Where? Southwest Sweepers... Who else sells sweepers Scott? Let me know.
My theory has been that I can just get a sweeper that vacuum's and have my employee with the back pack blower blow around the curbs. He can blow all around the curbs and inside the planters. Then the sweeper vacuums up the debris. I have watched many sweepers while cleaning properties and at least half have not had curb brooms.
I watched a company with a huge sweeper with water and curb brooms drive around a parking lot for 40 minutes at 20mph and do a terrible job. I have seen street sweepers with two employees with a small sweeper without water or curb brooms get the job done better in the same amount of time. Expensive equipment does not always equal best results. I want to get the job done correctly with minimum overhead.
Hey Ty,
There are many ways to successfully sweep or clean a parking lot even without machinery. Although, If you are getting into the commercial parking lot sweeping business, you will need a dedicated machine for that purpose. All dedicated parking lot machines have self dump hydraulic hopper and a side/curb broom.
The sweeper truck works every night, all night long and requires constant maintenance. There are many sweeper owners who do not understand or neglect/abuse their equipment. If not maintained on regular basis, this equipment becomes useless. What you've seen is probably that case.
When power sweeping a shopping center/parking lot, I divide four major parts of the work process:
1. Blowing off storefronts/sidewalk and any blind corners where the sweeper truck can't cover
2. Power sweeping: If the truck works properly, it's times faster and more efficient, and detailed than humans hand.
3. Landscaping litter pick up by hand
4. trash liners change
Keep in mind that most of the time, you will need to clean mess such as: diapers, mud (when it rains), fine debris such as broken glass/sand, cigarette butts and a lot of other nasty stuff that you do not want to touch by hand.
Fortunately there are sweeper trucks which will pick up all that stuff and after you are done or the hopper gets full, you dump the trash directly into the dumpster. Believe me, if you have big and busy shopping centers to clean, you or your employees will not want to get even close to all that nasty trash. You also need to keep in mind the time frame for night/power sweeping by most contracts: 11pm-6am. Dumping trash by hand could be time consuming.
Of course, if you have a small shopping center or parking lot, it can be cleaned by hand. This kind of work is called "porter service" and is more commonly used during the day when machinery can't be used. The porter service also includes light maintenance and cleaning on the exterior of the building.
Well maintained and busy/large shopping centers have porter on duty 6-7 days a week and night power sweeping every night.
These are the shopping centers where power sweeping business makes sense.
If you are looking into small investment, I also would suggest to check out the tow behind mechanical sweeper T-500 by Victory Sweepers. If you know these machines, you can get a great deal on used trucks that need little repairs or upgrades. Again the best place to shop for sweepers is SweeperMarket magazine.
I hope this info helps.
Fox Power Sweeping and Maintenance, Miami
