A helpful guide to brushes and brooms for floor cleaning equipment.
Your floor sweeper/scrubber is equipped with either a cylindrical or a disk cleaning system with a vacuum system. This cleaning system and your cleaning chemical solution are what removes dirt from your floor. Disk (or rotary) systems can use either pads or brushes, cylindrical scrub systems are brush only, and sweepers use side brooms and cylindrical main brooms.
Using the right brush or broom is essential for good cleaning, and can affect the life of your equipment. Too soft a brush can mean poor cleaning results, which means multiple passes by the operator—a waste of time and resources. That unnecessary time spent double scrubbing equals higher costs.
On the other hand, an overly aggressive brush can mar the floor surface and still not clean it well. Then, if the damage is serious enough, you’ll have to refinish sooner than expected, meaning added costs in terms of people and supplies, all of which can disrupt productivity in your facility.
Here’s an overview of each brush type. Contact us for help selecting the best brushes and brooms for your specific application.
Disk Brushes
Nylon
The softest brush material that’s commonly used.
Polypropylene
A good all-purpose brush for medium soil.
Light grit
Bristles are impregnated with grit which acts like fine sandpaper. Heavy-duty scrubbing for ground-in dirt.
Heavy grit
Larger bristles, heavier grit. Much more aggressive. Used for stripping floors.
Cylindrical brushes
Cylindrical cleaning systems handle light dust and debris better than disk cleaning systems. The action of the two opposing cylindrical brushes lifts light particles off the floor surface and deposits them in the recovery tray.
Nylon
The softest brush material that’s commonly used.
Polypropylene
A good all-purpose brush for medium soil.
Light grit
Bristles are impregnated with grit which acts like fine sandpaper. Heavy-duty scrubbing for ground-in dirt.
Heavy grit
Larger diameter bristles, plus heavier grit, makes for a much more aggressive brush. Typically used for stripping floors.
Cylindrical Sweeping Brooms
With brooms, it’s the bristles that do the work. There are a wide range of bristle types to help you match the broom to the sweeping job. Cylinder brushes sweep at high rotating speed. Correct down pressure is essential to performance. Check your sweeper's operator manual for correct settings. Bristle tufts are positioned in carefully planned rows and patterns for efficient sweeping.
Full-Fill (24 single-row) brushes sweep aggressively while controlling dust.
Standard-Fill (8 double-row)
Patrol-Fill (5 triple-row) brushes have open space between rows to lift soils and larger trash. Rows are set in a helical or a herringbone pattern.
Proex™
Medium Aggressiveness. Long brush life. A blend of 3 different polypropylene filament sizes provides excellent all-purpose sweeping, indoors or out. Proex is preferred for high humidity sweeping because bristles will not soften when wet. Proex is not recommended for sweeping high temperature debris because the filamentm can soften or melt. In high temperature jobs, nylon is preferred.
Nylon
Medium aggressiveness. Longest brush life. Nylon is as aggressive as Proex but stronger with longer brush life. Choose nylon when sweeping rough surfaces or high temperature soils. When used in wet or high humidity areas, nylon can soften and lose some sweeping ability. In wet tasks, Proex is preferred.
Proex™ & Wire
High aggressiveness. Medium brush life.
The crinkled wire provides light cutting action while the Proex bristles lift and sweep the soils. Ideal for sweeping compacted dirt and dried mud.
Natural Fiber and Wire
Medium to high aggressiveness. Shorter brush life.
This combination is great for sweeping dry, dusty floors with compacted soils. Crinkled wire scrapes and lifts the hard soils while the natural fibers sweep. Natural fibers control dusts better than Proex, but have a shorter brush life. Natural fibers can also soften when wet, so they’re not recommended for use in wet or high humidity areas - use Proex and wire here.
Crinkle Wire
Most aggressive brush. Medium brush life. This bent-wire fill is designed to loosen the most compacted soils in areas requiring little or no dust control. Wire alone is a poor sweeper of dust. Store in a dry space. Spray bristles with lubricant to prevent corrosion and wire cracking.
Side Brooms
Some machines use a side broom to sweep close to walls and gutters and to increase the sweeping path with 2 or 3 rows of bristles in 6” to 10” lengths. Bristles are set in coated plywood or plastic blocks. Most machines use either a poly or nylon bristle. Some larger sweepers may also use a flat wire side broom for the heaviest sweeping of factory floors, paved roads, and parking lots.
Keep an eye on performance
The best way to know if you’re using the right brush is to look at cleaning performance. If there’s still dirt on the floor after the scrubber goes by, one possible cause could be that you’re using the wrong brush. Other causes to check are your whether your cleaning solution is right for the job and making sure you are using the proper dilution of concentrate chemicals.
Seeing scratching or gouging after a pass by the scrubber? Stop! Either the brush type is too aggressive for your floors, or the down pressure is set too far down. Please note that using more than the recommended pressure does not mean a better clean. It just wears out the brush and other parts of your sweeper or scrubber faster.
Encourage your operators to spot problems as they’re cleaning and report to you. If an issue comes up, please contact us. We’d love to help find a solution for you.
Get the brushes that meet your needs!
Identifying the best brush for a specific cleaning environment can be challenging. There are many different brush materials, each with different properties. Our floor cleaning experts are ready to help so contact us today! Call 833.633.0256 or use this online parts assistance form.
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