A Brush with Excellence

Dirt, snow, leaves, grass, gravel and garbage — a broom attachment can clean up a lot of materials. Fastened to the front of an industrious skid steer loader, a sweeper can brush, scour and even pick up jobsite debris to restore operations to like-new standards. When it comes to skid loaders, there are three prevailing schools of broom categories today — push, pickup and angle or rotary.    

“Rotary brooms are most popular because of their versatility, and they can be used for snow removal,” says Greg Rostberg, marketing manager with Bobcat Co. (who offers all three styles for skid steers). “They are especially useful for landscapers in areas of the country where they can get full seasonality out of the attachment. Sweepers [pickups] are more common when contractors are responsible for cleaning up their jobsites after they’ve completed the job. In many cases, this has to be done on a daily basis since the EPA is becoming more stringent on extraneous dirt on jobsites. The push broom is fast and is best used when you only need to do a rough job. And push brooms don’t cause nearly as much dust.”

The Rotary Club

Rotary brooms (also called angle brooms) brush away debris, trash and jobsite detritus using spinning sets of durable and flexible polypropylene, wire bristles or a combination of both. Rotary-powered angle brooms offer more cleaning force than a pickup broom, but not the ability to collect debris. Many rotary brooms feature hydraulic adjustors to tilt the broom head left or right using the skid steer hydraulic controls. Otherwise, the angle is adjusted manually. Once the bristles make contact with the ground surface, the debris is moved to the side of the broom with precision, power and a little grit.

“Angle brooms featuring 50/50 poly and wire combo brush material provide longer wear than a 100 percent poly brush,” explains Ron Peters, product manager at CEAttachments Inc., a single source attachment supplier promoting EDGE brand attachments. “We offer single motor angle brooms as well as dual motor. Single motor angle brooms require hydraulic flow between 8 to 25 gallons per minute [gpm]. Dual motor angle brooms require 18 to 36 gpm of hydraulic flow. One should choose a wider width broom than the path desired if the broom will be operated at a 30-degree angle. For example, an 84-in. broom at a 30-degree angle will sweep a 75-in. path.”

Rotary brooms can tackle just about any kind of loose material including dirt, gravel, grass and general jobsite clutter. Large sticks, ropes and wires should be removed from the site prior to sweeping as they can become tangled in the revolving parts of the broom. A rotary broom will create more airborne debris and dust than push brooms and sweepers, but it moves heavier debris easier. This particular kind of broom is best suited for areas where the materials can simply be swept away and not immediately collected, like streets, sidewalks, loading docks and warehouses. They are also ideal in intersections where paved roads and gravel roads meet and have an excess of gravel, or on turf when debris or dirt need to be swept off. Rotary brooms for skid steers typically cost $4,000 to $10,000.
    

Pickup and Delivery

Pickup brooms (a.k.a. sweepers) collect debris into a bucket or hopper, enabling it to be transported and disposed of offsite. These broom collectors can capture a wide range of materials — dirt, gravel, small stones, paper, grass clippings and all types of other, smaller construction rubbish.

“Full-featured pickup sweepers like Paladin’s VRS and VS can dump the material into trucks or containers to be removed from the sweeping site,” says Jim Koch, sweeper specialist consultant for Sweepster, a Paladin Construction Group company. “Pickup sweepers are required when the debris has to be removed from the sweeping site. They operate best in lighter accumulations of debris and are not effective sweeping bulky material such as deep leaves. Typical applications include urban street cleaning, parking lot cleaning and asphalt jobs requiring the material to be removed from the site.”

Pickup brooms can experience trouble sweeping up certain items due to their weight — plastic pop bottles and cans are sometimes too light and tend to get pushed around. The pickup broom consists of a collection bucket that is located behind the broom and a shroud that goes over the brush. Pickups can be used in both forward and reverse. Retention buckets have a load capacity between 10 and 25 cu ft. Sweeper-style brooms require more consideration of the lift capacity of a skid steer because of the additional weight involved in collecting material and dumping it. Operators should also consider how big and how heavy the material is.

Most pickup sweepers come equipped with a cutting edge or blade that helps scrape tough substances off the surface. The edge should be positioned at least 1 in. off of the ground when it is not needed. When in use, the blade should barely touch the surface, allowing it to lightly graze without ruining the cleaning area. Gutter brooms can also be attached to the side of the sweeper to help with its task. Pickup brooms can cost between $4,000 and $12,000 and gutter broom attachments can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $2,200.

Push and Spray Kits

The simple design of a push broom keeps it cheap, makes it easy to use and also minimizes any dust that may be produced while operating. These brooms are ideal for pushing dirt, leaves, snow or other outdoor materials along as you drive, reducing the chance of flying stones or debris that might damage nearby buildings, vehicles or co-workers. Push brooms are usually fitted to a bucket with clamps and are not really stand-alone attachments. Pushers can cost from $2,500 to $7,000.

“Push-type brooms have a low acquisition cost, little to no maintenance and easy brush replacement,” says Dan Rafferty, North American attachments manager at Volvo Construction Equipment. “Push brooms are excellent for sweeping factory and warehouse floors and handling wood and sawdust. They can be used in pre-sweep operations before using a hydraulic pickup sweeper.”

To aid operators in their cleaning assignment (for pickup and rotary brooms), a spray kit attachment can be added. This kit helps to reduce visible dust when sweeping, releasing a fine mist of water ahead of the machine. The mist knocks any rising dust to the ground and allows it to be swept to the side. This also prevents dust or flying debris from bothering the operator and the surrounding public.

Where the kit is mounted is dependent on the individual sweeper model. Although the nozzles are placed on the front of the brush, the water tank can be mounted in a variety of different places depending on its size and weight. Therefore, the location of the tank depends on the structure of the sweeper itself and the lift capacity of the loader. Some operators opt to mount the tank on top of the loader, in order to keep the weight of the water from interfering with the broom and to increase visibility for the driver. The cost of spray kits can range anywhere from $850 to $1,500.

“Most people have this installed at a dealership,” says Chris Knipfer, marketing manager with Bobcat Co. “The water tanks mount to the back of the machine’s frame, so a few holes have to be drilled. Then you route the water hoses, most commonly routed along the boom arm. The nozzles are then mounted to the attachment every so many inches apart, based on the size of the attachment.”

Keith Gribbins is managing editor of Compact Equipment, based in Peninsula, Ohio.