5 Options To Consider When Shopping for a Riding Floor Scrubber

July 13 2023

When you invest in a ride-on floor machine, both your cleaning personnel and your facility managers can benefit. A riding floor scrubber can lower your overall cleaning costs, improve work efficiency and increase cleaning quality at the same time. How can you choose the best riding scrubber for your business?

Things To Look For in a Riding Floor Scrubber

Many factors go into picking the right scrubber for your business.

Brand Quality

Saving money on your rider floor scrubber is good, but not if it means sacrificing quality. Choose brands that have a proven reputation for durability, high-quality materials, precise specs and excellent customer service. Well-known manufacturers include Tennant, Advance, Grainger, Clarke and Factory Cat.

Large Solution and Recovery Tanks

The larger your solution and recovery tanks, the longer you can operate your ride-on scrubber without stopping. Boosting your cleaning capabilities can increase your productivity, letting you empty and refill at the end of large sections instead of interrupting your work. To figure out the size of tanks you need, look at the floor machine’s rated square feet cleaned per hour.

Cylindrical Brushes or Disc Brushes

A riding floor scrubber with cylindrical brushes offers several benefits for warehouses and manufacturing facilities:

• High RPM for faster cleaning
• Easy grout cleaning
• Effective operation on rough surfaces
• No dust
• No need for pre-sweeping

On the other hand, disc brushes offer their own advantages:

• Significant versatility with pad drivers for every floor type
• Strong down pressure for deeper scrubbing
• Ability to handle stripping, everyday maintenance and polishing

This flexibility makes disc brushes an excellent fit for retail stores, airports, hospitals and other places where floor appearance is as important as cleaning speed.

5 Types of Riding Floor Scrubbers to Consider

Riding floor machines come in many models, sizes and configurations.

1. Stand-On Floor Scrubber

Technically, stand-on floor machines aren’t rider scrubbers, but they function almost identically: keeping your personnel comfortable while increasing cleaning speed. The advantage of stand-on models, in addition to their amazing handling, is that riders can climb on and off quickly. This type of scrubber is ideal for floors with many obstacles to move.

2. Micro Riders

If you thought that grocery store aisles were too narrow to use a riding floor scrubber, think again. Micro rider floor machines are relatively easy for employees to navigate through aisles, hallways and other tight spaces. They offer the cleaning capabilities of walk-behind scrubbers but the convenience and speed of ride-on models.

3. Commercial Ride-On Floor Machines

Commercial rider scrubbers are the largest category you can choose from. Sizes range from smaller floor machines to massive behemoths. Depending on which model you select, you can clean anywhere from 40,000 to over 110,000 square feet per hour. Cleaning widths range from 28 inches to 62 inches.

4. Sweeper-Scrubber Combination

What if your facility has a variety of floor types, such as bare concrete, commercial tile and epoxy? In this case, a ride-on sweeper scrubber can give you the best of both worlds. You get deep-scrubbing capabilities and fast sweeping for parking lots, unfinished concrete and rough floors.

5. Industrial Riding Floor Scrubbers

Industrial ride-on scrubbers tend to be large, but it’s not just the size that sets them apart. It’s the materials used. Instead of commercial-grade poly housings, many industrial scrubber parts are made of corrosion-resistant metal. That way, they can take extra punishment from impacts or debris.

Popular Riding Floor Scrubber Models

The range of rider floor scrubber models and sizes is too large to list in full, but here are a few popular models to highlight the differences:

Tennant T581 micro floor scrubber: This 20-inch ride-on floor machine is easy to use, quiet and incredibly maneuverable, making it perfect for hospitals, office buildings and retail stores.

Nilfisk SC6500 large-area scrubber: This large-scale commercial ride-on scrubber has 70-gallon recovery and solution tanks, delivering one-pass cleaning for airports, schools and factories.

Factory Cat XR industrial floor machine: This industrial superstar for factories offers major down pressure and brush speed for deep cleaning of grease, grime and ground-in dirt.

These high-quality options are just the tip of the iceberg.

Important Factors To Consider When Choosing a Riding Floor Scrubber

Picking the right floor scrubber also means thinking about the needs of your company.

Facility Flooring

Some facilities have finished concrete or epoxy, while others use travertine flooring or even carpet tiles. This factor influences the type of brush heads or pad drivers you’re looking for. With the right tools, virtually all rider scrubbers can deep-clean a variety of floors.

Space Layout and Obstacles

The next factor is the layout complexity of your floors. This affects both the optimal width of your rider floor scrubber and its total size. In a large factory or warehouse, you can invest in a larger scrubber to tackle cleaning more quickly.

On the other hand, hospitals have a lot of floor space to clean, but hallways and doorways are narrower. You need a machine with a large recovery tank but a smaller profile for maneuverability.

Maintenance Budget

Deciding the best way to use your maintenance budget is smart. Sometimes, buying a brand-new scrubber is the right choice, especially if this equipment is a key part of daily maintenance. Other times, you can get a steal on a used riding floor scrubber, saving money and improving productivity at the same time.

Warranty

Used rider floor scrubbers last a long time, but they can require repairs. If you don’t have a dedicated repair technician, a new floor machine with an extended warranty can save you time.

Personnel

Last but not least, consider the capabilities of your personnel. High-tech scrubbers offer many customizable settings, but some employees lack the know-how or finesse to use advanced controls. Some facility managers prefer the dependability of heavy-duty scrubbers that can take some punishment from personnel.

Excellent Prices on a Riding Floor Scrubber in Your Area

At ScrubberShop, we make it easy for you to compare new and used floor machines. Just give us a few details and we’ll help you find a riding floor scrubber that fits your facility, maintenance budget and goals. Contact us to get great prices and custom recommendations for local ride-on floor scrubbers right away.