BISSELL All-Rounder Deep Cleaner and Vacuum 81N7E
I almost feel that you need to be reading this with the soundtrack to at Marks and Spencer’s advert and the woman with the sexy voice reading the following words. This is not a carpet shampooer, this is a Bissell Hydroclean multi-function water filtration vacuum.
The carpets in our house take a battering on a daily basis. Four of us, often six, sometimes more (we like to have a houseful), a dog, cats, and a policy of not really worrying about shoes being taken off at the front door means our carpets are probably a bio-hazard. Added to which they are in the most impractical colours ever and we are on a hiding to nothing. I throw the vacuum over it everyday but it still isn’t enough. “Flattened to walkways” is an expression I see in my day job a lot and I also see it everytime I walk down the stairs and into our hall. A hall that is about four feet wide so you have to walk over the same bit of carpet.
You get the picture.
So when Bissell asked if I would like to try out the All-Rounder Deep Cleaner and Vacuum 81N7E, well, I laughed and said “yeah come on then if you think you are hard enough”. Any machine that thinks it can tackle our carpets really does have its work cut out.
Negatives
This machine is a beast. If there is one downside to it then it is that. It is not the easiest machine to pick up and, say, carry upstairs. It weighs a lot. And it is also bulky to store so if you have this and a standard vacuum cleaner it is going to take up a lot of space (though of course you should be ditching your standard vacuum, but even so if you had a flat or small house, this is going to need to be stored and it is big). Thankfully we have a utility room but even so it is now covering a lot of the floor space.
That said, it is the only downside.
Positives
There are a lot of positives to owning one of these.
It isn’t just for cleaning carpets when you need to give them a bit of a spruce up, which is what I thought it would be. It can be used everyday as a general vacuum, and the water filtration system ensures there are no dust particles swirling around afterwards as they get held in a water tank. So when you then empty the tank you don’t get a plume of dust all over your t-shirt and up your nose. It also means that after every use your house smells like your carpets have been cleaned by a professional and not like somebody let a wet dog lie on your head which is how our house usually smells after I have whizzed around with the vacuum.
It comes with all the kit you need and unlike other products on the market you don’t have to assemble the tanks or tubing, it is already built in. So it is pretty much ready to go straight out of the box. There are attachments for all manner of cleans, and also for cleaning hard floors.
HOWEVER, please read the instructions first. I am not a fan of reading manuals generally but on this I would really suggest you do. You do need to make sure you have water in the right reservoir prior to every use, failure to do so will burn out the motor .
How does it work?
It has various settings, either as a straight forward water filter vacuuming (which I am loving as an everyday setting), wet cleaning or even a deep clean carpet washing mode to get rid of tough stains. It also comes with various heads and attachments (and a handy caddy to stand them all in. I also love that it heats the water up to just the right temperature to get the best out of the cleaning fluid (also supplied and you can buy more direct from their website), so do make sure you allow it to do that before you use it.
You can of course also use it to clean upholstery and curtains, and even your car (but do check fabrics are colour fast and can be cleaned in that way first).
Once the water is in the reservoir and you have selected the cleaning mode you are going to use you just use it as you would expect, pulling the trigger on the handle to squirt water as you need it. It has a powerful motor so it does suck up really well, without it being too much like hard work to pull backwards and forwards. I had visions of it feeling like I had been to the gym once I had used it but it was remarkably easy.
And of course the results are fantastic. Our hall carpet after just one clean looked much better, and I do love that you get the stripes on it that make it look like it has been cleaned by a professional. It looks so much better after just one clean. I couldn’t however get it to clean right up to the skirting board as the trigger for the water is behind the cleaning head so once that touches the skirting board you can’t get the water any closer, instead having to squirt the water and then push it to the edge in order to clean that bit.
Do make sure you pick your time though as the carpet will slightly damp afterwards, and plan how you will leave the room, don’t start by the door and end in the back corner for instance. Or indeed do the hall at 11am on a Saturday morning. <cough>
How much does the Bissell cost?
As I say, it is just under £150 and if you have a household that is as tough on carpets as we are, then I would highly recommend it, but I would suggest you do consider where you are going to store it before you buy it.