Cleaning brushes


13.12.2021

When it comes to mechanical floor cleaning with water, there are various types of cleaning brushes with different bristles. In this post, you will learn which brush is right for which application. 

Cleaning brushes help with mechanical floor cleaning. They efficiently remove dirt from floors without damaging the floor covering. Brushes come in many different variants – both for single-brush machines and scrubber-dryers.

Suitability:
Brushes are suitable for cleaning textured floor coverings or floor coverings with deep, wide joints. To prevent damage, it is important to choose the right brush for the corresponding floor covering.

Brush types:
There are three common types of brush: scrubbing brushes, shampoo brushes and polishing brushes. Here you will find a brief overview of their special features:

Scrubbing brushes

Scrubbing brushes efficiently and thoroughly remove dirt from floors. They even remove dirt from deep or narrow cracks – depending on the quality of the brush. The bristles vary in material and hardness, depending on the scrubbing brush. Wetrok brushes are low in abrasion, last for a long time and are easy to clean after use. Wet scrubbing with scrubbing brushes is used for maintenance cleaning, intermediate and basic cleaning.

Important: Once there are clear signs of wear (e.g. heavily worn down bristles), it is time to replace the brush (or the quality of cleaning results will suffer). As a rule: the rougher the floor covering, the faster a brush will wear out.

Speaking of wear: Wetrok has created a convenient new feature that makes the degree of wear visible on scrubbing brushes: a green wear indicator tuft (integrated in the brush) serves as a guide and indicates when the brush needs to be changed. This means: once the blue bristles are the same length as the green tuft, it’s time to replace the brush. By the end of 2022, all Wetrok Discomatic and Duomatic scrubber-dryers will feature this clever wear indicator tuft, helping users achieve optimal cleaning results every time.

Soft or hard brush?
Soft brushes are ideal for uneven floors and reduce the risk of scratch marks on the floor. Meanwhile, hard brushes are more effective at mechanical cleaning and are able to remove even stubborn, heavily ingrained dirt.

Suitable for machine type:
Single-brush machine and scrubber-dryer

Products:
Wetrok offers six scrubbing brushes in different materials and with different degrees of hardness:

  • Supernylon scrubbing brush
    The Supernylon scrubbing brush is made of polyamide (PA) and has a medium degree of hardness (neither specially soft nor specially hard). This is a high-quality piece of standard equipment for virtually any floor cleaning scenario using brushes. The Supernylon scrubbing brush is compatible with models in the Discomatic and Duomatic scrubber-dryer product lines. For the Drivematic line, we offer the polypropylene scrubbing brush (similar quality to the Supernylon scrubbing brush).
  • Soft scrubbing brush/exposed aggregate concrete
    The bristles of the soft scrubbing brush are made of polyamide (PA) with especially soft properties. It is recommended for use on lightly textured floor coverings. The ideal area of application: exposed aggregate concrete, nubbed rubber floors or floors with joints. There is yet another special application for this brush: coating of nubbed rubber floors with a polymer dispersion.
  • Filament scrubbing brush
    Durability and unwavering quality – these are the typical characteristics of the Filament scrubbing brush, made of polyamide (PA). The fibre tips open up while in use to give the scrubbing brush its perfect cleaning power. By doing so, the brush combines all the benefits of a soft and hard brush (individual bristles are hard, fibre tips are soft). The Filament scrubbing brush is not suitable for dry cleaning or cleaning textile floor coverings.
  • PET scrubbing brush
    The soft PET scrubbing brush is an all-round multipurpose brush. The cleaning bristles are made of 100% recycled PET. As a result, the environmentally friendly cleaning brush helps reduce your business’s ecological footprint. The practical wear indicator tuft is already integrated in the PET brush.
  • Tynex scrubbing brush
    The Tynex scrubbing brush has hard, durable bristles and is extremely abrasive – but works cleaning miracles on very stubborn dirt stuck to hard, scratchproof floor coverings. The bristles are made of a special polyamide, with a special abrasive material evenly integrated throughout its entire cross-section.

Shampoo brush

Shampoo brushes are suitable for shampooing robust textile floor coverings. The metal plate in the centre of the brush ensures that the cleaning solution from the water tank is distributed to the sides of the brush.  There, the brush generates wet cleaning foam by rotating – in conjunction with the cleaning product. Wet shampooing with a shampoo brush is used in both intermediate and basic cleaning.

Suitable for machine type:
Single-brush machine

Special applications:
Wetrok shampoo brushes are also suitable for shampooing stone carpets. Another special application is shampooing with carpet detergents, incl. subsequent rinsing with a spray extraction machine.

Products:
Wetrok offers two shampoo brushes with different degrees of hardness:

  • Nylon shampoo brush (for durable floor coverings)
  • Hard nylon shampoo brush (for extremely durable floor coverings)

Polishing brushes

As the name suggests, polishing brushes are used to polish floor coverings. Usually, polishing is performed as a final step after cleaning or waxing. However, coatings can also be polished on an ‘as needed’ basis (separately from cleaning). The polishing brush creates a beautiful shine and an even appearance. Polishing brushes are usually made from natural fibres, as these quickly generate the required heat to achieve optimal polishing results. Due to the type of fibre, polishing brushes are usually water-sensitive and therefore only suitable for polishing (never for wet scrubbing). Polishing is also used in maintenance and intermediate cleaning, as well as after a protective treatment.

Suitable for machine type:
Single-brush machine

Products:
Wetrok offers some polishing brushes:

  • Polishing brushes

Product tip:
How to mechanically clean tricky-to-reach areas

Do you want to clean walls, stairs or shower panels mechanically using a brush? Then use Wetrok’s small-area cleaning machines: the Wetrok BrushBoy Plus or Wetrok Motor Brusher. Of course, these two little helpers can also be fitted with tried-and-tested Wetrok scrubbing brushes.

Note:
If you work with smooth floor coverings, we recommend using pads (see post Machine pads: Which colour for which floor?)

Method finder
In our method finder, you can find instructions for more than 30 cleaning methods: free and available for download as a PDF.