Pickup, Push and Rotary Brooms

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 or compact track loader, a sweeper can brush, scour and even pick up jobsite debris to restore operations to like-new standards. There are three prevailing schools of broom categories today for loaders — push, pickup and angle or rotary.

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.

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.

The simplest design is a push broom, which 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 coworkers.

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.