Which machines can be used to clean industrial concrete floors?
One of the types of flooring for which Eureka receives the most requests for advice is industrial concrete.
Industrial concrete
- How do you clean a concrete floor?
- Can I clean concrete with a floor scrubber-dryer?
- Are industrial and quartz concrete the same thing?
Concrete is one of the most common materials for industrial flooring due to ease of installation, high resistance to stress, and versatility of use.
It is often used in manufacturing plants, warehouses, mechanical workshops, and many other spaces, both indoors and outdoors.
If mixed with quartz powder, a concrete floor can take on different colour shades, from red to blue to green... It can also be ground to different levels to achieve a glossy or porous effect that, in addition to providing different aesthetic experiences, affects its permeability to liquids and, consequently, the slipperiness of the floor.
Depending on the floor finish, some considerations for its proper maintenance may vary, but generally, every concrete floor can be cleaned without issues. You just need to know how to do it. Let's find out together how to clean a concrete floor with a professional cleaning machine.
The floor can be dry cleaned (to remove dust and coarse debris) using an industrial sweeper. For more thorough cleaning through washing action, it is recommended to use a professional scrubber-dryer, but in this case, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the amount of cleaning solution to use, based on how easily the floor can be dried.
When it comes to the type of brushes to be paired with sweepers and floor scrubbers, it is necessary to proceed with caution. Despite the hardness of materials like quartz concrete (which may lead to the belief that it’s difficult to scratch), it is important to consider that brushes (and pads, for floor scrubbers-dryers) which are too abrasive can leave permanent marks, especially on surfaces with special finishes, which are common in various indoor settings.
The advice of an expert, and the performance of preliminary cleaning tests on small portions of the floor, in areas hidden from view, is a recommendation to keep in mind. In particular, it will be necessary to evaluate the material and the number of revolutions per minute (RPM) of the brushes, as well as the texture of the bristles and the ground pressure exerted by the machine. All in relation to the type of dirt present on the floor and the frequency of cleaning, which, among other things, has a significant impact on the choice of the most suitable machine, between a sweeper and a floor scrubber.
These precautions are crucial to achieve safe and fast cleaning of the concrete floor. It is always advisable, therefore, to trust an expert to carry out an inspection and preliminary evaluation, and not to succumb to the temptation of cleaning independently or choosing non-professional cleaning, which could risk affecting the quality of your flooring permanently.
Professional sweepers are the only recommended machines for cleaning this type of flooring when it comes to outdoor spaces. In this context, concrete floors, composed of interlocking conglomerate blocks, or even more so, asphalt, are decidedly too rough and porous for regular use of a floor scrubber.
In exceptional cases, a floor scrubber-dryer remains an extremely useful tool here as well, if used for emergency situations in confined spaces, for example, to quickly clean the road surface from oily substances after an accident. The ease of use, speed of operation, and the effectiveness of scrubbing and suction make a professional floor scrubber an ideal choice in these cases. However, for the operation to be successful, it is essential to consult with a professional technician who can advise on the choice of the correct floor scrubber.