Battery Powered Commercial Vacs
As predicted battery powered vacuum cleaners are being regularly released by manufacturers. The reason for so many releases is the power tool battery and charger technology has been adapted to work in vacuum cleaners.
The power tool companies such as Makita have expanded their range of vacuums but they seem to be positioned for tradies to add to their arsenal of tools.
Nilfisk has released a new model back vac as have Karcher and Cleanstar (and they have a hybrid machine), Origin who also make a number of home brand machines, Aerolite and Pacvac all have the battery powered back vacs on the market. Numatic has had a pull along machine for a number of years and has released a smaller Henry version and Nilfisk is ready to release their new machine. Colombus has an upright battery machine and so they keep coming.
Nilfisk has made their machine a dual speed with about 1 hour run time on the Eco mode and 30 minutes on the Power Boost mode. With a fast 40 minute charger and a spare battery, you can have continuous vacuuming. But all this comes at a cost. The average cost is about $1500.00 for a machine but the productivity gain by not having to change power points etc is the major selling feature.
But maybe we are missing something here.... power leads are a trip hazard and a huge amount of cleaning is carried out when people are around. Think aged care facilities and what about mental health facilities where cords can be used to self-harm. The push for more flexible working hours where cleaners are cleaning offices when people are working and another advantage of daytime cleaning is power savings.
There is a difference between domestic and commercial machines. For starters, commercial machines are repairable where many domestic machines are not and the quality of the tools and materials used to make the bodies are far better and are designed to last well over 5 years.
The prices will fall as the R&D costs are recouped and batteries become cheaper but the latest releases are proving that battery machines will become the next norm.
This article was written by John Taylor
Innovation and Business Development Manager at CleanIQ