Steamers

[Scott Mills]

I'm thinking of buying a steamer. The kind of steamer which you see on those hour long adverts on channel four at midnight which claims to clean everying from tiles, garden furntiure, sofas, carpets, car wheels and will strip paper with a different head.

I've seen one for 50quid in the Argos catalog but am off Macro this weekend in search of a bargin. Are these things anygood? do they do anything what they claim to on the adverts? What do people here use them for, or do they simply end up next to the tripod mounted lazer sprit level in the shed?

I'm thinking of getting one to rid the greese off the tiles behind the oven and where the oil leaked from the misses' stepper on the carpet. Will it do the trick?

Cheers Scott

[mike ring]

"Scott Mills" wrote in news:_m_cc.357$p45.137@newsfe1-win:

Ace at defrosting things, rubbish at everything else.

The demos on the shopping channels use very dodgy "dirt"

YMMV, ducks.... I mean, YMMV (ducks!)

mike r

[Harry Bloomfield]

Scott Mills formulated on Wednesday :

Opinions seem to differ (there was an earlier thread in this ng). Too be of any serious use you need to be looking at the larger machines with more steam output and a larger tank. They seem to be better at dealing with the smaller awkward areas, rather than the bigger areas which can get to and clean equally well with the usual products.

I found one particularly good for defrosting freezers, a few weeks ago. It certainly made easy work of cutting through the accumulated ice in both of our freezers, a fridge freezer and a commercial size chest freezer. The latter normally takes many hours of work.

On burnt on cooker marks they seem to be quite useless.

[Ian Stirling]

Do you mean, they are good for cleaning up poultry residue, but not much else?

[Sam]

We bought a reconditioned Goblin steamer a few years back. It was a good deal at £34 half-price. It was good at defrosting, tile-cleaning, window cleaning - only did that once coz a squeegy and bucket is just as good, cleaning the years of wax polish from quarry tiles before sealing and best of all removing dirt and stains from a cream sofa. Used it loads and then the hose failed and I thought it needed a new one - turns out on recent inspection that the inner hose had come off the nozzle mount inside the outer hose casing. Was quite a hassle to get inside the hose to fix it - hidden screws etc. - but managed so now it's fixed I expect I'll use it loads again especially on the long since mottled dingy cream sofa. Don't think I would have wanted to pay full price maybe.

Sam

[Andy Hall]

You should see the advertorial programs for them on Italian TV. Ample bosomed matrons with metallic coloured hair and arms the size of tree trunks waving them about. Seriously dangerous.

The cheap ones are underpowered and pretty useless. I would tend to agree that they are not up to the task of much.

We have a pretty good Polti machine with a steam generator bearing a resemblance to R2D2. This works very effectively at all the jobs that it says it will do, including those mentoned above.

They also make a really good iron, which is basically commercial grade and will deliver very effective amounts and temperatures of steam for ironing. That one is a considerable timesaver.

.andy

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[Alex]

I borrowed one from work, not sure what it was now, but it was huge, and I was informed that it was pretty much the best available. Best at what I ask?! Cleaning carpets - rubbish (1001 cleaner works better), burnt food on the cooker - didn't shift it, dirty walls - no better than scrubbing with flash, cleaning the car engine was OK.

Certainly not impressed at all with it.

Alex

[N. Thornton]

I believe their traditional forte is cleaning off grease, and are thus used on cars (and I would guess probably commercial kitchens). Though when people say steam cleaning in the auto trade they dont necessarily use a steam cleaner, it seems to have just become an expression meaning a thorough clean.

How they would have any power to shift anything more than grease and easily dissolved muck I never understood. And how they were promoted as green when they are surely the most energy guzzling method of cleaning I dont know.

For cleaning upholstery I did one item with a wet cloth and washing up liquid. It was in a real grim state and the cloth and detergent did a great job. (Also tried dry cleaning solvent which was twice as fast.)

So I'm not sure why one would need to use steam at home, but maybe someone else does know.

Regards, NT

[Scott Mills]

Thanks everybody for your replies. I had heard they were naff from someone else but just wanted to hear it confirmed. Looks like I'll have to find something else in Makro to waste my money on. Probably another cordless drill for 12 quid...

[Andy Hall]

At that price point yes. A proper product, very useful.

That would certainly meet your criterion of a waste of money......

.andy

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[Andy Dingley]

They make steam. Whether steam is useful is another matter.

20 quid gets you multo steam in a wallpaper stripper, and as much electricity as you can fit down a plug. The rest is just energy transformation - a posh one is still no better than its kW rating.

IMHO, it pays for itself in one wallpapering job. I have a few, and I also use them to steam bend timber. As to cleaning, then I've found them occasionally useful, but they're fussy about the sort of dirt they're useful on.

[Pete C]

Got one of these for 25 quid:

2.3 kW, on castors, comes with a long lead and looooong hose, _large_ and small plate, jet nozzle and brush attachment.

They are also good for cleaning tiles and the grout in between, and soap residue off shower walls and shower trays, kitchen appliances.

It's something that you have to find uses for, but won't be useful for everybody.

They've got a start'n' charge thing for 15 quid, add a cheap inverter and you have a nice cordless mains power source.

cheers, Pete.

[Scott Mills]

This is the exact one I was looking at.

I made an inverter at uni. it hummed a bit but was good for 200W athough when you look at the harmonics I wouldn't want to run anything other than a few lightbulbs off it.

Scott

[Rick Dipper]

The losen the stuff, but you still have to remove it. So it will losen the oil in the carpet, but you still need to get the loose oil out of the carpet.

Rick