Shark rotator commercial use

[cope304]

Howdy folks,
I work at a fire station and one thing I’ve noticed is we use a shark rotator lift away vacuum to clean our fire station. Just to give a little layout, our fire station isn’t what a typical commercial setting looks like. We have a separate apparatus bay which is the garage for our fire engines and equipment and we have our “bunkhouse” where we sleep and eat. The bunk is set up like I normal house, just it has bigger rooms to accommodate 8-12 people everyday. For regular cleanings we use a shark rotator on our carpet, we don’t use it on bare floors. One thing I’ve noticed is a lack of care for the machine. And it’s let me to wonder why it’s even here in a commercial setting. Anyone have any opinions on this, I mean it seems to work fine, but I don’t know why our fire station didn’t buy a bagged machine like a sanitaria or Windsor bagged machine.
Let me know your opinions on this, would love to hear what others think about this

 

[huskyvacs]

They buy them because they hear they are "the best vacuum ever" and also likely cheap because they are usually always on clearance or on sale.

I have seen a local glass manufacturer and my local Menards hardware store both use Sharks in a commercial environment. They do not last long. Most stores use just whatever vacuum off the shelf for the store vac.

For commercial use the magic equipment you want would have metal parts, easy to use design, deep cleaning ability, easy to find and stockpile parts, and easy to source parts on the fly within an hour or less including driving. Shark is none of those things.

Royal and Sanitaire products both fit the bill, Kirby would be 3rd but they are not designed for that purpose due to their sensitivity to large debris and the transmission, but the G series can hot-swap parts from anything from the G3 to the Ultimate G with ease which makes it ideal to just go out and grab a part for cheap and throw it on.

A Royal is a bit more expensive than a Sanitaire for the initial buy-in but the parts are more durable long-term. Most companies now buy Sanitaires in bulk and then use them until they break then whip out a new one because they have a cheap purchase price. Mostly all the Sanitaires I find in the trash have had ruined fans or the motors have just been run until their brushes are to the stubs. They are also more sensitive to large debris cutting into the belt and prematurely killing it. Locations with large debris can prematurely damage your belts in record time.