Professor Sparklestein is the Maintex "Dean of Clean," here to answer all of your cleaning questions.
There are many kinds of floor pads. Different floor pads are designed for different flooring types and floor care tasks. Some of these include cleaning, deep scrubbing, stripping, burnishing, and polishing.
The wrong type of floor pad can actually ruin a floor, causing scrapes or scratches. Alternately, the wrong floor pad might clean inefficiently and wear out quickly, wasting time and money.If your employees are using the wrong tool for the job, it’s usually due to either a lack of training or not having the correct pads available.
Let's help them get things sorted out!
What do I need to know about floor pads?
Floor pads are distinguished by color. Light colored pads are for “lighter” tasks, such as daily scrubbing, polishing, or burnishing. Dark colored pads are for more intensive cleaning tasks, such as stripping and deep scrubbing.
Floor pads come in a variety of sizes and a few shapes. The standard shape is circular, but most pads also come in a rectangular size for orbital scrubbing machines.
It is important to use the right pad size and shape to avoid damage to the floor, to the equipment, or even worse, to the worker.
How do I choose the right floor pad?
When selecting a floor pad, here are some of the factors to consider:
- What task are you trying to complete?
- What type of flooring are you working on?
- Is the flooring finished or unfinished?
- What equipment is available?
- How much traffic is moving through the area?
If you are designing a floor care program for a particular building or customer, it is important to specify the pads that are needed for each flooring type. Providing a visual chart is a great way educate and remind employees how to properly perform tasks and reduce the risk of errors. Our Maintex team can assist in developing training tools for customer specific needs.
The Clean Up:
Whether employees are performing daily, interim, or restorative floor care work, floor pad selection is of the utmost importance. Educating employees to use the correct floor pad will increase productivity, reduce floor damage, and improve the floor's appearance, saving you time and money.
