How to sweep floors on a construction site

How, when and why should you sweep floors on a construction site?

The building industry is one of the most challenging markets for anybody designing and making professional floor cleaning machines.

Sand, cement, mortar and plaster dust solidified into lumps, consumables, earth, nails, sawdust, metal chippings, pieces of electrical cable, pipe and so on left over from the installation of electrical and plumbing systems: the dirt and debris deposited on the ground on construction sites vary immensely in type, weight and quantity.  

Whether new-build sites or buildings undergoing restoration and modernisation, and whether a residential complex, warehouse, villa or apartment block, construction sites at every stage of completion provide a challenge for manufacturers of sweepers and floor cleaning machines in general. This is partly because construction companies have every reason to keep work sites clean: constant demand therefore drives the supply of increasingly professional and powerful cleaning machines.

Here are four good reasons for using industrial sweepers to clean building sites:

• First, having a cleaning machine on site contributes to health and safety. Construction site dirt, or more precisely “dirt from demolition and reconstruction” as defined by DPR 380/01 and subsequent modifications usually contains solid particles of mixed size generated by the mechanical action of breaking down materials (demolition, crushing, grinding, etc.). Such dirt potentially contains artificial mineral fibres, wood, silica and cement powders, bitumen, tar and products like glues and adhesives. If inhaled, it can cause a variety of pathologies, including serious diseases of the respiratory tract. Ensuring that personal protective equipment is worn correctly and that all spaces are kept clean at all times is therefore a matter of disease prevention and worker health.
• Having efficient cleaning tools at your disposal saves valuable time, which in turn means lower costs and the ability to keep work on schedule when cleaning has to be carried out between two successive phases. You can only tile a floor, for example, provided the screed beneath is completely free of debris, inert matter and dust.
• If construction work is to follow demolition, the collection and removal of all the dust generated is an even bigger and more urgent task.
• Finally, thorough cleaning at the end of construction makes the site more attractive to potential buyers and speeds up the putting into service of privately owned buildings destined for specific purposes (factories, offices, warehouses, etc.).

What features does a construction site sweeper need?

To perform cleaning in challenging environments like construction sites, you need a professional sweeper. It should ideally be a battery-powered, i.e. ‘zero emissions’ model since most of cleaning work has to be done indoors. A good sweeper makes cleaning fast and effective and helps to keep the site healthy and clean.

Efficient side brushes allow dirt to be removed even from corners, but a robust design and top-quality vacuum and filtration systems are the most important characteristics of any machine intended for use in these environments.

A powerful vacuum system ensures that even the finest dust is captured and not just brushed into the air and left to settle back onto the floor after the machine has passed, as happens with a traditional brush and pan.

But without efficient filtration, even the most powerful vacuum system is unable to deliver quality results. This is why many of the key differences between one make and model of sweeper and another lie in their filters. On construction sites as in any other industrial or domestic context, filters need to be of sufficient quality and size to capture all kinds of dust and dirt while still ensuring adequate air flow over time.
The particles removed by the brushes and the vacuum system, especially fine dust, must be deposited into the debris hopper and not released back into the environment. Good filters, like Eureka Multipocket filters, do just that: they trap all dirt without clogging.