Of all the cleaning tools available from giant vacuums to high pressure hoses, the most basic forms, that have been around for centuries, are brushes, brooms, and sweepers. These manually powered tools are an essential part of keeping homes, factories, and offices clean. Their flexibility, ease of operation, and reliability are the main reasons for their lasting use.
The original components of brushes, brooms, and sweepers were taken directly from nature and transformed into cleaning tools. Though they continue to be part of cleaning today, manufacturers have developed a wide range of materials for the design and manufacturing of their products. Over the centuries, the basic structure of these tools has not changed with the biggest advancements being in the types of materials used by engineers to design and create them.
Wood handles are still a stable for many brushes, brooms, and sweepers since they are reliable and long lasting. As cleaning tools have been perfected and configured to fit special applications and surfaces, the handles have been adapted to fit new conditions and have greater resilience than wood.
There are three basic parts of brushes, brooms, and sweepers, which are bristles, stock to hold the bristles, and a handle. The process of making brushes requires drilling holes in the stock to insert the bristles. In the case of wire brushes, the bristles may be intwined and connected by wire. Each method can be done several ways such as by hand or machine. In large production operations, the method of placing the bristles in the stock is mechanized and happens rapidly.
The handles, wires, and stock are made of a variety of materials that include plastic, wood, or various metals. Today‘s brushes, brooms, and sweepers are far more advanced from those of a hundred years ago. The simple push broom comes in several sizes with an assortment of bristles. For concrete surfaces, bristles may be made of metal and very stiff, while for cleaning carpets or polished floors, bristles may be soft and pliable.
As with all tools, brushes, brooms, and sweepers have advanced and become more precise than their ancestors. A brush for a computer must be able to clean the device but not damage its surface. For industrial use, they are engineered to clean chemical spills and toxic substances.
Aside from the handheld versions, there are motorized brushes, brooms, and sweepers that fit on drills and large machinery. The numbers and types of brushes, brooms, and sweepers has rapidly grown and been designed to fit any environment and conditions.
Part of the advancement of these tools is the development of static eliminators.
If you have received a shock from touching a piece of metal, then you know what static electricity is. The simple shock you receive as an inconvenience can become a problem for electronic equipment, where electric charges attract dust and particulate contaminants that can cause problems for material handlers and products. Anti-static brushes are a highly efficient and necessary method for grounding materials and removing ionization from the air above and below the material.
The tradition and use of brushes, brooms, and sweepers has drastically changed over the last hundred years. Through the engineering efforts of manufacturers, these exceptionally reliable tools have been reshaped, configured, and transformed into modern tools for the electronic age.
Brooms have been around for centuries and continue to be the most popular device that is used for basic floor cleaning.
Workshops, stores, restaurants, stadiums, and offices are just a few places where brooms can be found in use everyday because of the heavy amounts of dust, trash, and debris that are created in these places. Brooms come in many different styles and sizes even though their concept is very simple. Most have a long handle made out of plastic, wood or metal, and have bristles attached parallel to the handle. There are a variety of bristles to select from on today‘s market including nylon, polypropylene, tampico, bassine fiber, natural corn fibers, straw and poly-vinyl. A broom should be selected based on the type of application and task it must complete. Indoor, outdoor, large, small, continuous use or not, there is a perfect broom for the job.
A push broom has a long rectangular head usually ranging from 24" to 60" and has a long handle for easy use. This type of broom is good for covering a large area in a short amount of time. Places such as a workshop or store most commonly use this type of broom because of their large square footage. Typical household brooms have a long handle with about six inches of bristles along the bottom. The bristles can be found cut straight across or at an angle. Dust pans usually accompany a broom and can be handheld or have a longer handle to collect items easily without bending over. These can be seen in use greatly by attendants at movie theaters, stadiums, festivals and other places that need to constantly be kept clean. A whisk is commonly used in conjunction with a dust pan to clean up a dirt pile from a push broom as the broom is to big to effectively sweep the dirt inside of the dust pan. Learn more about brooms.
Brushes are tools made with bristles, wires, or other filaments for cleaning, painting, and surface treatment tools.
It is one of the most diverse, versatile, and simple tools. From the simplest brooms to the heaviest-duty power brushes and sweepers, brushes have been and continue to be an important part of a wide range of industrial and commercial operations.
Learn more about brushes.
Static eliminators, also known as antistatic devices, are products used to protect sensitive objects and materials from the hazardous effects of static electricity.
They are not to be confused with appliances like static mixers.
Static electricity refers to electricity that is at rest, which is produced as a result of an unbalance in the molecular structure of insulating materials. Such materials include paper and plastics. When their molecular structure becomes unbalanced, they produce either excessive positive or negative charged particles called ions. Learn more about static eliminators.
Sweepers are floor cleaning machines used in many industrial, commercial and public settings to provide safer and cleaner work environments, homes and public spaces.
Sweepers can be designed for indoor use on carpet as well as hard surfaces, and it can also be designed for outdoor use on small and large scales. Simple, hand-operated sweepers can be rolled over carpeted floors in order to pick up dirt and debris.
Sweepers are used in homes and in institutions and are a reasonably inexpensive tool for light cleaning applications. They usually don‘t require electricity, though some models can be battery powered, which can offer slightly higher-efficiency sweeping. On the other end of the sweeper spectrum, engine-powered street sweepers equipped with very large brushes are used to clear debris from streets in urban and suburban areas. Street sweepers vary in their configurations; some are powerful enough to sweep up large debris like bottles and cans, while others are intended only to clear caked dirt and small debris from streets. Others can clean up spills or standing water, and the most advanced models can remove and contain particles of just a few micrometers in size. There are many sweeper varieties found in between street sweepers and manual sweepers. Indoor sweepers and scrubbers can vacuum, wash, buff or polish floors. They are usually motorized, and depending on the application they can be pushed, pulled or even ridden. Learn more about sweepers.