Hard Surface Floor Cleaning Machines From Kaivac

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Why Does Hard Floor Cleanliness Matter?

In commercial facilities, hard floors make up a huge percentage of cleanable surface area, literally billions of square feet. As such, hard surface floor maintenance represents an enormous investment for facility managers. In spite of the magnitude of the task, building occupants expect that floors always appear clean and be safe to use, and rightly so. Unclean and unsafe hard floors represent an enormous threat to health, safety, and revenue.

According to National Safety Council (NSC) Injury Facts, compensation and medical costs from slip-and-fall accidents cost employers 70 billion dollars annually, and falls were the number one cause of preventable injury in 2016. Infectious diseases tracked onto floors can quickly spread throughout a facility to areas where people work and eat, spreading illness. Unsightly floors turn off consumers, leading to lost revenue for businesses.

We simply cannot escape the need to maintain hard floors. When hard floors look dingy, they hurt a facility’s reputation. When hard floors become worn out, they are costly to replace. When hard floors become unsafe, everyone suffers. Every facility manager needs a hard surface floor care program that effectively addresses appearance, safety, and infection control.

Kaivac hard surface floor cleaning systems quickly remove soil and pathogens while reducing the likelihood of slips-and-falls. They do all of that while carrying a price tag much lower than a walk-behind autoscrubber.

The Industry’s Best Equipment For Hard Surface Floors

Kaivac has the answer for maintaining virtually every hard surface flooring type and configuration. Kaivac systems are science-based. Independent testing at the TURI Surface Solutions Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts confirmed that Kaivac systems are almost 100-percent effective at removing soil and bacteria.

At Kaivac, the keyword is remove. Kaivac systems don’t have to rely on harsh cleaning chemicals to exterminate bacteria. Kaivac systems dislodge, capture, and remove soils and pollutants, leaving behind surfaces with drastically reduced bacteria and biofilm.

Open or Congested

For wide, open areas like hallways, lobbies, gyms, and warehouses, the trailing squeegee on an OmniFlex AutoVac or OmniFlex SUV is the perfect match. An OmniFlex system cleans at a rate of over 20,000 square feet an hour, which is three to four times faster than a mop and faster than most autoscrubbers. In most situations, an OmniFlex system eliminates dust mopping before cleaning and trail mopping after cleaning, leaving floors clean and dry in a single pass.

For smaller, congested areas, the wand on an OmniFlex Dispense-and-Vac spreads solution, scrubs in it into grout lines, and vacuums up soiled solution. Cleaners can easily maneuver kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures, and other spaces with obstacles. All OmniFlex systems remove 99.8 percent of targeted soil, unlike a mop, which removes about 50 percent.

Smooth or Textured

Smooth hard surface floors include concrete, terrazzo, Vinyl Composite Tile (VCT), and the newly popular Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT). Textured quarry tile covers many kitchen and restroom floors. Whether flooring is smooth or textured, Kaivac is a match. Kaivac systems clean effectively on smooth floors and deep into grout lines, leaving behind clean and healthy surfaces.

Professional Hard Surface Floor Cleaning And Maintenance

For professional cleaning programs, hard floor cleaning is divided into routine cleaning tasks and situational cleaning tasks. Effective routine cleaning removes normal daily soil loads that accumulate and wear down the flooring surface. Situational cleaning happens when there is a spill, mess, or bad weather. Practically every day there is a need for situational cleaning in a commercial facility – a spilled beverage in the cafeteria, wet footprints through the entranceway, or an overflowing toilet. A robust cleaning program will have a detailed plan for effective cleaning practices in both routine and unplanned situations.

The Three Types of Soil

In any facility, an enormous variety of soils and pollutants enter the front door. However, for the purposes of cleaning hard surfaces, there are three types of soil:

• Loose Soil

• Stuck Soil

• Embedded Soil

Mike Perazzo, Kaivac Vice President of Business Development, estimates that loose soil constitutes 90 percent of the soil load in most facilities. Stuck soil from spills or messes constitutes another one percent. This includes food and beverage spills and soils that come tracked in from wet weather. When neglected, stuck soils can become stains that are more labor intensive to remove.

Embedded soils live in areas of the flooring surface that have been damaged. Either from dirty scuffs, salt scratches, or a gash in the floor, embedded soils cannot be removed with conventional techniques. They require deep cleaning and, then, refinishing of the surface. Perazzo estimates that embedded soils account for five percent of all soils in a facility. When cleaners regularly address both loose and stuck soils, embedded soils are less likely to form.

Kaivac cleaning systems give cleaners the ability to dislodge and remove loose and stuck soils from hard surface floors in an efficient way. This helps to prevent damage to floors and embedded soils from taking hold.

Clean With Floor Safety In Mind

Of all slip-and-fall accidents, 55 percent are directly related to the floor surface, according to the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI). Facility managers and building cleaners have an enormous responsibility to maintain flooring to prevent the slippery conditions that lead to injury. However, when a single slip-and-fall claim can carry a price tag in five digits, floor safety is just as much about managing costs as it is about preventing injury. Protect building occupants and the bottom line with floor care systems that are NSFI-certified for providing high traction, like Kaivac OmniFlex Crossover Cleaning systems.

Avoid Inadequate Hard Floor Maintenance Practices

Stop the Mop

You wouldn’t try to remove paint from a canvas using a paintbrush. So why do we try to remove soil from floors with a mop? Mops are spreaders, plain and simple. They remove only 50 percent of surface bacteria, the rest, they cross-contaminate across every surface that is touched until the mop head is next laundered. Until then, damp mop heads become breeding grounds for bacteria. We feel so strongly about the inadequacy of mops, we created a whole website about it. Visit Stop the Mop headquarters here.

Skip the Autoscrubber

Before you buy another autoscrubber, consider this. Autoscrubbers are notoriously high maintenance machines. They require a large initial investment, detailed on-the-job training, and a special technician to repair. Heavy and unwieldy, autoscrubbers cannot clean in congested areas and cannot be easily transported to other sites.

The simple, fast, and effective OmniFlex AutoVac can be operated correctly with just minutes of training. Maintenance and repairs are easy to perform and require no special technician. The AutoVac can also be used during stripping and recoating. It picks up salt, extracts grease, and more. It fits into a car and is gentler on floor finish than an autoscrubber.

Beyond Cleaning: Finishing And Stripping

Stripping and finishing or waxing floors can be an aggravating and costly process. Common flaws like bubbles, streaks, uneven coats, or hazy finishes require that you go back and do the work again, doubling the cost and headache. Kaivac set out to solve this exact problem by creating the OmniFlex Trolley Bucket.

The OmniFlex Trolley bucket applies fluid (wax or finish) to the floor with a control valve that allows the operator to simply and accurately measure the amount that is required. The operator then evenly spreads the fluid with a flat microfiber applicator. This method cuts time-spent in half in addition to reducing the likelihood of a redo. The Trolley Bucket is just one component of a customizable OmniFlex Crossover Cleaning system.

Benefits of Finishing with Kaivac

• Minimize streaks and bubbles
• Apply an even thickness of coats
• Prevent contamination of finish
• Learn to use quickly and easily
• Cut labor costs in half
• Reduce waste
• Achieve flawless results every time

Highest-Rated Equipment For Hard Surface Floors

OmniFlex Crossover Cleaning Systems

Kaivac OmniFlex Crossover Cleaning is a set of buildable components that can be customized into a system that perfectly matches your hard surface floor care needs. These versatile systems are easy to use and simple and inexpensive to repair. Here are a few of our most popular configurations.