In the last several blogs, we have introduced you something about mechanical knowledge of the floor scrubber like the motors, batteries and scrubbing heads. But there are no 100% matched and perfect machines to deliver a clean and shiny floor alone so we need a solution, combining the right machines and consumables together to make 1+1>2.

Read this blog, you will,

1. Learn how to choose the right color of floor pads and how to maintain them

2. Choose the right brushes based on your cleaning demanding

3. Learn how to match the squeegee for your cleaning applications

Floor Pads

Types of floor pads - Traditional Floor Pad

The most popular floor pads are traditional super pads with the color of Black, Brown, Green, Red, White, Pink...Normally the pad base of these pads is made of non-woven polyester fiber. Some featured products like 3M Clean and Shine Pad or Americo Smart Scrub Pad, they’re impregnating some silicon carbide and mineral abrasives on the pad base to extend their lifespan and enhance the cleaning performance.

How to choose pads by color

White and Pink

They’re the softest and least aggressive pads, you can use them for polishing, buffing and burnishing the floor. Good for the machine with 350 - 2000 RPM. They’re available for all kinds of floors like concrete, terrazzo, stone, marble, granite, PVC, VCT, LVT, rubber floor, tile floor...

Red

The most popular pad for daily cleaning and scrubbing, and they can also be used for floor buffing and polishing. Good for floor cleaning machines including single disc machine/floor buffer and floor scrubber machine with 150-600 RPM. All floors are available to use. BTW, for the orbital floor machines or square oscillating machines with 1000-3000 oscillating times/min, they can also be used for the same application.

Green/Blue

They’re coarser than red floor pads, so it’s better for deep cleaning cases to remove some top coating layers, finishes and marks but not enough for floor stripping. Good for low-speed floor cleaning machines like floor scrubbers and single disc machines with 150-350 RPM. It’s not recommended for daily cleaning on resilient floors like PVC, VCT or LVT.

Black/Brown

They’re generally the coarsest and most aggressive pads, these dark-color pads are designed for heavy-duty cleaning and deep stripping works. You can use them for removing hard stains, scuff marks, and coating layers. Most floor stripping works happen on resilient floors like PVC, Linoleum, VCT, LVT floors, so when you need to do re-coating works, then you need these pads to remove the old ones first. For these kinds of jobs, a square orbital machine is the best choice or they can also work with heavy-duty single disc machines with extra weights or floor scrubbers. DO NOT USE THEM FOR DAILY CLEANING.

There are some other pads like Porko floor pads with some hog hair and polyester fiber, they’re also floor pads but we don’t introduce them more here. They’re usually used for Ultra-High-Speed（UHS）burnishing (if it’s soft hair).

Diamond Floor Pad

Traditional floor pads are good for floor stripping, deep cleaning, daily cleaning, polishing and burnishing, they’re your economic choice but for increasing high gloss shine for your floor, they have to work with floor polisher chemicals or crystallizer cream or liquid. Sometimes, the lifespan can’t last so long.

Now, the diamond floor pad comes. They’re impregnating billions of diamond particles on the traditional floor pad base. With these diamond pads, you can easily increase the floor shine during cleaning works, 100% with water only, no chemicals required and they usually can last 3 times longer than normal floor pads.

How to choose your right diamond pad

Grit is used to measure the coarseness of the diamond particles. Usually, the number smaller, the diamond coarser. So let’s remember as below,

≤200 grit, very coarse and aggressive, good for heavy-duty stripping works

400 grit, coarse and aggressive, good for deep cleaning

800 grit, medium coarse and good for scrubbing and maintenance

1500 grit, fine grit and not aggressive, good for polishing and daily cleaning

≥3000 grit, very fine and extremely good for daily cleaning, polishing and burnishing

No matter what’s their color, just remember the diamond grit, and use it to choose the pads you need. For the floor machines, you can choose a low-speed single disc machine, floor scrubber, square orbital machine, or high-speed burnishing machine to match the result you want. For most diamond floor pads, if you want to restore and polish the floor, try to use 400-800-1500-3000 as a kit then you see the shine is coming up very fast.

Melamine Pad

Melamine pad is made of polymeric foam and really good for cleaning tile floors, VCT, terrazzo and concrete floors. But please remember don’t use it on uneven floors or dry floors. Keep to clean the floor with water. It can save your cost on detergent but can’t polish the floor.

Maintenance Advice

No matter which type of floor pads you’re going to use, it can extend the lifespan of the pads if you can rinse them with water and dry them after each use. Normally, the stains or dirt coatings will stick on the pad base so it’s not suggested to be used for the next time directly.

Floor Scrubber Brushes

Same with the pads, the scrubbing brushes have different materials like nylon, polypropylene, steel wire, gritted... Here we only discuss the most popular types and introduce you to how to choose them for your cleaning.

Nylon (PA)

Nylon is a kind of durable synthetic bristle material with excellent flexibility and lifespan for general scrubbing works. If you want to maintain the floor with high-gloss look, nylon is a good choice. They’re good for marble, epoxy, carpet, vinyl, terrazzo, tile and rubber floors. If the diameter of the brush bristle is bigger like PA ∅0.7, it means it can be used for deep scrubbing and hard floors, if the diameter is smaller like PA ∅0.5, then it’s good for general scrubbing and daily cleaning on high-gloss or resilient floors.

Polypropylene (PP)

It’s a more economical alternative to nylon, more durable than the normal fibers but cheaper and more aggressive than nylon. It’s the most popular brush used for floor scrubbers. They can fit for most deep cleaning, scrubbing and daily cleaning works. Same with nylon, the coarse diameter of PP indicates they’re better for deep cleaning works and if the brush bristle diameter is smaller, it means they’re softer for daily cleaning cases and better for resilient floors.

Gritted Brush

Like the featured floor pads, some of them are made of silicon carbide and mineral abrasives. They’re the same with diamond abrasives, with different grits. The bigger grit number like 100 grit indicates they’re better for heavy-duty stripping or deep cleaning and the smaller one like 500 grit is better for daily cleaning.

Brush Maintenance

Remember to rinse and wash them after each use with clean water. Remove the hairs, stains, liquid residues and other dirt to make sure they will not be left to the next use.

Squeegee

TVX only provides two colors of squeegees. The red one is made of 95% natural rubber and fits 90% of floor types and cleaning applications, and the blue one is made of 38-durometer polyurethane, which is excellent for heavy-oiled floors and rubber and epoxy floors. They’re both durable and equipped with a strong capacity for picking up water.

Squeegee Maintenance

Most squeegees can be used on 4 sides but even though, we need to clean and rinse the squeegees weekly to ensure its cleaning productivity. But when you find it’s worn, torn or wavy, then it’s time to change to a new one.

Conclusion

Today, we have talked a lot about the consumables for floor scrubber machines. The types of floor pads, brushes and squeegees and how to choose and maintain them. If you have any questions about choosing, using and maintaining, welcome to leave your questions.

The next topic we will discuss about the rotary speed per minute (RPM) of floor machines and how to choose them for your floor maintenance works, interested? Welcome to follow us to stay updated.