A small floor scrubber lays down solution, scrubs with a disc or cylindrical brush and vacuums the water back up in one pass, leaving a floor that is walkable behind it. Day rates run about $80 to $160, and a seventeen to twenty inch deck clears something like 10,000 square feet an hour on open floor. It is the hire for a deep clean, a handover or a move out.
Deck width is the spec that matters
Everything else follows from it. A seventeen inch deck turns in a domestic hallway and takes forever in a warehouse; a twenty six inch deck halves the time and will not pass a shelving aisle. Measure the tightest place the machine must go, then take the widest deck that clears it.
Battery, cord or a compact rider
Battery machines go anywhere and run a couple of hours before they want charging overnight. Corded machines are cheaper to hire and tether you to sockets, which is fine in a small unit and miserable in a large one. Above roughly twenty thousand square feet in a session, ask about a compact rider instead.
Brush, pad and chemical are extra
The counter rate covers the machine. The pad or brush suited to your floor, and the detergent that goes with it, are usually separate lines, and the wrong pad on a sealed floor can dull it. Say what the surface is, sealed concrete, vinyl, tile or epoxy, and let them pick.
Filling, dumping and where the water goes
You need a tap the machine can reach and a legal place to empty the recovery tank, which holds dirty water and detergent rather than clean rinse. On a construction handover that usually means a proper drain, not the parking lot. Sort both before the machine arrives or you will carry buckets.
Questions people ask about small floor scrubber rental
Will a floor scrubber take up construction dust?
It will handle fine settled dust once the floor has been swept, and it will clog quickly if you send it at gravel, plaster lumps or joint compound. Sweep or vacuum first. The scrubber is a finishing pass, not the first pass on a site handover.
How long does a battery machine last?
Most small walk behinds run between one and a half and three hours of scrubbing on a charge, and the charger comes with the machine. If the job is a single long night, ask whether the unit takes an opportunity charge over a break or whether you need a second battery.
Is a corded scrubber safe on a wet floor?
It is the normal way these machines are built, and the caution is the same as any corded tool used around water: the supply should be protected, the cable kept out of the wet path, and damaged leads taken out of service rather than taped.