Cleaning Equipment

Restregadoras, rotary floor machines and pressure washers:

each is built for a different floor and a different job. An auto scrubber carries two tanks, clean solution and recovery, with brushes in front and a squeegee behind that vacuums up the dirty water, so the floor is dry almost at once. A rotary floor machine, the 17- or 20-inch pulidora with one slow-turning pad, scrubs, strips wax and polishes, but leaves the water for a wet vacuum to collect; it costs far less and is still the tool for stripping and resealing. High-speed burnishers only belong on waxed vinyl or sealed floors. Outside, a hot- or cold-water pressure washer handles ramps, docks and façades, and on a big paved yard the broom attachment on a skid steer often does more than a sweeper.

Walk-behind or ride-on scrubber, battery or cord, disc or cylindrical brush:

match the machine to the floor area and the hours you clean. A cord-electric walk-behind is the cheapest way in and suits a shop or clinic cleaned after closing, though the cable trails behind it. Battery walk-behinds can work during opening hours, which is why supermarkets choose them. Ride-ons earn their price in large open areas such as a warehouse with forklift aisles, but they need room to turn and a doorway wide enough to pass. Disc brushes scrub hard and take the same pads as a pulidora; cylindrical brushes also pick up light debris and reach into the grout lines of ceramic and porcelain tile, the floor in most Costa Rican shops and clinics. On pressure washers the dividing line is the pump: an axial pump is sealed and gets replaced when it fails, a triplex plunger pump is made to be rebuilt and run daily.

Tennant, Nilfisk, Kärcher and the unbranded scrubber:

parts are what keep a cleaning machine worth something. Brushes, pad drivers and squeegee blades for the big makers are easy to find in Costa Rica, and many wear items turn up under industrial parts. An unbranded import can look like a bargain new, but when its controller or squeegee assembly fails the part may have to come from abroad, and resale prices reflect that.

Batteries, squeegee and recovery tank on a used scrubber:

the batteries decide much of the price. Flooded lead-acid cells need topping up with distilled water, and neglect shows as corroded terminals and low cells; sealed AGM or gel batteries need no watering; lithium lasts longest and costs most to replace. A worn-out set can cost a large share of what the machine itself will fetch, so run it for a good while before agreeing a figure, and make sure the charger comes with it. Open the recovery tank: a machine stored with dirty water smells, grows sludge and clogs the vacuum hose. Push it over a wet patch. A dry floor behind it is what you want; streaks mean worn rubber blades, which are cheap, or a weak vacuum motor, which is not. Read the hour meter where there is one and look under the deck for leaks and chemical corrosion. On a pulidora, check for wobble at the pad and a taped cord; on a pressure washer, a dripping pump or pulsing pressure means tired seals.

A scrubber fleet coming off a cleaning contract:

is how many used machines come up, and buyers know it, so be specific. Give the brand, model and year, the hours, the cleaning path, the battery type and age, and whether the charger and a pad driver are included. Photograph the data plate, the battery compartment, the squeegee blades and the inside of the recovery tank, and film the machine scrubbing a dirty patch and leaving it dry. State the weight with batteries fitted: a walk-behind needs a ramp and two people to get into a pickup, a ride-on needs a truck with a ramp or a platform, and a buyer driving from Heredia to Tamarindo to collect one has to know which to bring.