Spilling the dirty details

Picture this: throw some dirt on the floor, coat in water with a nice smelling chemical and smear the dirty, lemon-scented water across the floor with a mop and leave it to dry. While you wait let’s get in to some dirty details. 

Large scrubber dryers are a useful machine in the cleaning industry's arsenal. They do the job better than any human with a broom or mop and bucket, reducing manual labour time and preventing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) amongst cleaning operatives. 

Robots have also worked their way in to the cleaning industry and are exterminating dirt, grease and bodily fluids that come across their high-tech, programmed paths but the question being asked by many cleaning companies now is, what about the details?

I’m sure you’re all familiar with quotes like “It’s the attention to detail that makes the difference between average and stunning.”

Think back a minute and a half to your lemon-scented floor.

One common denominator amongst cleaning companies is the awareness of the details. Details meaning skirting boards, grouting and little places you’re reminded of when someone says, “you missed a bit” – knowing full well you missed it because it probably meant having to get down on your hands and knees and scrub, no thank you, next. But, hygiene experts look for such details when inspecting buildings.

What's cooking?

A local chef working in a restaurant kitchen said: “They look everywhere…with torches.” ‘They’, meaning food hygiene inspectors. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) award ratings on a Food Hygiene Rating Scheme providing clear information about businesses’ hygiene standards, including a rating for ‘Cleanliness of Facilities’.

Commercial kitchens have serious problem areas as large scrubbers simply cannot get round small kitchens, leaving their detailed areas dirty.

The MotorScrubber team went to visit a restaurant kitchen to find solutions to common problems, which included cleaning around ovens and underneath countertops. Whilst claiming to clean twice a day with a broom and mop and bucket, once in the afternoon and again after the night shift, the kitchen staff admitted their floorcare regime could be improved. But the chef stated that sweeping and mopping is the easiest and quickest way of cleaning up spills in a cramped kitchen.

Even in the most visible places bacteria and dirt can be left to fester over time, especially in grouting. Tiled flooring can be particularly problematic in kitchens when fatty fluids and grease from cooking are spat on the floor. Using wet and dry mops are effective methods for cleaning on an everyday basis but over time, your floor is going to need a good scrub. Restoring the floor from years of neglect can be a challenge. The best way to get results is to mechanically scrub it at least once a week, preventing natural build-up.

It’s not just restaurants that are under pressure to keep their facilities under the standards of the FSA, other businesses including: pubs and cafes, food vans, hotels, supermarkets, schools, care homes and hospitals all have annual inspections by the local authority.

All these premises struggle to sufficiently clean corners of the room in their food preparation areas and other areas such as around toilets, under urinals, changing rooms, stairs, lifts and office blocks. Every building on this planet has these problems, so how can it be solved?

Solutions for small spaces

Floor cleaning equipment manufacturers have done a great job developing machines that clean the large surface area very efficiently, but from our experience and thousands of onsite demonstrations we hear a lot of this feedback from the end client: "We love our scrubbers but still have 15% of the floor we need to clean." 

With a huge demand for a durable, powerful, smaller machine, two years ago MotorScrubber started developing the world’s smallest scrubber dryer head. Now patent approved, it can be mounted onto any brand of floor scrubber, enabling the user to not only clean this remaining 15% of the floor efficiently but to dry it too.

After winning the ISSA Chicago Innovation Award in 2016, MotorScrubber officially launched their new scrubber dryer in 2019. Shortly after the product release it was nominated as a finalist for the Floorcare Innovation Award at the London Cleaning Show 2019 and is in the running for more prestigious awards this year.

(BOX-OUT here) 

It’s been approximately five minutes; lo and behold the lemon-scented floor is still not dry. It smells and looks nice but if you’re not scrubbing that floor with the right machine and complementary products you’ll be missing out on stunning details that are easier than you think to achieve.

www.motorscrubberclean.com