About home carpet cleaning appliances

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been thinking about getting my own carpet cleaner/shampooer. I’ve seen some advertised and I’ve occasionally looked at store displays. I’ve never talked to anyone who owned one, tho. So, I’m hoping among the Teeming Millions, some can share their experiences.

Have you ever owned/used one?
Are they effective?
Do they extract most of the water they use?
Is using one really like running a vacuum cleaner?
Are there features I should require or avoid?
Would I be better off just renting a steam cleaner?
Would you be interested in coming over to clean my carpets? :smiley:

I will do some research with consumer sites, but personal experiences can be more informative. So, do tell…

2

Own one.

Slower than vacuum cleaner - no doubt.

Does work.

Needs few hours to dry after done.

Works best when you use quality solution that puts down a stain blocker as it cleans.

After two weeks you still want new carpets.

I think ours is a Hoover, and it works well. Especially on good carpet. Good carpet that doesn’t quite need that desparate cleaning really looks good when done, and if you use the solution that prevents future stains, you can prolong the carpet’s life.

3

Great thread, FCM.

I’m tired of using that can of foamy Woolite or Spot Shot and them scrubbing until I almost faint. I want a carpet cleaner, dammit! I don’t care how much it cost I just want it to work without having to wait hours for the carpet to dry.

4

Philster - does yours have the scrub brushes? That’s what my carpet needs - more than just a shot of steam. As far as wanting to replace the carpets - this house will be sold within 2 years, so I just want the [sub]crappy[/sub] original carpet to be presentable, despite my dogs.

Juanita, I’m way too old to be scrubbing by hand!! My knees and back wouldn’t take it, for sure!

5

So how do you clean your carpets now?

6

I used my parents’ Bissel carpet cleaner (they bought it in the '80’s) before I moved into this house, and it worked rather well. Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy to use. It’s like a canister vacuum. You do have to bend over a little, though, and the position felt awkward after a while. It had a little scrub brush in the head, and a trigger so that you can control when the solution squirts out.

The head was not as wide as a vacuum, and I worked in straight lines to make sure that I didn’t miss any spots, so it’s a bit more labor-intensive than vacuuming, but not much more so. I’d do one swipe while pulling the trigger, a swipe going back in the other direction so that I could vacuum more water up, and then move on to the next strip. The more slowly you go, the better it works.

It didn’t perform miracles. The previous owners let their bedroom carpet get so dirty that you can see exactly where they put all their furniture. You can still see a change in color, but it does look quite a bit better. It worked best on the newest carpet in the living room. I think the machines are better at maintaining the newness of new carpet than they are at making old carpet look new. It also doesn’t really take out spots and stains–Resolve would be better for that.

It took about a day for the carpet in each room to dry. I went over the carpet again in some of the rooms after I was done, using the machine as a wet-vac (no water/solution) to vacuum up excess water so that it would dry faster. That helped. It really helped that I had no furniture in the house at the time.

I’d buy one if there wasn’t one that was so easy to borrow. The newer ones are probably better, but this one wasn’t bad at all.

7

ummm, well, er…

Apart from spot cleaning as required, I just run the vacuum cleaner on them. And if it wasn’t for the dogs, they’d look almost new. (We’ve been here 2 years.) Too late we realized that light gray wasn’t the best choice. I’ve been wanting to clean them - thinking about renting a steam cleaner, but I’d rather have my own cleaner if they work and won’t break the bank. Hence this thread.

8

My 2 cents: DO NOT EVER PUT WATER ON YOUR CARPETS!!

It soaks the padding and just causes it all to rot. Hire the local Chem-Dry folks to clean the carpets with chemicals. Ask them how thier system works and why its better than water-based shampooers.

Experiance owning rental properties has taught me to avoid soaking the carpets. Quickest way to ruin them (and speed deterioation of the subfloor).

Damn! I have forgotten to not become drunken again!

9

From my experience, water-based cleaning is fine. The secret is in not overwetting the carpet and saturating the backing.

Steer clear of “dry foam” systems, as they leave soap residue in your carpet, which attracts dirt and speeds up the resoiling process. The Kirby shampoo attachment uses this method, and while I thought it cleaned OK, I ended up repeating the job every month in order to maintain the appearance of the carpet. Great vacuum, crappy shampooer.

You may want to try the dry powder method (for example, Capture). However, this won’t clean a badly soiled carpet. Works wonders for “in-between” cleanings, though, and does a good job of refreshing and reconditiong the carpet pile.

Extraction cleaning is a better way to go. Don’t prespray the carpet and then vacuum up the moisture afterwards; spray and extract in one motion. This will prevent the moisture soaking the backing and causing it to rot.

You could hire a Hydro-Mist extraction machine or something similar, but you’d probably be better off buying a domestic model. It’ll do a fine job, pay for itself after a few uses, and you get to keep it. That way, you can freshen up your carpets whenever you like, instead of waiting for them to get really dirty before cleaning them. And if you spill something, you always have the machine on hand to take care of it.

The best one I’ve tried is the Hoover upright with the rotating scrub brushes. The Bissell is good, too, although I don’t find it as simple to use. Both work great; I used to demo them back when I worked in a department store, and it’s amazing how much dirt they lift out of the carpet.

If you use one of the domestic upright extractors, it’s best to work in straight lines, and go at a relatively slow pace. When you no longer see any moisture being sucked up the window, move onto the next area. If it’s a warm day and you have the windows open, the carpet should dry within a few hours.

10

ooo, I need to find that capture stuff!
I have used a hoover steam cleaner/shampooer a few times. It is one of the newer models but it is still heavy and you must go slowly so it takes a long time. As Kirk mentioned, you want to do this on a day where the carpet can dry out quickest.
I have the same problem Philster has where it looks great at first then goes bad quickly. A professional cleaner man said that it is once the stain gets to the pad (as a couple others have mentioned), that is damaged. It is really easy to do that when you spot treat a stain. Then when people walk on the ‘cleaned’ stain the pressure on the pad will bring the stain back to the surface.
Be careful about soaking the carpet to keep the pad from holding stains.

11

I have a mid-80’s bissel unit - spray/vacuum wand, dual motors, supply and reside tanks.

worked ok for a while, then the trigger valve died, and things went downhill.

my general rule - don’t mess with what the US markets call 'consumer grade" - buy pro grade, or rent/hire.

the bissell could never be expected to do more than 15 sq. ft. before re-filling (ok, the carpet gets REAL dirty before I feel obliged to clean it).

will watch this thread, as I am still looking for a real carpet cleaner.

anyone ever hired the truck-mounted cleaning folks? Good, bad, indifferent?

12

I have a Hoover with the rotating scrub brushes also. (Here’s the model, if you’re interested) I love it. Yes, it works. Yes, it gets almost all the water out of the carpet. And I’ve found my carpet dries in an hour or two.

I can’t say it’s like running a vacuum, though. It’s a slower process, and interrupted by having to dump the dirty water, and eventually having to refill the hot water tank. Personally, though, I like seeing all the dirty water I’ve sucked up. If you’re thinking about getting one, I highly recommend going to someplace like epinions.com and reading through some of the reviews… they go through many of the features, and this may help you in deciding what you want and don’t want. If you have any questions about the features on my model, I’ll be happy to answer them.

13

FCM, like these folks said 'bout Hoovers, it has scrub brushes.
Used properly, it won’t saturate carpet.
On a related note about stains: To remove a stain, the biggest mistake anyone makes is rubbing the stain. Never rub a stain. Stains should be blotted. Blotting transfers the stain from the carpet to the cloth. Rubbing it wears the carpet and deepens the stain’s depth…possibly to the floor padding.

In my circles, I have a rep for getting out any kind of stain. Even before going to town on the rugs and cleaning them with our Hoover cleaner, I would always go to each distinct stain and spot treat…and blot…and blot…and blot.

Blotting is slow, and effective - and just when you think the stain won’t budge, it starts to come up.

We have fairly light rugs, two kids and I’m in/out all day. I do alot of blotting w/ Resolve type products, an occassional cleaning, and our medium grade failry light rugs look very nice.

Clean as a ‘maintenance approach’, not as a catch up approach or you might have a dire situation a cleaner can’t fix in one clean sweep. Pun intended.

14

As it happened, I was looking at the Hoovers yesterday - surprised that they were under $200! I didn’t buy one, tho I did get some spot-cleaner. Based on what I’m reading here, it sounds as if the Hoover model is what I need. I like to think that if I have one at home, I’ll shampoo the carpets more frequently than every 3 or 4 years…

Many thanks for all the input. Since today’s payday, if I’ve got a little left over, I may just go get me one. It’ll give me something to do this weekend! [sub]no, I don’t have a life…[/sub]

15

Got me one of them “Big Green Clean Machine” cleaners. Sucks up all kinds of dirt, grime, small pets…lots of fun to use. Course now I am in the process of taking up carpet and replacing with wood floors, so owning it doesn’t make sense now. The only room in the house that will still have carpet is the dining room [sub] which makes no sense, a room where stuff is sure to be spilled I leave carpeted [/sub]. Still it’s a fun thing to use.

notice, not one old broad shot was made in this entire post :smiley:

16

Ya know, swampbear, you could get yourself back in my good graces by offering to bring your “Big Green Clean Machine” down to sunny Fla and clean my carpets. A true friend would do that, you know.

:smiley:

17

I have the Hoover Steam-Vac Deluxe, and like it very much. I’ve had it for about 6 years. If you have any pets, I think it’s essential to have a carpet cleaning machine.

If there are bad spots, you should spot-clean by hand first with Resolve.

Another good thing about the machine is that you can use it on kitchen floors. That was it will scrub the floor and always be using fresh water from the tank, instead of just mopping around with water that gets dirtier and dirtier, as happens when you do it the old way.

The attachment for cleaning kitchen floors is simple and comes with the machine. Once every few years you need a new attachment, which you can buy from the Hoover web site. In my opinion it’s nice that they have a web site where you can purchase parts if needed.

If you have no children and no pets, then I think it’s a tossup whether to have your own machine or not. The commercial cleaning people do a better job. But having your own machine is very convenient and does a pretty good job.