The application of aqueous floor finishes to large surface areas remains a difficult problem for floor maintenance personnel. The application of floor finishes is commonly conducted by a simple manual application of floor finish accompanied by a manual spreading. Such manual application is often done by simply pouring liquid typically aqueous floor finish from a container and spreading the floor finish with a mop or squeegee device. Such an application is messy, difficult to control, and can result in uneven application of the floor finish leaving portions of the floor incompletely covered with other portions having excess finish. Such manual applications are also time consuming and uneconomic.
In the prior art we have found that mobile or portable floor treatment apparatus are typically divided into two separate art classifications. A first classification is mobile floor cleaning equipment, while a second application relates to portable floor finish apparatus. The prior art typically discusses floor "waxes" in a floor finish context. "Waxes" are an obsolete sub-set of finishes; the term wax is sometimes used incorrectly as a synonym for floor finish. Floor waxes are formulated for home and commercial realty floor finishing and are typically not a finish that falls within the scope of the invention. Further, floor cleaning systems in the prior art are substantially different than the floor finish systems of the invention. Such floor cleaning systems, typically in a step wise procedure, apply a cleaner, removes the cleaner and applies a rinse, removes the rinse and may apply a finishing wax coating. The floor finish system of the invention is primarily adapted to an even distribution of a floor finish over a large area floor from an aqueous material leaving a dried shiny attractive, uniform and durable floor coating.
Gewalt (U.S. Pat. No. 2,053,282), Thompson (U.S. Pat. No. 2,061,216), Payne (U.S. Pat. No. 2,731,656), Minerley (U.S. Pat. No. 2,875,463) and Cushing (U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,386) disclose an apparatus typically characterized in the prior art as "a fountain mop." Such systems comprise typically a wand having mounted thereon, a reservoir for an aqueous material that can be applied through a "fountain" and a mop head that can be used to distribute the aqueous material. Similar to such fountain mops, Floyd (U.S. Pat. No. 1,778,552), Burfield (U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,328) and Sloan (U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,471) each teach a mop or brush head that includes a spray system for introducing an aqueous material into the head or on a floor.
One common configuration of a typical mobile floor cleaning system is the portable or motor driven cleaning machine such as that shown in Girman et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,375) or Tipton (U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,713) these apparatus are configured to sequentially apply cleaning materials to a floor, scrub the floor and then remove the cleaning materials for further operations. A brief review of these disclosures show that no system is available that is adapted for the convenient, efficient application of a liquid floor finish over a large area floor using a portable cart system. The larger portable or motor driven systems are adapted for the serial application and removal typically by vacuum systems of aqueous materials used to wash, rinse or coat floor surfaces.
A substantial need exists for a useful efficient floor finish applicator.