Any opinions on a steam cleaner please

[buttons-and-bows]

I just bought one and cant see the point, Mike gave it 3 out of 10, and a mop and bucket 9 3/4 out of 10 for the floor, it's a H20HD. if that makes any difference

[astral276]

I've only got a hand-held one. It is now a garage ornament. It didn't seem to be any use for anything it claimed to tackle. Based on that I wouldn't buy a full sized one.

[astral276]

Postscript to the above... I was talking about a steam cleaner.

[buttons-and-bows]

I think I have just wasted my money

[cambrensis]

I have two, well three if you count the one I have in the garage awating the time I get around to repairing it!

My large one is an Italian job, a "Vaporetto". This I use for stripping wallpaper, cleaning my engine bay - any big tough cleaning jobs in fact.

The smaller ones. like a steam driven vacuum cleaner I use differently. Both are Morphy Richards, and the drive unit unclips from the main so that it may act as a hand held unit. I use it as hand held for kitchen worktops , stairs etc.

Fitted to its main "shell" it cleans my tiled floors (conservatory, downstair cloaks and kitchen) and my vinyl clad floors (living room and hallway). I do not use it in my dining room as that is carpetted.

I went in for steam originally as I had four dogs; it was an absolute boon dealing with muddy paw-prints easily and in much less time than dealing with mop and bucket. I use de-ionised water, of course; Now I have only one dog, an old girl nearly 17 years of age, who will not be with me much longer. She will not be replaced;. She knows not to enter the dining room.

i find the steam cleaner to be quick and hygienic - and it dries, without a mark, very quickly. I would not be without it.

The one in the garage? The problem, i discovered, was a weakened spring on a valve.I may get around to fixing that and keep as a spare, or keep the whole cleaner as spares for the newer one.

I could, of course, leave both to puzzle posterity....

[Oldandintheway]

I have the H20 Mop X5 & I'm happy with it, although the handle could be longer & stronger.
But it does a good job on tile floors & shifts those hard scuff marks etc.
Get yourself extra cleaning pads as they fill up quickly.
It has an attachment for cleaning carpet, but That was a bit iffy IMHO. Tiles & hard floor types it's great.

[buttons-and-bows]

I got the extra pads for it Old and my friend has the same model as you and i did get it for the carpets really but haven't tried that as yet, I tries it on our wet room floor and to be honest Mike got a bucket of water and a mop afterwards with floor cleaner ( flash ) and detol in and did it again. the handle on this one comes to just above my shoulder when it's up right, mind you I am only 5ft at the most, the hand held thing on this one is also very heavy. I just bought a bottle of the smelly stuff they make for it to try on the wall tiles, this new model also has to have a filter changed every three months or so £40 a year for filters and then the pads and the blue tatty things as well all add up, you can tell I am not impressed as yet.

[cambrensis]

I did some checking on model prices, etc, after I'd written my last response.

The model you use is about three times the price of my Morphy Richards one. (I'm leaving out my Polti "Vaporetto" as it's a pro machine and can even do the ironing).

Essentially, the hand held/floor push type is a very simple machine. All it does, essentially, is boil water and send the steam under pressure to scald and clean a surface. It certainly does not need a filter. I am wondering if yours is to be used with tap water, in which case they are charging you for filtering limescale. Mine is basic. You simply use de-ionised/distilled water, so there is no question of limescale. You use no scented additives with distilled water as it would defeat the object.

I must admit, I have not used it in my wet-room and indeed would never have thought of it. All I do there is hose and brush it. The floor is not sufficiently flat, for obvious reasons, so there seems to be little point in attempting to steam it. I wipe the wall tiles.of course.

The only carpet I clean with steam is on the staircase and that is done only once a month. The vacuum cleaner does for that most of the time.

As for the pads, I have one on, one on standby and one in the wash.. I have about 20 spares, bought as pattern parts, taking up space in a cupboard. I rarely have to throw one as unusable, so running costs are negligible.

[buttons-and-bows]

I have a pro press steamer to do the ironing, it's one that i had when we ran a B&M fancy dress shop but they are specifically for that and only work in an upright position or i would have made some pads for it and used that, my wet room is more or less flat and has a pale blue floor so it marks very easily and drives me nuts seeing shoe marks etc. shoe marks because it is next to the loo and people just walk in there to wash there hands, wet the floor and then seem to do a ballet class in there.

[cambrensis]

Sorry for the delay! Last few days have been quite hectic!

A couple of nights ago, while watching a very interesting documentary, I dozed off.

I awakened to find that the "shopping" channel had started up and that the first film was "Thane", featuring their H2O steam cleaner. I decided to watch.

As you'd expect of this type of advertising, there was a lot of hype. What I did glean, however, was that it did use tap water. At no stage did it mention that there was a filter which would need regular replacement.

I would try removing the filter and using de-ionised water for a few goes, to see if that increases your steam pressure.

The design of the head seemed a little odd to me as well - triangular. I can see the point when cleaning a large flat surface, but they had no difficulty cleaning between the toilet and the wall, either. I came to the conclusion that it had been built especially for the film. There is no way in which a head of that shape would get into that space with a modern close-coupled toilet. The head on mine is much narrower and I can just about get that into position.