.

You need equipment that’s designed to deliver the results you expect for your unique environment.

• Floor Type: Understanding how cleaning equipment responds to different flooring types inside and outside your facility is an important first step. Dust and grit can act as an abrasive on both hard and soft surfaces. Regular cleaning and maintenance can extend the life and look of your floors, so you can avoid spending your repair budget on unnecessary flooring replacement costs.
• Square Footage: Productivity levels can help you identify whether you’re using the right size equipment for your facility. Open, expansive spaces typically need larger machines, while aisles and small spaces require a different set of tools, like compact cleaning machines with a tight turning radius.
• Soil Type: The soil present in your facility will determine what type of equipment you should consider. For smooth surfaces that have minimal dust or debris, scrubbing applications will be appropriate. For harsher environments or outdoor facilities where the level of clean is less crucial, dry sweeping with a multi-stage filtration process is ideal. If you need to sweep before scrubbing, consider an integrated machine that does both. If dust is an issue, a dust filtration system can eliminate additional passes.

Sweeping vs. Scrubbing

Sweeping

• Advantages: Walk behind or riding sweepers are highly versatile and can clean small or large spaces quickly. You can find a sweeper for extremely fine dust, or for larger debris found in outdoor applications.
• Disadvantages: Sweeping is typically a dry-only application. Without the use of a cleaning solution, the floor will not reach a very high level of clean.

Scrubbing

• Advantages: Scrubbers are able to effectively pick up spilled or standing liquids and generate a high level of clean. Scrubbers range from small handheld models that can fit in tight spaces, to large ride-on scrubbers that maximize productivity.
• Disadvantages: Scrubbers have a difficult time picking up large debris. Failure to remove larger debris before scrubbing, or scrubbing at a very fast pace can result in streaks left from the squeegee.

Sweeper-scrubbers

• Advantages: Incorporate both the advantages of scrubbers and of sweepers – the Swiss army knife of the floor cleaning world.
• Disadvantages: Often will not fit in tight or small spaces due to the larger size needed to house both scrubbing and sweeping technologies.