NaceCare TBL 2228T 28" Battery Traction Walk-Behind Floor Scrubber

It's 9 p.m. in a school with 60,000 square feet of corridors and a gym lobby that has to be dry by 7. Two custodians with mops won't get there. With the NaceCare TBL 2228T walk-behind floor scrubber, one operator scrubs a 28-inch swath, picks up the dirty water and leaves the floor dry in a single pass, while the traction drive does the pushing.

You get a 28-inch (711 mm) cleaning path from two 14-inch scrub heads, 22.5-gallon solution and recovery tanks and NaceCare's NX1K lithium iron phosphate batteries. The TBL 2228/100T carries two batteries for up to 3 hours 20 minutes of scrubbing. The TBL 2228/150T carries three for up to 4 hours 50 minutes.

The charger is built in. Plug the charging lead into a wall outlet at the end of the shift, and two batteries are full in about 5 hours, three in about 7.5. NaceCare rates each NX1K for more than 4,000 charge cycles, which it puts at roughly 15 years of cleaning five days a week, and there's nothing to water.

The traction motor drives the machine forward and in reverse at up to 4.3 mph, so your operator steers almost 400 lbs of machine instead of pushing it.

Two things sell me on this machine. The first is pressure. You can put up to 110 lbs on the two 14-inch heads, and an extra-load pedal adds more for the dirty spots. That's well above the 70 lbs on NaceCare's own CRL 2128 ride-on. The second is how simple it is. There are no computer boards and no actuator motors: a pedal lifts the brush deck, a lever lifts the squeegee and toggle switches run the water and vacuum. Fewer parts, fewer service calls.

It's built for big open floors: schools, warehouses, big-box retail and hospital corridors, roughly 40,000 square feet a night and up. Be honest with yourself about two things. It weighs 392 to 416 lbs and the squeegee is 37.3 inches wide, wider than a standard 36-inch door, so plan your routes and your trailer. And Numatic rates it for slopes up to 6%, so a steep loading ramp isn't its job.

• One pass, dry floor. Two 14-inch heads scrub and the 37.3-inch semi-parabolic squeegee picks up right behind them, so nobody walks on a wet floor at 7 a.m.

• Traction drive up to 4.3 mph. Forward, reverse and a speed dial at the handle, so a 400-lb machine never wears out your operator.

• Up to 110 lbs of brush pressure. The extra-load pedal adds pressure for heavy soil without changing heads.

• 22.5-gallon tanks. Fewer trips to the mop sink on big floors, and the stretch hose lets you fill from a tap outside the janitor closet.

• NX1K lithium iron phosphate batteries. Over 4,000 charge cycles, a 5-year battery warranty, and you can top up at lunch at any charge level.

• No computer boards, no actuator motors. Pedals and levers raise the deck and squeegee, so there's less to break.

• Breakaway squeegee with tool-free blades. It knocks off instead of breaking if it catches a column, and the blades change by pulling the pins.

• Key switch, emergency stop and hour meter. Safety and service tracking sit right on the control panel.

• 68 dB(A). Normal conversation runs around 60 dB, so it can work in occupied buildings without clearing the room.

NaceCare rates the TBL 2228T at 31,000 square feet an hour. That figure assumes nonstop straight lines. After 30% to 50% for turns, refills and edges, plan on roughly 15,500 to 21,700 square feet an hour. That's about 51,700 to 72,300 square feet on one charge of the TBL 2228/100T, and 74,900 to 104,900 square feet on the TBL 2228/150T.

Water sets the other limit. Flow adjusts from 0 to about 0.8 gallons a minute, so on the highest setting a full 22.5-gallon tank lasts around 28 minutes. Most floors run well below that.

Two batteries or three? The TBL 2228/150T costs $1,500 more, the price of one extra NX1K battery, and adds about 1.5 hours of runtime. The trade-off is charge time: 7.5 hours instead of 5. Pick three if one machine covers a whole building every night, or runs back-to-back shifts.

Not sure this is the right size? Send us your square footage, floor type and cleaning schedule, or call (855) 601-5678, and we'll tell you which machine fits, including when the answer is a smaller one.

Both NaceCare machines clean a 28-inch path on the same NX1K batteries, so the choice comes down to how your crew works. Price isn't what decides it: the one-battery CRL 2128/50T costs $200 less than the TBL 2228/100T.

The CRL 2128 compact ride-on is the faster machine on open floor. NaceCare rates it at 43,300 square feet an hour against 31,000 for the TBL 2228T, your operator sits for the whole shift, and NaceCare rates it for ramps up to 11 percent. Long open runs in a warehouse, gym or concourse favor the ride-on.

The TBL 2228T scrubs harder and runs longer on a set of batteries. You get 110 lbs of brush pressure against 70, 22.5-gallon tanks against 21, and 3 hours 20 minutes on two batteries where the two-battery CRL 2128/100T gets 3 hours 10 minutes. It's also the better fit for congested floors where the operator keeps stepping off to move chairs and carts, and for crews you'd rather not train on a ride-on.

Short version: lots of open floor and tired operators, choose the ride-on. Heavy soil, tight layouts or long shifts on one charge, choose the walk-behind.

The TBL 1120 and the TBL 1620T are the 20-inch members of the same family. The TBL 1120 is a push machine with 11-gallon tanks, and the two-battery TBL 1120/100 costs $8,200 less than the TBL 2228/100T. The TBL 1620T adds traction drive and 16-gallon tanks to the 20-inch path. Step up to the TBL 2228T when 8 more inches of path and bigger tanks save your crew an hour a night.

All of them run on the same NX1K battery, so a spare works across the fleet. No walk-behind replaces edge work, though. You'll still sweep or dust mop first and hand-detail the corners. Compare every size in our walk-behind floor scrubbers collection.