Trying to help out one of the local baddy facilities here where I am in Vancouver, BC. Was just chatting with the owner about the place and he mentioned that it's a major task to sweep the mat courts clean once a week of the feather bits leftover from shuttles. So I thought hey, why don't I pose this problem on the forum and see if together we can come up with a quick and easy solution. Thinking about it a bit, I figured that sweeping is easier than vacuuming, since there's no hose to worry about. So let's say we sweep the bits off the mat to the edges where there's carpet, later to be vacuumed along with the carpet areas. So the question then, is there a type of push broom or sweeper that is: 1. wide enough for fast cleaning (ie. 3-4 ft wide) 2. yet gentle enough that it can easily glide over the mat without sticking to or damaging the surface, and 3. effective at trapping the feather bits as the broom is pushed continously to the mat edge. Any ideas? How do they do it at international tournaments?
We use these at our local facility's, they are 2meters wide 6'6" at full stretch and the feathers get caught in the v so no need to dump the feathers, you can sweep the whole hall in one go and by the end you pull the thing back and you have a small pile of feathers you can dustpan and brush up. Takes under 1minute per court at a slow pace. I didn't know what they were called so I googled V sweeper turns out that's their name.
Tks craigandy... but there are 18 courts! And they're mats too, so not sure if the V sweeper will glide over the surface smoothly without catching onto the mats.
We use it on rubber flooring it glides like an eagle . the picture shows the man standing stupidly upright, the metal bits are on hinges to allow you to turn and but more importantly you can lower down a lot allowing you to glide away(i.e not have the handles so upright). alternatives there are regular brushes that are 3+foot wide We also have a sit on vacuum/sweeper if he wants to shell out the cash. There are thing you can drag around like a horse ploughing a field, but easier to see what your doing with above.
wow 18 courts is alot. if getting stuck is an issue not sure if anyone recalls but they have these roller sweeps that they use at restaurants to just basically go over any debris and it gets caught up in the roller and pan inside. Pretty old school but they were effective at doing their jobs. Not super wide but cheap and can be done anytime. Once full you just open and empty the small tray inside.
Good ideas! Tks. The big V sweeper for overall cleaning, and the small roller sweeper for spot cleaning.
The answer is large dust mops. They glide and pivot nicely. Floors really need to be swept at least once a day though. Its the stuff you can't see that really needs to be swept up to keep players safe, namely dust and small rocks. Takes 20 minutes to sweep 12 courts.
