Floor Buffer Machine

Almost any floor buffer would have arrangements for washing, shampooing, cleaning and drying of floor. All these are necessarily needed to get clean and shining floors. In a matter of minutes these machines do the same job as one would manually do in couple of hours. The pressing of buttons does scrubbing and polishing of floors. Floor buffers are also employed to get rid of stubborn marks and scratches from the floor.

The two main parts of a floor scrubber comprise of a tank that is filled with neutral cleaner and the pads needed for scrubbing, cleaning and mopping of floor. The first step uses the scrubbing pads for cleaning and polishing that enables floor to get that much desired shine. The next action these pads perform is finishing of floor that offers it the protection and also helps it resist staining. And, finally it does the touching-up of scuffmarks and scratches to complete its activity of buffing the floor. Tile floors are best maintained by use of a heavy duty cleaner.

There are many manufacturers of floor buffers, each with a couple of models. That makes a huge variety available with many features and accessories. As can be anticipated, you get a large variation on prices too. For selecting an appropriate machine, you should consider these:

- The type of floor you’ll be cleaning with the intended machine.
- How frequently are you going to use the buffer?
- Are you really going to need all the features and accessories provided by the manufacturers? Mind you, some of these come at extra cost. You have to see the viability of the whole project.

Keeping the above points in mind you may go ahead with your online research or visit a couple of retailers before finalizing the most viable machine for you.

The other day we received a call from an agitated customer who wanted to know why his new floor burnisher made his polished floor look hazy, and acquired a milky look. Like anybody else who isn’t aware of the subject, he thought it had something to do with the floor machine itself or perhaps the pad attached underneath was causing it.

When we informed him that invariably the cause of such haziness was the left over stripping solution on the floor, he found it difficult to believe and insisted it had never happened earlier. Well, he had been lucky all that while. You can rent floor buffer or even have a used floor buffer on your hands, and you will be OK. But the strong solution is a dangerous thing.

After removing the old wax from a floor, a fairly strong alkaline solution is applied to it that partially dissolves the old finish. The stripping solution is allowed to remain on the floor for ten to fifteen minutes before being agitated by a floor buffer with a coarse stripping pad. That causes any other wax finish to loosen up for its convenient removal.

As you can see this process is quite alike removing varnish from a piece of old furniture, which follows the sequence of applying a stripper, waiting for sometime and then mechanically removing the old softened coating.

Most of the stripping solution and old wax slurry may be removed with the aid of a wet-dry vacuum. Once that has been achieved, a neutralizing solution has to be applied. Make sure that the floor is absolutely clear of old stripping solution. Even a little of its left over on getting dry can form a chemical reaction with fresh wax and cause hazing on the floor. The neutralizer, as the name suggests, neutralizes the high pH of the stripping solution and thus prevents the hazing.

Though the application of a neutralizer is essentially needed after stripping of floors, a cleaning with cold water for better results should definitely precede it. Keep using your dry/wet vacuum in between washings to take away the neutralizer and clean water washes. With a fresh coating of wax on such a washed cleaned and dried floor that has been thus neutralized will not make it look hazy.