Photo Courtesy of Gordon Brushing Mfg. Co., Inc.

When my roommate and I moved into our new house we had rented, we both remembered to bring brooms. We used these to clean out the house upon arrival, and sweep the porches and garage. What we did not remember to bring was a shovel. Sadly, we did not realize our mistake until a sudden winter storm came along, leaving over a foot snow on our driveway. So all we had was one small shovel left by our landlord and a broom. Thankfully we only had to alternate shoveling and sweeping the snow for about a half hour before our neighbor came to snow blow the whole thing for us. While this isn’t a typical broom application, it did slightly work on the light snow.

Brooms are usually used for sweeping up dust and debris in homes, businesses and other public places. They have a long handle and a bristled end that is able to catch the dirt and debris. There are two main types of brooms. These are sweep and push brooms. Sweep brooms are the more traditional form of brooms and are used by sweeping back and forth and tend to work best for smaller areas. With larger areas, push brooms are preferred because they can be much larger in width and don’t have to sweep backwards, only forward.

Bristles for brooms can be made of organic or synthetic materials. Organic materials can range from dried grass to sorghum. Meanwhile synthetic materials could include nylon, pvc or tampico. Most of the time, brooms are used to clean up loose dirt and debris. However, in many situations small amounts of water, oil or fuel could also be in the mix. Industries such as food and automobile could run into this problem. In these situations push brooms made with soft fibers are often employed. They are able to absorb small amounts of liquid whereas rigid bristles are typically unable.