Floor pads quite literally cover a whole spectrum of products. There are black pads for stripping, green pads for scrubbing, red pads for buffing and many more colours and grades designed for specific tasks in between.

The colour coding of floor pads makes it easy for operatives to tell at a glance which pad needs to be used where. In some cases it could damage a floor if the wrong floor pad were used: an aggressive black pad might well scratch a delicate floor surface, for example. Sometimes the wrong product would simply prove ineffective, such as if a fine polishing pad were used in an attempt to remove sealants or black marks.

However it could be argued that the growing number of floor pads on the market is beginning to represent a potential source of confusion for the end user. Does this mean we have reached a 'ceiling' in terms of floor pad colours, grades and sizes? On the contrary says Americo Manufacturing's director of marketing Cameron Harrison. She believes there is still plenty of room for more pads in an ever-growing sector.

"The cleaning industry as a whole is a fairly mature market, but when floor types change there is a need for new and specialised products," she said. "The trend is moving towards pads with very specific applications rather than fewer products for general use."

As an example she cites the recent introduction of melamine pads. "These have been designed to address the issue of shallow grout lines - something that has been a challenge for years," she said.

"Polished concrete is another example of a floor surface that requires specific solutions," said Harrison. "We are encountering this floor type more frequently in today's retail units, but polished concrete requires the use of speciality-specific diamond pads for cleaning, polishing, scrubbing, stripping, burnishing and restoration." Diamond pads use billions of microscopic diamonds to produce a highly polished appearance.

Other recent innovations to the market include pads made from a heavy-duty turf material for use on grouting, says Harrison. "Turf pads are designed to provide a scrubbing action on uneven floors without the need for changing the brush driver blocks," she said.