Cleaning commercial floors can sometimes seem like a thankless (and, let’s be honest, meaningless) task. After all, how much do people actually pay attention to the floors of a business? A hospital? A shopping plaza?
Quite a bit, actually.
Okay, well, maybe they don’t actively notice the floors, but when those commercial floors are looking old, grimy, and downright filthy, they notice. And when they notice, it never bodes well for the company. Ever.
You could do everything else great, but if your tile, concrete, carpet, or other floor surfaces in your business isn’t cleaned properly and maintained, it does affect how customers, employees, partners, and other visitors view the business itself.
Not only that, but it’s also a serious safety issue. If your company utilizes a tile and grout floor cleaning machine (or it should), are you or the cleaning staff getting the most out of it? In other words, are your floors not only looking their best… are they getting the most life out of them, and are they safe?
Why Would You Need a Grout Cleaning Machine?
If you have some type of ceramic, porcelain, marble, or granite tile in your commercial facility, not only do you absolutely need a quality machine like this, but there’s almost no other reasonable and cost-effective way to keep the grout between those tiles clean.
Grout isn’t just aesthetic, either. It’s easy to think that when you see the smooth, straight lines of those tiles, but they help create adhesion and uniformity. Yet, they are incredible dirt magnets.
So, even though you may have those floors mopped, washed, waxed, and polished regularly, that won’t clean the tile. A white, off-white, beige, or even light to medium gray colored grout can look black in time.
A machine that thoroughly and safely cleans grout helps to not only minimize airborne bacteria and germs that can get trapped there, it can also prevent the dirt from breaking apart the grout over time.
Once grout breaks down, not only does it bounce out (with steps, dollies, etc. rolling over the tile), dirt can then slip under the tile, eventually causing cracks and breaks, leading to costly repair expenses and safety hazards.
Understand a Grout Cleaner Isn’t the Same as Other Machines
We’ve heard just about every story you could imagine when it comes to floor cleaning machines, and one that is far too common involves commercial property owners assuming that some machines can do the job of a tile cleaning machine.
Not so. In fact, would you think a wet and dry vacuum is adequate for cleaning tile? Or grout?
Perhaps a surface level, light touch-up cleaning when the floor isn’t that dirty, to begin with, but there’s no possible way one of these wet and dry vacs is going to clean the tile properly or the grout.
Also, a concrete floor polisher can be a wonderful asset for those harder surface floors, but they can do a tremendous amount of damage to most tile surfaces. They could even shatter some thinner set grout, so that should be something you absolutely avoid.
Make Sure Your Tile Cleaner Has a Grout Brush
You aren’t going to get down on your hands and knees and scrub the grout with a small brush. Not only is this inefficient, but it’s also a time-waster.
You (or your maintenance crew) will quickly burn out and not want to bother any longer.
Because it’s so important to keep grout cleaned regularly (to protect the tiles and the rest of the floor), this traditional method is going to be a non-starter.
Instead, focus on a floor buffer, or floor cleaning machine, that has a tile and grout brush. This allows your cleaner personnel to work over the entire floor surface while allowing the machine to do the heavy and tedious work of cleaning the grout as well.
You’ll also want to use the right type of cleaning solution. This would be the cleaning agent. You want something this has a neutral pH, and that will be safe for your workers and anyone else who may utilize the commercial space.
As for getting more value out of a grout cleaning machine, the key is in the brand. You may be tempted to settle for a cheaper model to save money in the short run, but will that machine do a quality job on the grout?
Centaur Floor Machines are built to last and to do the job the best way possible. When you take the cleanliness and integrity and safety of your commercial floors seriously, and you want the right tile and grout floor cleaning machine, there is only one choice: Centaur.
With the right solution, machine, and know-how, your commercial floors can look their best year after year after year.