Auto Scrubber vs Mop and Bucket: What are The Benefits of an Auto Scrubber?

March 3, 2022

Floorcare is the most time-consuming part of your commercial cleaning program.

During daily cleaning procedures, your cleaning team should be cleaning your floors at least once a day. This can be done with either a mop and bucket or using an automatic floor scrubber.

A mop and bucket are traditional cleaning equipment that is used to clean hard floors. Though using a mop and bucket is effective at cleaning floors, it may not be the most efficient way to clean your commercial hard floors in your facility.

An auto scrubber is an innovative piece of janitorial equipment that can be used in place of a mop and bucket to make the process of cleaning your floors quicker and easier.

In this article, we will review the differences between using a mop and bucket and an automatic floor scrubber to clean your commercial hard floors.

Auto Scrubber vs Mop and Bucket

When deciding whether using a mop and bucket or an automatic floor scrubber is better for your facility, there are some factors you should consider.

An auto scrubber is more expensive than a mop and bucket, but the return on investment is higher. Your cleaning team will be able to complete floor cleaning and maintenance in less time than if they use a mop and bucket.

A mop and bucket may be less expensive, but using a mop and bucket to clean your floors will require more time from your cleaning staff. This would mean that while you save money on your initial equipment costs, you will likely end up spending more on labor costs.

Switching from a mop and bucket to an automatic floor scrubber can lead to:

Increased Janitorial Staff Productivity
Enhanced Floor Cleanliness
Improved Building Safety
Better Ease of Use (Ergonomics)

1. Increased Janitorial Staff Productivity

Cleaning your floors can take up as much as 80% of your cleaning team’s time. That’s why it’s important to have the best equipment possible to make sure that your cleaning staff can make the most of their shift.

Using a mop and bucket to clean your facility’s floors takes significantly more time than it takes to clean your floors using an automatic floor scrubber.

According to the official ISSA 612 cleaning times and tasks, your cleaning staff can wet mop approximately 1,700 square feet per hour when using a 16-ounce mop head.

Using an auto scrubber can make your team’s floor cleaning procedures more efficient and allow your team to clean your facility’s floors in less time. In fact, according to the same ISSA Study, with a 20-inch walk-behind scrubber, your team could clean up to 16,000 square feet in an hour or 9x times as much when compared to a mop and bucket.

Shorter cleaning times mean that your janitorial team will be able to move on to other tasks that require attention. An auto scrubber will allow your team to do more and create a cleaner, healthier facility for your guests.

Not only will your staff enjoy shorter cleaning times, but they will also enjoy fewer reworks. Because the floor is cleaned correctly on the first pass, they will not have to return to clean the area a second time.

Everything you need to know about auto scrubbers including types, sizes, specs, & more!

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2. Enhanced Floor Cleanliness

Regardless of the type of facility you manage, clean floors are a priority. As you likely know, floors are the first thing people notice when they enter your facility. Dirty-looking floors can lead to a negative overall perception of your facility’s cleanliness, which can ultimately impact whether people return or not.

While a mop and bucket is the traditional floor cleaning method, it will likely not allow you to achieve the desired level of cleanliness.

The mop and bucket method is not precise. In order to clean, you must dip the mop in the cleaning solution when you move from area to area. When placing a dirty mop into the cleaning solution you can actually deposit dirt and bacteria from your floors back into the clean water and solution.

As a result of this, you can actually be spreading dirt and bacteria across your floors.

This creates an illusion of cleanliness when in reality your floors are full of germs and bacteria.

An auto scrubber, on the other hand, avoids this entirely. Auto scrubbers clean, scrub, and dry your floors in one pass.

Commercial floor scrubbers have a solution tank and a recovery tank. The solution tank stores the diluted cleaning product and the recovery tank stores dirty water.

When you run an auto scrubber over your floor, the slurry recovery system suctions up water that may have dirt, bacteria, and other germs in it. This water is then held in a recovery tank that doesn’t flow back onto the floor. At no point are these tanks interchanged or exposed to one another like with a mop and bucket.

Because of this, your floors are more sanitary when cleaned with an auto scrubber than with a mop and bucket.

Additionally, your floors will be cleaner when scrubbed with an automatic floor scrubber because dirt isn’t being redeposited onto the floors.

3. Improved Building Safety

Another factor to consider when choosing how to clean your commercial hard floors is the safety of the method you choose.

A mop and bucket will leave your floors wet and need additional time to fully dry. Wet floors pose slip and fall risks to your staff and the people in your building, especially if an area is opened before it’s allowed to fully dry.

That’s why when you’re using a mop and bucket to clean your floors, you will need to set aside additional time for the floors in an area to become safe for your guests to walk on.

You can avoid long drying times and the increased risk of slips and falls by using an automatic floor scrubber.

The recovery system of an auto scrubber is equipped with a squeegee and a vacuum that suctions up any water that is present on your floors. In just one pass, your floors will be left clean and dry.

After cleaning with an auto scrubber, you won’t need to worry about slips and falls for the people in your building. Your cleaning staff can also open areas in less time, reducing downtime and allowing your staff to complete thorough cleaning in other parts of the facility.

4. Better Ease of Use (Ergonomics)

The equipment your cleaning staff uses and how they operate that equipment can have an impact on your staff’s health and productivity.

When using a mop and bucket to clean your commercial hard floors, your cleaning staff has to use a lot of manual labor to clean your floors. Increased manual labor will lead to fatigue and reduced productivity overall.

There’s also the risk of injuries caused by using a mop because your staff has to lift mop buckets when they’re emptying them. Your team may also have to reclean the floors because of spills from the mop bucket.

You can avoid the strenuous labor associated with cleaning with a mop and bucket with an automatic floor scrubber.

Using an auto scrubber is easier on your cleaning staff. An auto scrubber doesn’t require lifting or repetitive, stressful labor that can result in injury.

Auto scrubbers have wheels, so most of the movement needed by your staff is just guiding the machine. There are also some automatic floor scrubbers that your janitorial staff can stand or ride on that can further reduce user fatigue.

Everything you need to know about auto scrubbers including types, sizes, specs, & more!

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Final Thoughts

Overall, your cleaning program will experience a boost in cleanliness, safety, ease of use, and productivity when switching from a mop to an auto scrubber.

While you can still clean your floors with a mop and bucket, the advantages of cleaning with an auto scrubber will increase guest satisfaction and create a cleaner environment.

Imperial Dade locations have a wide range of automatic floor scrubbers that you can use to achieve clean floors in your facility.

If you’re thinking about investing in/purchasing an automatic floor scrubber, contact a specialist today. Our specialists can help you find the right floor scrubber for your facility’s needs, whether you’re located in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean or Canada.