Clean up your floors without getting down and dirty.
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Unless you’re the protagonist at the beginning of a fairy tale, there’s no reason to get on your hands and knees to get the spotless floors you want. Floor scrubbers make short work of cleaning up messes and grime without reducing the quality of the clean. These devices use abrasive pads and electric motors to aid you in cleaning your floors.
A good floor scrubber radically reduces the labor and strain of cleaning your floors while also achieving a deeper clean. These devices help lift out set-in grime, stains, and even mold across multiple types of surfaces—hardwood, laminate, tile, and more.
With so many cleaning devices from steam cleaners to mops, choosing the right floor scrubber might feel like a shot in the dark. We used our cleaning and home care expertise to round up some of the best floor scrubber options to tackle any room and surface type in your house.
Most floor scrubbers are compatible with nearly every hard surface. This includes hardwood, laminate, tile, stone, and brick. Some options with coarse bristles may have a warning that they could potentially scratch some types of vinyl laminate, but most should be safe across the board.
You might find that dry options are safer for your hardwood, especially if you have lots of space between floorboards—but any hardwood with a lacquer should be fine with any of these scrubbers.
Some options are also compatible with carpet. While floor scrubbers may be great for deep cleaning some carpets and rugs, this list will mostly focus on options more tailored to effectively cleaning hard surfaced flooring. To deep clean your carpet, check out our recommendations for the best carpet steam cleaners.
Floor scrubbers are part of a relatively open category that includes anything from vacuums to hand brushes. Essentially, if the device helps scrub your floors, it counts as a floor scrubber. As a result, this means that theres a wide range of both electric and manual tools to choose from.
Electric floor scrubbers are either battery-powered or plug in to a wall outlet to power a spinning or suction mechanism that makes your cleaning routine faster and more thorough. Manual floor scrubbers are similar to more traditional cleaning products. They rely on your own arms to put the power behind them.
That being said, most manual floor scrubbers are much more affordable and compact compared to electric floor scrubbers, so if you’re short on space, opt for the manual options we recommend.
Many floor scrubbers come with added features that enhance their cleaning abilities, like added suction for picking up debris or steamers that loosen up stuck-on grime. Some have multiple scrubber heads to tackle different spaces, like tight corners or bathroom floors, and a few include buffing pads or polishing heads that work to make your floor sparkle after you’ve scrubbed the dirt and grime away.
We made our final decisions on this list based on significant research across multiple trusted online publications as well as our own stories on cleaning products. We used our knowledge of trustworthy cleaning brands to only recommend options that’ll last. We also relied on verified customer reviews to ensure that these choices were effective for cleaning in the hands of regular people. The options on this list also span between the many different types of floor scrubbers available as well as price points to fit any set of preferences or budgets.
One of the most powerful floor scrubbers for the price, this commercial-grade Orbiter from Oreck can scrub 0ut even the toughest stains. Unlike many other options on our list, this floor scrubber is compatible with virtually any surface type—including carpet.
While it’s designed for commercial use, this floor scrubber is small enough to fit in a closet or laundry room. At the same time, the added power of commercial application makes it great for scrubbing out grout and removed set-in dirt and grime.
Forget the batteries and cords, this floor scrubber gets things done the old fashioned way. The manual scrub may require a bit more elbow grease, but it should more than make up for it with its affordable price tag and powerful, stiff bristles.
While basic, this scrubber does come with a few nifty features including a built-in squeegee on the top of the brush to wipe away any water or cleaning solution after you’ve scrubbed.
This also comes with an extendable handle and can be fully disassembled for storage or maintenance.
A floor scrubber with a bit more to it, this option from Hoover doubles as a vacuum for the water it dispenses and the dirt it cleans up. Instead of relying on pouring out soapy water and drying it off yourself, this scrubber washes down the floor and vacuums up the wet, dirty water left behind, all in one pass.
The vacuum design is backed by some solid scrubbing power with four different spin brushes in constant motion as the rest of the machine washes and dries. That being said, if you need a closer, more detailed scrub, you may still need a bit of hands-on scrubbing.
Another commercial-grade choice, this floor scrubber, works on just about every material that floor has ever been made out of, including carpet. The dual scrubbing rotators have stiff bristles for breaking out heavy stains and set-in grime.
You can then attach the buffing or polishing pads to finish off your tile or hardwood so it shines smooth once finished. The commercial-strength design requires corded power, but the long plug means you have no need to buy an extension cord as well.
This option is a bit more expensive than most others on the list, so keep that in mind if you’re scrubbing on a budget.
Instead of just relying of cleaning detergents, the Shark floor scrubber comes with a powerful steamer. The two rotating pads in combination with the steady flow of hot steam help break up grime and wipe it away while simultaneously killing germs using the heat.
The benefit of using steam is the lack of chemical-based cleaners that might be unsafe for kids and pets. At the same time, this floor scrubber comes with an LED light and illuminates the dirt or dust around it on the floor—for better or worse.
With a spinning head and up to 90 minutes of runtime per charge, this battery-operated floor scrubber is built to break down grime in the toughest to reach spots. Each device comes with four different brush heads designed to tackle different areas from bathtubs to the corners of showers.
This floor scrubber is designed to tackle all the messes in your bathroom on the tiles, showers, baths, and even toilets. While it does come with a flat head attachment which can cover more ground, this option performs best in the bathroom compared to larger areas like the your living room.
This lightweight floor scrubber is best for anyone without a ton of storage space and no desire to work the floors by hand. The thin, battery-powered option comes with a two separate tanks for detergent and dirty water as well as a separate bottle of concentrate cleaner to get you started.
Each scrubber also comes with a parking station that charges the battery between uses. The rolling scrubbers are powerful for their size, though with the added power comes just a 20 minute battery life.
Tom Price is an Associate Editor of Reviews for Popular Mechanics, and also contributes to Runner's World, and Bicycling. He has previously covered product reviews, startup news, and even professional wrestling. In his free time, he enjoys watching pretentious TV, low-brow movies, and exercising for beauty, not health. If you are interested in exploring more of his work, check out his website.
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