Flooded Lead Acid Battery Replacement for Floor Scrubbers

Flooded lead acid is the lowest cost per amp-hour of any floor scrubber battery, and it's what most machines leave the factory with. That makes it the simplest replacement to plan: if you're swapping flooded for flooded, your existing charger already runs the correct profile, so there's nothing to reprogram and no charger to replace. It also buys the most raw capacity per dollar — the largest flooded cells in this category carry more amp-hours than anything comparable in AGM at the same price.

What you're trading for that price is upkeep. Flooded cells lose water as they charge and need topping off with distilled water on a regular schedule, they need periodic equalize charging to keep individual cells balanced, and they have to be charged somewhere ventilated, since charging releases hydrogen. They also have to stay upright, and terminals need occasional cleaning. In exchange, a flooded pack is the only chemistry you can actually diagnose: a hydrometer reading tells you which cell is failing, so you're not replacing a whole pack on a guess. If the watering is the sticking point, single-point watering kits cut it to a few minutes per battery.