Has anyone offered cleaning garage floors as a service and if so how effective are the orital machines. I am sure it is a no brainer and works very well. Just curious.
I sometime refer to any of my OP machines as floor scrubbers on steroids. I don't think any floor machine can give you 1750 scrubbing movements per minute. The standard rotary floor machine (buffer) will give you only 175. So I think you could clean garage floors as well as anyone, if not better.
Assuming part of the mess you are trying to clean up is made up of dripped motor oil and other automotive lubricants, you will also need a means of removing all the mess from the floor, after the soil has been liquified. You could use the terrycloth pads used for cleaning carpets, but I doubt that you could ever get them looking clean enough for residential carpet work again. In some cases you could probably hose off the loosened soil. I'm not sure whether a portable HWE extractor would be adviseable for such a job. Maybe some kind of shop-vac?
When performing the scrubbing part of the job, you would want to be using some kind of cleaner with good oil-breaking-down qualities, such as an orange oil based product. Find out what products are used in the gas station or repair garage industry when they want to clean a floor.
I think you're up against too many ma and pop power washers. i think when opportunity presents itself .. go for it
However there are many cases for an alternative solution. For example I've got a gas station to agree to apply my NSWR500 stone treatment on their 2 bay garage floors. We are using a heated power washer that produces water to 220 and steam to 330. The heated water at 2800 psi reconditions the surface so quickly and given the use of steam the floors dry quicker than with cold water. You can even use a couple Dri-Eaz units to cut the time so you can apply the surface treatment the same day.
Don't get me wrong I'm an OPer through and through but in this instance I can get the job done quicker with a heater power washer (not mine ... borrowed from my chemical manufacturer).
That said I OP my garage floors and that of my neighbors :-)
