Falling in Love with a Scrubbing Floor Machine

“The most important feature of a sports floor is that it prevents injuries,” says Robin Traum of Traaflex Sporting Floors, Atlanta, GA.  “Whether they’re competitive high school athletes or elementary school children getting their first chance to play on a sporting floor, safety is of utmost concern.”

This is why many schools and universities are now switching from traditional wood gym floors to those made of textured rubber.  Rubber floors offer excellent traction, helping to reduce slip and falls during fast-paced sporting events.  These floors are also very durable and, for the most part, easy to clean.

However, these rubber floors eventually need to be machine scrubbed. “Grit and soil develop in the groves of the floor,” says Adam Schaffer, New England Regional Sales Manager for Tornado Industries, “and if not removed, the soil can become unsightly as well as moldy, causing bacteria to grow and odors to develop.”

Middleborough High School, Middleborough, MA., recently installed a textured rubber floor in its gymnasium.  And, in a relatively short time, the school’s custodial crew noticed the soiling Schaffer referred to.

To clean the floor, the custodians used a conventional rotary disk floor machine—the same machine they use to scrub other hard surface floors, such as the school’s vinyl tiles.   “But a conventional floor machine just cleans the top surface of the floor,” says Schaffer.  “It does not penetrate below the textured surface where the soiling takes place.”

Wise Decision?

The custodians and school officials became frustrated and came to believe installing rubber floors instead of wood gym floors was a mistake.  Looking for help, they contacted the contractor who installed the floors who, in turn, contacted Schaffer, looking for solutions to solve the problem and ease the school staff’s frustration.

“The first thing I had to do is convince them that selecting the rubber floor was a wise decision and that it could be adequately cleaned and maintained,” says Schaffer. “But, their rotary machine simply was not up to the job.” 

Instead, he introduced the school to Tornado Industries’ BR750—demonstrating its capabilities right on the school’s problem gym floor. 

The BR750, unlike a rotary machine, incorporates cylindrical brush technology, using cylindrical brushes instead of pads that can scrub deep inside the rubber floor’s groves and textured surface.  The machine also: has a 26-inch cleaning path; rotates at 1500 rpm, which is much faster than most conventional rotary machines; has 21-gallon solution and recovery tanks; features a 37-inch squeegee; and has long-life batteries and charger. 

“[Also,] it has six times the head pressure of a conventional floor machine,” says Schaffer. “This helps provide deep scrubbing, which is exactly what you need when cleaning a textured surface like that on a rubber floor.”

He also points out that the BR750 can be used on rubber as well as variety of hard surface floors, including vinyl tiles, quarry, and brick floors.  And the BR750 can be fitted with an assortment of cylindrical brushes and pads for all types of cleaning operations, such as daily cleaning, scrubbing, and floor polishing.

Hey, Give Me Back My Machine!

Realizing that maintaining the school’s rubber gym floors could be easily accomplished by switching to the BR750, school custodians and administrators were also impressed with how much floor area the machine can clean—as much as 26,000 square feet per hour.

“This really impressed them,” says Schaffer. “Cleaning time is extremely important because the custodians are allowed only one hour to scrub and clean the entire gym floor.”

Now all smiles, Schaffer realized he had saved the day.  In the end, the custodians and school administrators were happy with their decision to install rubber gym floors. They appreciated the fact that the floors are safer for the school’s students to play on and thrilled to discover the BR750 makes cleaning them so easy.

In fact, when Schaffer started packing up the machine to return it to the local distributor, the custodial crew and school administrators stopped him at the door.  “They would not let me take the machine out of the building,” says Schaffer. “Instead, they purchased it right there on the spot. I’ve never seen anyone fall in love with a floor scrubber machine before, but I guess the BR750 can do that to people.”