Floor Scrubber vs. Steam Cleaner: Which Is Better for Your Business?
In fast moving environments it’s common to be bombarded by countless options. Where do you source your products? How do you manage your team’s schedule? And when it comes to your facility how do you keep your floors clean and safe?
Two options that many people look at are steam cleaners and floor scrubbers, but how do you decide which one is a better fit for you?
What Type of Floors Do You Have?
Floor surface is a much bigger deal than many people realise when deciding between a commercial floor scrubber and a steam cleaner.
Steam cleaners are designed in a way that makes cleaning irregular surfaces easier. The high temperature steam can penetrate the porous surface of grout lines, textured tile, and uneven flooring in a way that flat scrubbing pads simply cannot match. If your facility has heavily textured flooring, this might be an option worth looking into.
Even though many standard walk-behind floor scrubbers can struggle with floor texture, there are many options for industrial floor scrubbers that are designed to circumvent this issue. Floor scrubbers like the Mopit floor scrubber use a cylindrical brush which pushes directly down into the texture resulting in a better clean for uneven surfaces.
This design offers the convenience of a compact floor scrubber while guaranteeing a more consistent clean. Learn more about leasing a Mopit here.
What Are Your Cleaning Goals?
The next question is how and when you plan to clean.
If you are planning to clean often throughout the day (picking up spills, spot cleaning high traffic areas) a floor scrubber is a better option. Compact scrubbers can be pulled out for quick messes in seconds leaving the floor dry and safe for customers and staff. This is critical for spaces like restaurants, convenience stores and retail shops.
Steam cleaners can be a good option for occasional deep cleaning. They sanitize without cleaning chemicals which can be an advantage in food service or healthcare settings, but their slow paced and wet process makes it impractical for daily, on-demand use across a full facility.
Final Thoughts
For most commercial businesses, the answer is a floor scrubber for daily use and potentially a steam cleaner as a supplemental deep-clean tool for specific surfaces or periodic sanitization. If your floors are mostly smooth and your priority is keeping up with high traffic day-to-day, a quality commercial floor scrubber will almost always be the better investment.
If texture is a concern, look for a scrubber with a cylindrical brush.