Cleaning Tip of the Month

by Mike Schaffer
President - Tornado Industries

Last month my cleaning tip focused on the advantages of cylindrical brush technology as compared to traditional disc brushes. I tried to explain how the “physics” of cylindrical brush technology give it a decided advantage over disc brushes. We looked at increased downward pressure (seven times greater), more scrubbing “hits” due to faster rotation (almost six times greater), and the fact that cylindrical brushes penetrate further down into grout and crevices than disc brushes ever could. All of these reasons, and many more, indicate that cylindrical brushes clean better than their disc counterparts.

But skeptics abound. They say, “OK, you’ve shown why cylindrical brush technology should clean better, but where is the proof? Are there tests that show it outperforming disc brushes?” O ye of little faith. Of course we have test results, and they do show that cylindrical brushes perform best.

In 2003, the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences (AICS) performed a test comparing the floor finish gloss factor of an area of flooring, half of it cleaned with a traditional disc scrubber and the other half cleaned with a cylindrical brush scrubber. The gloss level was measured using a BYK-Gardener micro-TRI-gloss meter that evaluated gloss at three different angles with an expanded gloss range of up to 2,000 gloss units. The flooring was commercial terrazzo with six coats of an acrylic polymer commercial floor finish used (25 percent solids, metal interlock formulation). The setting was a K–6 elementary school with 300 students located in the Midwestern section of the United States.

Beside daily mopping and burnishing of the floor, the floor was mechanically cleaned once per week, one section with a 20-inch disc scrubber and the other section with an 18-inch twin cylindrical brush machine. The disc machine used a red synthetic floor pad, while the cylindrical machine used the brush equivalent of the red pad. A neutral (pH 7) cleaner was always used.

After mechanical scrubbing, the test area was vacuumed with a backpack vacuum cleaner using a 20-inch hard-surface floor tool. A neutral floor cleaner was then applied with a mop and allowed to dry for 15 minutes. After drying, benchmark gloss measurements were documented.

For the test, each section of the floor was scrubbed with five cleaning passes. Gloss unit measurements were taken after each pass. The results are as follows:

You can see for yourself. The cylindrical brushes consistently improved upon the benchmark level, while the section with the disc brush constantly saw diminished marks. As stated by AICS, “These scientific findings demonstrate that the gloss units obtained by a twin cylindrical brush are five to nine degrees higher than those of a conventional floor cleaning pad.”

There you have it. Cylindrical brushes do indeed provide a better “clean” for hard floors. So the next time somebody says “prove it” when it comes to a comparison between cylindrical brushes and a disc, now you can…and with authority! And remember that Tornado has the best cylindrical brush scrubbers available!