Carpet Cleaner

I have a simpler, cheaper machine similar to

It is handy to have to clean up spills etc, but

- IHMO it doesn't get the carpet wet enough to actually wash it

- it doesn't get right into corners/edges

- doing a whole room in one go will take *ages*. It's much, much, slower than vacuuming

- construction is a bit plasticy especially on the clear parts (styrene?)

It is horrifying what muck comes out of a 'clean' carpet, though.

Owain

We recently bought BISSELL ProHeat 2X Revolution Carpet Cleaner with HeatWave Technolgy 18583. Only used it once so far but delighted with the performance. Significantly improved some stains that other cleaners (including Rug Doctor) didn't touch. It also completely removed some staining on a beige coloured sofa using the supplied tool. We got ours from Amazon and it's now on sale there for less than we paid! John M

You don't want to get the carpet too wet or it will start wicking up the dirt from beneath it

It can but often doesn't. I've tried it at times when a carpet is otherwise not worth keeping, and usually it's worked out good.

NT

Seems a lot of money for what it does. The key features are contrarotating brushes & pumped solution delivery. Machines without those are better avoided. Also years ago I heard of a lot of Bissell bladder machine failures & incompatibility with some solutions. Spot cleaning is no more useful than carrying a paint brush or spray or squirt bottle etc.

One plus that has is heating, I find heated solution works rather better. I just use warm water when filling. I'd look for other machines at lower price but with the important features.

Oh - one tip, forget buying the carpet cleaning solution, washing powder is much better. Bleach, ammonia & vinegar can be useful for carpets that haven't otherwise cleaned up - not mixed together obviously. And of course bleach is only for bleachable carpets, which most aren't.

NT

This stuff works well. No mess and only normal vacuum cleaner needed.

Come back Jenny Logan, all is forgiven.

With a dog, the best plan is to recarpet the house in the colour of the dog. Its not the problem of cleaning its getting the dog fur out of the pile. It took me about a year. As for what type, well I think they are all much the same, expensive for what thy do. Brian

Brian Gaff presented the following explanation :

What the dogs are expensive? :-)

We have two long haired dogs and a vac which is supposed to be designed for pet hairs. There is always pet hair on the carpets and it certainly works well to pick it up and pull it out of the pile. The vac container fills quite rapidly on the first run around, but a little more can be sucked up on a second run, if making a really good job of it.

Brian - you need to quote just a little of the post you are replying to, because these threads often become disjointed, leaving your reply in isolation and people wondering what your reply is in response to.

Brian quotes all the preceding post, but at the bottom (where it may be lost below the sig line in some newsreaders) because he top posts, which he is allowed to do as he's blind and his newsreader works for him that way.

Owain

I have one of these & in my considered opinion it's absolutely excellent.

Washing powder is an absolute no no. It will leave a residue behind to attract dirt & make the fibres sticky.

Buy a decent Prochem product

Our 14(!?) year old VAX Rapide still does an excellent job.

Many thanks - I'll pass it on (email bounced btw)

Thanks everyone - I'll pass on the info. I don't think carpet (or dog) swap is an option - as it happens it's a white husky type, so I think a near match anyway. Knowing my brother, that's on purpose, and not for carpet clean purposes ;-)

Washing powder residue is dry powder. Carpet cleaning solutions OTOH use detergent that leaves a sticky residue. The line I heard in a presentation was that despite that it was a good tradeoff, no further details. Having cleaned carpets many times I've found washing powder much better.

NT

Bear in mind that;

(a) I have an HNC in chemistry (b) I was a moderator for the British Institute of Cleaning Science (c) Spent 25 years in the cleaning industry (d) Ran training courses in carpet cleaning (e) Ran my own carpet cleaning company (f) Wrote the DIY Wiki on carpet cleaning

I think you can probably take my word for it.......

That's hard to argue with :) I should try the carpet cleaning process on an item of clothing some time, see how it comes out.

I presume washing up liquid also leaves sticky residue. Are there any much cheaper than specialist carpet cleaning solutions that don't?

NT

Horses for courses. Washing machines rinse clothing much more effectively than carpet cleaning machines rinse carpets.

In the USA it's quite common to scrub carpets with a rotary floor machine & detergent, then use a carpet machine with plain water. They are often called "rinsers".

Again horses for courses. If you look at the dilution rate of a decent trade product compared to a DIY product, they aren't that expensive. The Prochem product mentioned above dilutes 50-1 and costs about a tenner for 5 litres.