I have been encapping with my HOS Orbot for about one year now and love the results I have achieved with it. One of our commercial accounts recently asked for a proposal to clean 2800 square feet of tile and grout.

I've been told applying my cleaning solution with a bucket and mop and giving it some dwell time is a better approach than using the sprayborg to apply. After giving it some dwell time, use the Orbot with the weight set and appropriate scrub brush to clean and then use pads to remove the cleaning solution from the floor. I am hoping someone on this forum can provide some information on how many pads I should plan on using to remove the cleaning solution for a 3000 square foot job and the best type of pad to use for this.

Also, if any of you have used an HOS Orbot for this type of job, I would greatly appreciate any other helpful suggestions or comments. Thank you for your time.

Guy....

it would be far faster to use a vacuum to pick up the solution after scrubbing, you would have to lay the solution to thin in my view to go fast enough with pads.Depending on the cleaning solution you have used those pads might be only used for this purpose any more. ceramic t&g we use stripper , works fast more cost effective wont harm the floor.

Use a good chem (Shorbeast 2790 or Newline's Hi-Test IMO). Mix it with hot water (if possible). Lay it down with a pump up sprayer. Use low pressure and a narrow spray on the grout lines. You'll clean the tile as a byproduct of cleaning the grout lines.

Let your chem sit 10-15 minutes depending on how nasty the grout lines. Use the grout brush for your Orbot and the weight set. Go slow and scrub it down. Then suck it up with a shop vac and squeege attachment. You might need a brush for corners/edges. This is a pretty easy way to make a buck.

FYI, Shop-Vac has a pump out while sucking up capable vac under $150 (yellow commercial) that lasted over a year of 2+ hrs a night sucking up degreaser in restaurants I was cleaning. They have a blue-grey home owners model that won't last nearly as long, but, for a one time test run IIRC, it is about $80 at Lowes. Home Depot has a great wand (squeege, hard floor, and carpet heads & 10ft hose) at around $50. Works much better than the crappy plastic things that come with the shop-vacs.

Here is a link to the vac I used from True Value.

http://www.truevalue.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=8485

and the wand package from Home Depot (no hose now).

http://www.homedepot.com/Tools-Hardware-Wet-Dry-Vacuums-Wet-Dry-Vacuum-Accessories/h_d1/N-5yc1vZb8pdZ12l1/R-100638354/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Guys...thanks for your time and information...much appreciated!