Learn About How To Select The Correct Mop Bucket

A mop bucket. Such a basic piece of cleaning equipment. What can be so hard to pick the right mop bucket out of the thousands of types available online? Much harder than you can imagine and it will be hard to believe how many people end up with the wrong type of mop bucket that complicates their life instead of improving it. A quality mop bucket has to 100% fit your needs and it has to be the right size to enable you to work faster and have the right storage for it.

Before purchasing your new mop bucket, you should assess your floor size and only then, you should be buying a bucket. On the open market any buyer can find thousands of mop buckets in all sizes, all shapes, compatible with all types of normal mops or flat mops and suitable for all kinds of residential, commercial, retail or industrial use.

Storage Area | You know how before buying a car, you need to make sure that you have a parking slot reserved? The same thing applies when you are buying a mop bucket. If you are a light residential floor owner with a floor area below 50 sq meters, you do not need to buy a large commercial size mop bucket. The commercial mop buckets are large, they do not fit in narrow spaces and are a big inconvenience. Imagine a nearly 1 meter high mop bucket in your small press.
Type Of Floor | Some floors are designed to be soaked in water while others should be washed with little or no water. If you are the happy owner of a hardwood floor or a highly polished hardwood floor, you need to use a flat mopping system or a mop bucket that will work nicely with a microfiber flat mop head or a flat mopping system that squeezes the water in full.
Size Of The Floor | This is one of the most essential factors while considering a new mop bucket. The size of the floor. If you are using a small residential mop bucket to clean or maintain large floor areas, you are likely to struggle. The water will get dirty faster, larger mops cannot fit in its wringer and you will give yourself more work and make your life miserable. The same problem arises if you are using a large kentucky mop compatible mop bucket to wash small residential floors.
The Condition Of The Floor | The question is, are you deep cleaning or maintaining your floors? If you are using a highly active cleaning solution to strip off pre-existing sealer, to deep clean grout lines or to break down years of dirt deposits, you will need a thick, strong, heavy duty mop bucket that is unaffected by those chemicals. But if you are just lightly mopping an already clean floor, you could very well do with a lower quality mop bucket that does not cost a fortune.
The Type Of Mop Used | Another essential factor to consider before purchasing a mop bucket is to know what type of mop head you are likely to use. The smaller mop buckets cannot dry large industrial mops and the larger mop buckets will not work well with a small mop head.
Flat Mop Buckets | If you are using a flat mop head to clean or maintain your floors, then a normal mop bucket fitted with a standard wringer is pretty useless to you. Not all flat mops are compatible with all flat mop buckets so before ordering such a mop bucket, make sure that your flat mopping system is a pocket flat mop so you can actually wash and rinse it in the bucket.
Wheels Or No Wheels | The wheels of a mop bucket can really save you time and make your life easier if you are washing large floor areas and you do not have to carry around a 35L mop bucket. Just wheel it around. But that can be problematic if the floors are likely to scratch easily and the weight of the mop bucket loaded will create deep dents in the floor glazing. Find out if the type of floor you are planning to clean is resistant enough to take the weight of a large wringer mop bucket loaded. If not, use a smaller mop bucket that does not require wheeling around.

Consider The Storage Area Before Purchasing a Mop Bucket

The saying bigger is better does not ring true when you have no space. A mop bucket full of cleaning products should be stored in a safe place out of reach of children. If your property or the area that you manage has a tiny storage space, make sure to measure it first and make sure that whatever mop bucket you are looking at actually fits in that space.

Also consider the other tools, like mop handles, mop heads, cleaning products and other related cleaning equipment. Everything has to fit within that storage area. There are mop buckets starting from 8L and going up to 50L. Some are tiny, some are medium size and some are very large. They are made that way to make sure that the end users have options.

Not All Floors Are The Same

The type of floor being cleaned is a decisive factor in the selection of a new mop bucket. While some floors like natural stone floors, laminated floors, polished marmoleum, Amtico, oiled and varnished hardwood floors can be very sensitive and cleanable with a little water and damp mops only, other can be washed with pretty much any type of cleaning solution, huge amounts of water and will be largely unaffected by this.

Floors like painted industrial floors, Altro or safety floors, un-sealed concrete floors, ceramic tiles, matt porcelain floors and others will fall within the latter category. If you are cleaning highly sensitive floor surfaces or polished floor surfaces, the user should consider microfiber mop heads and mop buckets with fine quality wringers that squeeze most of the cleaning solution from the mop head or double compartment mop buckets that have an area for the cleaning solution and another one for the dirty waste.

The Size Of The Mop Is Very Important

The mop heads can vary in size, absorbency and aggressivity. Some mop heads are fitted with special scouring strips to agitate the dirt, others are very large and can absorb a lot of water at once while others are tiny and have very little water absorption. So it is fair to say that not all mop heads will fit in all mop buckets.

Our company has to deal regularly with this issue and even if it sounds silly, it is actually very common. People order a small mop bucket and a large mop head or a huge mop bucket and a tiny mop head. We highly recommend our customers to drop by the shop and check out the size of the mops and the buckets before purchasing it.

8L to 12L Mop Bucket | 200-250 Grams Mop Head

15L to 18L Mop Bucket | 250-300 Grams Mop Head

25L to 35L Mop Bucket | Order large 350 up mop heads

The Condition Of The Floor Is Also Essential

The difference between daily cleaning and heavy duty cleaning is the fact that the “daily cleaning” is a light maintenance process while the “heavy duty cleaning” is a heavy scrubbing and the usage of aggressive cleaning products. The heavy duty mop buckets are usually carried around in vans and are exposed to a lot of shocks, kicks and drops. So the heavy duty mop bucket has to be made from a thick material, be harsh chemical resistant, be heat resistant, be fitted with a wringer so the user can regulate the mop humidity levels and be made to last for long periods of time.

On the other hand, if you are daily cleaning a pretty clean floor on a regular basis, all of the above requirements do not apply to you. Some floors require a number of cleaning operations before noticeable results are achieved. This will include stripping of pre-existing sealers, deep grout cleaning, grinding, neutralising, etc.

Flat Mops

There is a definite trend towards flat mops and for a good reason. The flat mops are easier to use, use less water, fit in all corners, less mess, extendable handles and other advantages. But you need to be aware that there are specific flat mop buckets that work with flat mops only. A normal mop bucket cannot be used to effectively rinse a flat mop head.

A flat mop head fitted with pockets has a specific frame that opens up and allows the flat mop to be soaked into the cleaning solution and then it has a special wringer that dies it out. A normal mop head cannot fit in the flat mop bucket so be aware of that before ordering a flat mopping system.

The Wheels

Most large professional mop buckets are fitted with wheels. These mop buckets are usually large and can hold a lot of weight. Carrying a 35L mop bucket around for a full day can really damage your back. So the question is why would anyone buy a mop bucket without wheels if it is easier to use? Well, for a number of reasons.

Some floors scratch easy and the wheels can do some damage when moved around. Some other floors are not flat so it is impossible to wheel around on a rough surface. Some large mop buckets are used to clean stairs and it could wheel away and spill water all over the place. Some floors are very soft and could mark from the wheels.

Usually the large mop buckets with wheels are used for large commercial floors that are flat and easy to move a mop bucket around. Residential users that are likely to wash a small floor area of below 50 sq meters, do not usually buy mop buckets with wheels.

If you are moving to a new unit, if you are remodeling your old unit or if you are not 100% sure what mop bucket works with what mop, just call us or drop by our shop. We are always happy to help.