All floor pads are not created equally

All floor pads are not created equally

Today’s consumer market offers wide variety of products at affordable prices suiting the buyer’s needs. This is true of cleaning products as well. There are different kinds of floor pads available which can make a difference to the bottom line in terms of productivity and labour costs. However, one questions come up, “Are all floor pads created equally”?

The floor pads made using non woven technology are manufactured with high quality Nylon spring like fibers along with high quality adhesives and high quality minerals. These high quality floor pads with their spring like effect has a unique feature of cleaning without effecting / damaging the base material.

These use special aluminum oxide as abrasive, which abrasive has sharper edges and remains sharper for longer period of time, thereby enabling scoring pads to be effective throughout their lifetime.

The quality floor pads should maintain uniformity in the pads which depends on high quality manufacturing processes which enable uniform mineral spread in the pads enabling them to deliver consistent performance throughout their life. Generally normal pads are good only on the surface and become useless after some time.

The special adhesive technology has the ability to withstand acid and detergent effects to a large extent without making the pads soft. The quality pad should have adhesives which are designed to give smoother feeling during usage.

The companies providing quality floor pads use open web technology which allows dirt particles to easily dislodge from the pad, keeping them clean and safe.

A quality floor pad should offer:

• Uniform distribution of mineral abrasives throughout pad (not just on the surface) assuring superior performance and long, useful life.
• Individually separated and coated fibers help produce better, more consistent results.
• The right amount of aggressiveness for every type of stripping, scrubbing and cleaning job.
• Each floor pad is engineered specifically for a particular maintenance task.
High quality and consistency in a floor pad help produce better results at an overall lower cost. Features which can make the difference in floor pads:

• Excess knots and clumps in pads can produce scratches or defects on the floor.
• Variability in pad thickness can produce vibration in floor equipment resulting in uneven, poor results on the floor.
• Out of shape / oblong pads can also produce vibration in floor equipment resulting in poor results.
• Non-balanced (centered) holes in floor pads produce uneven use / distribution of the pad resulting in shorter pad life and weaker performance.

A quality floor pad should outperform the normal floor pad in each of this feature. Quality floor pads are more durable and generate cleaner, better looking floors than competitive pads as shown in the table.

Debapratim Dinda
Technical Services,
Building & Commercial Services Division,3M India Limited