The survey involved more than 60 building service contractors (BSCs), who answered a variety of questions regarding floor care issues and trends.

“For both environmental and cost reasons, end-customers are delaying refinishing cycles or not refinishing their floors at all,” says Michael Schaffer, president of Tornado Industries.

However, according to the respondents, delaying or not refinishing floors may actually cause more work and ultimately additional costs for end-customers in the long-run as 94 percent agreed with the statement that ‘a floor that does not have finish on it is harder to maintain’.

Other questions included in the survey focused on floor care machines with nearly 61 percent of the respondents reported having used or are currently using conventional rotary-pad floor machines when maintaining floors. Meanwhile 39 percent have used or use cylindrical brush floor machines.

“I would not be surprised if these figures would be reversed or more 50/50 if this had been asked [of BSCs] in Europe,” says Schaffer. “Probably, because they are working on older, more porous floors, cylindrical brush technology is more popular in Europe and other parts of the world than here in the US.”

Respondents also cited ‘splatter on walls or surrounding surfaces’ as a common problem when performing floor care tasks. However, the survey found that this is less of a problem when using cylindrical brush technology.

Finally, when asked which type of machine — rotary-pad or cylindrical — respondents thought is more environmentally friendly, meaning it uses less chemical and water, results were about evenly divided.

However, studies by the American Institute of Cleaning Sciences (AICS) indicate cylindrical brush floor machines typically require less water and chemical compared to a rotary-pad system.

www.tornadovac.com, www.aics.com