VAX carpet washers

[Syke]

I've been looking at these and wondered if anyone had strong opinions either way on their usefulness, efficiency and so on.

Regards and thanks in advance

P J Macguire

[Mary Fisher]

I'd love one. We used to borrow a neighbour's but last time we asked she'd given it to a niece.

Grrrr.

Mary

[graham]

My other half who used to work in an electrical shop says that there are two basic types of carpet washers. The cheaper models use gravity syphon to deliver the cleaning liquid from the tank to the carpet.

Some of the air being expelled from the machine is used to partially pressurise the tank.

This provides for a very slow delivery rate of water. It also means that the cleaner unit must be at a higher level that the cleaning head on the unit.

Apparently, if you put a dust sheet on the sofa or a table and stand the cleaner on this, it will increase the rate of flow to the unit. However, it is a pain.

The more expensive versions have an electronic pump. These are much more effective.

I once used a professional carpet cleaner that I hired from HSS. It was fantastic. The unit used gallons of water and it was necessary to keep emptying the unit, but it seemed to clean the carpet far better than the domestic units.

Goto to

and enter "carpet cleaner". 3 machines will come up. It is the large green unit at the bottom.

Just make sure you vac thoroughly to help lift the carpet fibres before you start using the wet carpet washer.

Graham

[Mary Fisher]

That's very helpful and thanks.

But we only have one carpet in the house so I'm not going to invest in one. The idea of hiring from HSS is something I hadn't thought about though.

Spouse used the steam cleaner to rid our one carpet of stains caused by a spillage of tallow, we were both very pleased.

Mary

[Andy Hall]

We used to have one, and I would say it was reasonably good, but not outstanding. After about five years use, the small pump that delivers water to the cleaning heads packed up.

Until then, it did work quite well and seemed effective at cleaning carpets.

At the point that it had packed up, we had ripped out virtually all carpets anyway and replaced with hardwood floors or slate. With the small number of carpets left, we won't replace the VAX, but probably rent a carpet cleaner if one is needed before the remaining carpets are slung out.

[Mary Fisher]

That's interesting, why did you do that?

Mary

[Ian Stirling]

Maybe the VAX was a bit more powerfull than intended :)

[Steve Firth]

Used to have one of the early ones, it worked very well. However SWMBO and the cleaner hated it because ti was "big and heavy" so they conspired to leave it in the garden while I was on a business trip and then plugged it in and exploded it.

SWMBO then bought a Hoover which was appropriately light. It doesn't actually clean carpets at all, but it makes a sucking noise and can be carried in one hand and that seems to satisfy her.

[Grunff]

Because carpets can get very dirty, depending on where they are? We have no carpets downstairs. The only carpet we have is in the bedrooms and stairs/landing. This means downstairs, which is the bit that gets dirtiest, is easiest to clean.

[Ian Stirling]

An alternative is to remove the carpet, and clean outside using the hosepipe.

I found that a spray nozzle set on "one tight beam that goes a long way" used touching the carpet gets right to the bottom, and removes an incredible amount of dirt. The waste water goes from nearly black to clear in only a couple of seconds. You do however need to go over every square centimeter of the carpet. Having a nice warm greenhouse (or a big dehumidifier and a room heated to 30C) is a good idea.

[Mary Fisher]

In our case it was a stair carpet, invisibly held with grips in difficult places and if it had been removed it would have been virtualy impossible to replace in the same way.

I'm sure you're right. The amount of dirt held in a carpet pile is the main reason why we got rid of all of ours except the hall, landing and staircase.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

That's why we got rid of ours.

It's not just dirt, it's the menagerie ... I'm sure things live between flloorboards too but they don't seem to eat them ...

Mary

Mary

[Andy Hall]

Because to keep them to an acceptable level of cleanliness is a lot of work.

We've noticed that the general dust levels around have dropped enormously, and maintaining hard floors is much easier.

We have one or two rugs that can come out at different times of year (or not) and can then change the look of the room. When cleaning of those is needed, they can go outside.

[Mary Fisher]

Yes. A quick sweep now and then and it's done. No plugging in, no trailing cables, no noise ...

I'm not interested in the 'look' of the room so much but we do have sheepskins which lie round on the floor - there's nowhere to store them without risking moth - and they can easily be cleaned with a good shake outside. In very cold weather I put down a cotton rug in the lavatory to protect his poor cold plates through the night and there's always a cotton rug for stepping out of the bath. Oh, and a doormat outside the back door as well as inside.

We took up the horrid deep pile carpets in the caravans too - can you imagine what was in those! The hens found lots ... I can't understand why carpets ever migrated from walls to floors!

From the responses to my question is seems as though I'm not the oddball some of our family thinks - I'm grateful to everyone who thinks the same about carpets and hard floors.

Mary

[Gordon Henderson]

I have one. Bought it when I moved into a flat some 8 years ago to clean the grubby, but otherwise good carpets the previous owners had left. It did the job - took me a day to the the flat (2 biggish rooms, bathroom and hall) and another day for it to all dry out, although it did do a good job of sucking the dirty water back inside it.

FWIW my unit has a pump which pumps the water down to the cleaning head.

I used to use it about once a year after that, then 3 years ago moved to a new house and used it there too. It saw more use shortly after we moved in, as we had an ailing cat which used to leak...

We still have it, although the cleaner of choice for the house is the Dyson that SWIMBO brought into the relationship... The VAX gets a lot of abuse though when I do some of the grubbier DIY tasks though.

You can get reusable liner bags for them, but after 5 years use in the flat, and a year of abuse in the new house, I threw it out and am using paper ones now.

Nothing sucks like a VAX, as they used to say...

Gordon

[graham]

Find a relative and go halves with them on a machine.

We went halves with the mother in law.

Graham

[graham]

There is a risk that the carpet will shrink as it dries.

Graham

[Ian Stirling]

True.

I should have mentioned this.

[Lurch]

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 09:46:55 -0000, "Syke" strung together this:

Not a great machine if you just want it for washing carpets.

A Bissell Proheat on the other hand, (and the newer Proheat 2), brilliant bit of kit.

[graham]

How do you like your new rugs?

(:-)

Graham