CM/Spotlight: Hard Floor Care some are finished, while others are not. If a finish is applied, the floor covering manufacturer or installer will often recom-mend the type of finish that will work best with the floor. A key concern for the BSC is that the fin-ish selected be durable and have a coeffi-cient of friction (COF) of 0.5 or higher, which ensures that the floor is designed to help prevent slip-and-fall accidents. Further peace of mind and confidence in the product will be had if the finish has been certified by the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI). NFSI certification verifies that the finish has been independently tested and proven to meet certain standards and criteria to help promote floor safety. and the machine most often used to clean these floors is an automatic scrubber — abbreviated and accepted by many simply as autoscrubber. Autoscrubbers “lay down” cleaning solu-tion, agitate or scrub it into the floor and then vacuum up the solution, moisture and soils. Because labor is the major expense in floor care — estimated at more than 70 percent of the total operational costs — the size of the machine is important. Too small a machine will be time-con-suming and require additional passes to clean walkways; too large a machine may not be able to clean certain floor areas, which often means these areas must be then cleaned manually — a much slower and costlier process. When selecting an autoscrubber, look for these features: ■ A battery-operated machine that elimi-nates cords and can offer up to four hours of operation on one charge ■ A self-propelled system that can go forward and backward ■ A multistage vacuum motor to more thoroughly vacuum up waste and slurry ■ Large recovery and solution tanks ■ Easy access to batteries and mechan-icals, although any major servicing should always be handled by a quali-fied repair professional. A good autoscrubber should be able to clean as much as 20,000 square feet per hour. Very often, BSCs bid on grocery and retail store accounts based on the square footage of the facility, similar to how carpet cleaning is charged. When this is the case, the more floor area the autoscrubber can clean, the faster the job can be completed. And, since time is literally money for BSCs, completing floor care tasks more quickly and effectively can make every account more lucrative. CM The Tool Of Choice For Night Owls Most of the actual maintenance of grocery and retail store floors occurs late at night, Product Information no. 202 on page 24 22 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • April 2013
CMM – Archives Apr 2013: 22
