Hello Again,
I am looking for first hand reviews of push sweepers for large barn aisles. Do they actually work? I know it’s not going to pick up a bunch of fresh manure but how about dried bits and hay? Does it kick up as much dust as a regular corn broom ? Also recommendations for regular type push brooms corn vs contractor brooms etc. Aisles are interlocking brick.
Thanks
Mixed sweeper reviews on Google. Some love it, others said it was useless picking things up unless tiny.
As a push broom user, the barn brooms collect debris, have to “comb” the bristles to get it out every couple weeks. Hair is a big tangle item, along with stems of hay, sawdust. So I believe you would be combing out the sweeper brushes often, to keep them effective with only one layer of soft, long bristles. Barns are not like sweeping garages and warehouses with smooth cement. A similar sweeper at work, older, worn, was about useless keeping the door parking area clean, on asphalt paving.
Choosing push brooms, I get the mid range models. Not too stiff and coarse, not soft, those can’t do a good job here. Width of 18-24 inches. Wider is heavy to lift, not seeming as firm on the floor on the ends. Get the bracing, helps keep the bristle head firm on the handle, not wobbly. Best technique is push, lift, then down again behind the pile and push again. Good heart workout! You collect more dirt that way, keeps knocking dirt out of bristles as you go. Able to push manure too. I do not use the kitchen cornj broom types in the barn much.
I am going to say unless floors are hard and wet, any broom will raise a bit of dust. Guess it depends on your cleanliness standards of dust removal. Mine have lowered, there are bits of hay or sawdust in corners of floor and wall sometimes. Anything done In the aisle makes dirt! I can’t keep sweeping things all day while using the barn, would get nothing else done!. I do use the leaf blower about once a week to clean well on those floor edges, rough cement flooring. NO HORSES IN THE BARN WHEN USING THE BLOWER! Otherwise a daily brooming of aisle after putting in stall bedding, is sufficient. There is a lot of traffic thru the aisle in a day. This is a working barn, I am the hired help, no employees.
Billy Goat commercial sweeper.
Decades ago, our show barn had one of those and it worked great:
That made our work way easier for plain aisle sweeping, but you didn’t want manure piles or such in the way, just in case it may be too much to pick up.
Don’t remember if it was self propelled, think not and it was electric, you had a cord dragging, I think.
I was too long ago and I was not running it, grooms were.
Our barn has one and it sits unused in the storage closet. All of the staff prefers sweeping or blowing out the aisle instead of using the push sweeper. It’s heavy, slow, and doesn’t pick everything on the first pass, so it ends up taking longer. The aisle is a pebbled concrete, so maybe it would work better on a smoother concrete aisle? I’m not sure…
I was thinking, OP said their aisle is “interlocking bricks”.
That would be very hard to sweep with brooms, a sweeper may be better at getting it all.
Then, our sweeper was used on a slick concrete aisle and I didn’t run it but rarely, as a trainer mostly fed and rode.
It seemed to do a very good and clean job and definitely faster and easier than by hand.
Ours was a very wide and very long aisle, so glad for any help sweeping it several times a day.
Don’t know the cost, may be too much for the OP’s needs, a broom good enough for a smaller area.
Now a blower is great, but sure stirs up a lot of dust that then settles into everything.
We use one of those today for the part in front of the tack/wash/storage, but not where the stalls are, unless horses are outside.
I bought a battery operated one from HomeDepot: Ryobi Cordless 4.5 gallon Devour Debris Sweeper
Mix results - mostly because our mats are sitting on sand and are too uneven for the machine to roll smoothly over them. Once I get our mats pulled up, re-level the substrate and put the mats back down, I’m sure the sweeper will work really well. (It also needs to be stored in a warm environment - Lithium Ion batteries don’t function when cold.)
I would think you would need a more level floor for the push-powered Karcher than the batter powered one.
That being said - It does a really quick job of sweeping and creates much less dust than a regular broom!
They use these at the University clinic. It seems like it does a reasonable job.
Yes, ours was bought after seeing the one in Colorado U vet facilities.
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