What Goes Into Refurbishing Cleaning Equipment?

Have you ever wondered what parts get replaced on a refurbished floor scrubber?  Yeah, so do we, every time we grab one from inventory!  That's because every single one is a unique rebuild.  

We source our used floor machines from all over the country and from every type of facility.  Some of them have almost no hours or signs of use at all.  We call those "cherries."  Everyone wants a cherry, but they can be rare.  

For the most part, the used floor scrubbers and sweepers that we get ahold of have storied pasts.  They've put in a good days' work at a school, healthcare or industrial facility.  They've been taken care of according to their owner's maintenance procedures.  Then, after a few years, maybe when the original equipment manufacturer's warranty is up, and a lot of times when the batteries need to be replaced, they find their way onto the secondary market. 

Enter SweepScrub!!!

This is our game, and we love it.  We know the manufacturers.  We know the equipment.  We know the facilities. We know the flooring surfaces. We know the soils being cleaned.  We know the chemicals.  We know the operators.  

What we know is how it all ties together.  We can thread the needle that makes all of these factors come together so that the right piece of equipment can get a second life in the hands of an educated buyer who's done his/her purchasing due diligence. 

It doesn't always make sense to spend $10,000 on a new scrubber if you can find a refurbished one for $5000.  Sometimes it does though, and that's great because we also sell new if the circumstances call for it.  That's another blog for another day. 

For the situations when refurbished makes sense, we often get asked "what all has been done to it?"  The typical answer is something along the lines of "all the primary components (i.e. motors, pumps, control boards etc.) are tested for operational competency, and if they're good, they don't get replaced.  If they fail or appear to be near failing, they get replaced.  Beyond that, all wearable items (e.g. squeegees, filters, brushes, hoses and oftentimes vac motors, casters, tires etc.) get replaced."  

What we don't ever dive into is ALL the other parts that either aren't worth listing or that don't mean anything to really anyone on the front end of a conversation.  These parts could be listed as things like seals, gaskets, tray, screw, pin, chain, circuit breaker, cover, gauge, switch, valve, boot, nut, cap, label, spacer etc.. 

We might replace them for any number of reasons including rust or simply unsightly appearance.  It doesn't mean we always do, but it's possible.  We do stand behind our work with a warranty (unless otherwise agreed upon), so we don't want the customer or our warranty department to be in a warranty situation after the machine has left our facility.  That's no good for anyone.  That's our incentive to do it right the first time while it's still at our facility.  

The list of parts we order and install can be very long. Sometimes, it's over 200 parts.  The effort to assess, record and order those parts and then to track, receive, install and test is costly, especially when you've got experienced technicians, who are highly screened to even gain employment, performing the work.  

All of those parts and labor can add up.  It's our job to make sure the end product still fits the budget for this secondary market we live in every day.  As mentioned above, this is our game, and we LOVE it!

Check out some before and after photos below of a Tennant T500 walk behind floor scrubber we recently refurbished.  We usually take it from YUCK to BUCK in about 14 business days once it's at the front of the queue.  We typically have a backlog of customers that push the timetable out further based on when we receive payment though.   

For those curious enough, check out the parts list below the pictures that we needed to get this particular scrubber ready for action.   This particular rebuild has about $3300.00 in parts hung on it. 

If you look hard enough online, you can probably find some "refurbished" Tennant T500's online for less than $3500.  Keep in mind we had to purchase the machine and ship it to our facility before we refurbished it.  The question we'd ask if you want to go with that other one is "you feelin' lucky?"