Hoover Reviews

Just purchased the Hoover SteamVac Plus F5878-900. Nice machine, does a good job of cleaning, lightweight and easy to manuver. The 15 ft cord is far too short and a extention must be used for almost any room but that is minor. The machine is sturdy and well built, has a nice wide path, the tanks are easily removed and are easy to clean. The 5 brushes seem easy to remove and clean, and the placement of the water tanks make the machine well balanced and easy to transport.

But I am absolutely amazed that Hoover didn't bother to include the Nozzle Clean-Out Tool, a small piece of plastic (I assume, since tool was missing), this small item IS necessary to clean the debris that gathers between the suction nozzle hood and the housing. This is a very tight area and the booklet tells one 'how' to use clean-out tool (which is NOT supplied). The booklet then goes on about pouring two cups of water on non-carpeted floor and sucking that through the machine several times - a cumbersome and inefficient method plus requiring a surface suitable to pour water onto which in my case requires hauling the cleaner out to the garage.

The price of this little item in the Accessories List is [money]. ... - plus [money] to ship it. This minor item is almost enough to cause me not to purchase from Hoover again. Very shortsighted of Hoover, if I may say so...

I was surprised (pleasantly so) at how much dirt comes up as I am a daily vacuumer, leaves the carpeting fresh and nice smelling, it is just the lack of that clean-out tool that does indeed trouble me.

this thing works.
end of discussion.
it's an excellent product.

it might be little pricey, for as often as the average person might use it, but the investment is well worth it.

if your home is carpeted, this is something i can't imagine you could do without.
we have oak upstairs, and Pergo downstairs, so we use a lot of
area rugs.
the SteamVac is perfect.
we assemble the parts, add hot water, plug it in, and we're cleaning.
the dirty water, when we're done, tells the whole story.

i can't really think of any meaningful negatives.
it might be a little heavy for a woman, moving it around the house.
it can take a few minutes to assemble each time you decide to use
it, and another few minutes to take it apart and clean it before
you put it away again, but nothing compared to the time it would take to rent one.
and then have to return it.

it's probably not practical for small spills or spots.
but when your rugs and carpets need a good professional-style

cleaning, this SteamVac is definitely the ticket.

I had the little Hoover Steam cleaner and wanted to try the full size one. I could not be more delighted. When I moved in a year ago the three year old carpet was professionally cleaned. I used this machine and the carpets looked better than when the pros cleaned it. It was easy to assemble and use. I haven't used the the bare floor attachment, but that's next on my tile floors. I would highly recommend this machine

2 kids a dog and "oatmeal" carpet, this purchase was long overdue. Not only does it get out everyday dust and dirt, it works on juice spills, dog tracks, and red GA clay. The upholstery/stair attachment works great on the upholstery, stairs. I have used this on the car interior and it works perfectly! I highly recommend this model: it is affordable and will pay for itself the second time you use it. The only draw back is that the cord is a bit short, and the hose attachment is too short to reach my stairs: probably a sacrifice to the amount of suction the attachment provides.

I researched carpet shampooers on the Internet and asked friends what they thought about theirs. After eliminating the shampooers that had more features than I needed, the shampooers that looked too complicated, and those that were too small, I decided on the Hoover Steam Vac Deluxe Carpet Cleaner. Shopping for the best price, I found mine at Target on cleanance for $139. Because the floor model was the only one left, I got an additional 10% off that price! Plus, the shampooer was already put together! Even though it didn't come with a manual, I easily down-loaded it off the Hoover website.

I took my shampooer home and immediately cleaned my formerly light beige berber carpet. With two small children and a husband, there are coffee and chocolate milk stains all over the floor. I used the cleaning solution at double strength and followed the directions. The next morning, I could tell the stains were much lighter than they had been! So, two days later, I cleaned the carpet again. My carpet is now the light beige it was when it was new five years ago! There was even a rather large spot where someone had left their sippy cup filled with chocolate milk in the floor and all the milk had drained into a puddle. That stain was lifted with relative ease!

My Hoover Steam Vac Deluxe Carpet Cleaner has changed the life of my floor. Now I am no longer embarrassed to have friends over for dinner!

This is one excellent cleaning machine. It cleans way better then any other cleaning machine or service I have ever used before, and I have used a lot them. This machine is so easy to use, all of its components are extremely accessible and easy to handle. The Hoover cleaning solution really works fantastic, it throughly cleaned my carpet without leaving any residue or odor in it. This solution had a wonderful citrus scent to it that made cleaning my carpet pleasurable, it left my carpet smelling fresh and clean. I was amazed at how the counter rotating brushes in conjunction with the Hoover solution restored the appearance and texture of my carpet, old stains and matted spots that would never come up before, just vanished. The drying time was really cut considerably, which was due to the efficiency of the machines strong suction power. My carpet dried in less then 2 hours and it looked like new. This is one cleaning machine that I will always enjoy to use.

My dad, myself, 2 sisters and 3 children all use the carpet cleaner my dad owns. It has been in the family for 5 years and is still going strong. It isn't as thorough as a comercial machine and probably takes longer but it does a good job. I spot treat with ispropyl alcohol and a spritz of Shout and then use about 1/2 the recommended soap in the machine. I also preheat the water on the stove so it is very hot. My dad has a wool carpet and I used cool water on it and the waste water was still very dirty. The water comes out in lines so it is important to overlap and go in different directions.

Well, so far so good. I was amazed at how dirty the water was when I emptied the container. Wow! Can't believe I waited this long. It cleaned well, but it's kind of heavy for me and I had a problem with the handle release. It seems stiff. Still has nothing to do with the cleaning job though. It's easy to fill and empty.

I bought this product for my heavily stained carpet (2 messy kids in the household) and it effectively cleaned the carpet and made it look almost new. The machine was comparable to the rental machines in its ability to clean the carpet, but it had two small drawbacks:

1) The one gallon tanks (for clean & dirty water)- means it has to be filled or emptied often.
2) The release handle was a bit stiff.

Otherwise, this machine did a wonderful job!

I just ordered the Floor Max from Amazon at the beginning of the week and now it's Friday. It came in record time (I love Amazon.com!) and I've already cleaned my kitchen and bathroom floors. I like the machine for the most part. I can clean my vinyl and tile floors in record time. It does a great job! My ONLY complaint is that the machine does not fit under the lip of my cupboards and therefore doen't clean right up to the baseboard. I have to do this by hand (approx. 2 1/2 inches). In cupboard-less areas it doesn't clean 3/4 inch of floor right next to the baseboard. I'd still buy this machine though.

This has to be one of the all time great machines!! In a total of 4 hours from assembling everything to putting everything away, I was able to remove 17 years of wax and grime from my vinyl kitchen and utility room floors. The difference in the before and after floor color and shine is amazing. This machine was extremely easy to use. The directions were very clear. It is light weight and very efficient. The removal of the dirty residue with the vacume action was wonderful. I only had to empty the dirty water tank one time for the whole operation and that was extremely easy. Thank you, Hoover, for such a wonderful addition to my cleaning needs. Now I will not hesitate to do my floors again whenever they need it.

I just received the Floormax F5300 as a gift, and I couldn't be happier with it. I am 9 months pregnant and trying to get my house as clean as possible before having the baby. This included stripping the 25-year-old linoleum on my kitchen floor of at least 5 years of floor polish and who knows what else. I tried this once before by hand and got nowhere and, of course, hands-and-knees scrubbing this time was out of the question. The Floormax allowed me to scrub up the old polish, rinse the floor and vacuum it dry in a total of hours -- with one hand. I never knew before what the floor's real color was!! It has also been very handy for shampooing our cream-colored rugs. I only had one small problem with fitting the handle into the body of the scrubber when it first arrived, and I was able to fix that without contacting Hoover. If you have floors, you will love this scrubber.

The machine is very light, easy to set up and use, but the waxing, buffing and polishing that I wanted to do on my kitchen floors can ONLY BE DONE ON WOOD FLOORS, which I don't have. The instructions say it CANNOT be used on 'no wax floors"!(I tried it-took the shine off) The ads state you can wax and polish 'hard floors', which I took to mean non carpeted areas, so I probably would not have purchased it if I had known. There is no water extractor, so it's not good for large carpet areas. It will stay wet a LONG time. For just floor scrubbing, it's great! Light, easy, etc as above. Couldn't ask for an easier, lighter machine -- if only I could use it for more tasks!!!

This machine is great. A child can use it. It was very easy to put together. Less then 5 minutes. I have 3 cats, a dog and 3 teenage girls that have friends over all the time. They all spill on my carpets and forget to clean up. My carpets had so many stains. I used this machine with the stiffest brushes and man did it get the stains out. I was amazed. I had a hoover once before and it did a great job. I was concerned this time because the unit was smaller. But it did the job just as well. I am very happy with this unit and would advise anyone to use it.

My mother bought one of these way back in the 70s! It performed flawlessly for over 20 years and let me tell you, it's been through some pretty rough times. It's been knocked down a flight of stairs, accidently stepped on and tripped over, banged into walls and radiators, flipped over a banister and fell about 15 feet to the floor, and the worst time, my mother literally strangled my sister after she borrowed it for her apartment. It was 1984 and she had just moved into the apartment. She said she needed it to shampoo the carpets real bad cause' they were filthy. But apparently after she shampooed them she decided she didn't like the color of the carpets. So she filled up the tank with navy blue dye and turned it on. She was successful at dying all of the carpets navy blue but the entire base/bottom, scrub brushes, and the tank were permanently stained blue. My mother pulled up in the driveway one day to find the thing sitting on the porch. After seeing the condition it was in she had a nervos breakdown and brought it inside. She immediatly called my sister and caused one of the worst fights between them ever. Saying that she must "have a screw loose", she's "off her rocker", etc. etc. My sister didn't talk to her for weeks and in the meantime my mother was nagging constantly and telling the whole town about what her daughter had done to her Hoover Carpet Shampooer Machine. The day that it happened, my Aunt was visiting and they tried to clean it and removed massive amounts of dirt clumps and cat hair from the scrubber area. For weeks I never heard the end of her nagging and swearing over the whole ordeal. But it still worked perfectly for many years to come! The blue stains faded over time and my mother and sister are close again. But my mother hesitates whenever she asks to borrow anything! Sadly, the mighty maching performed it's last shampoo job the other day straining to finish the job so it could finally rest in peace after it's long, hard knock life. It was a good carpet machine and will be greatly missed.

This is the worst piece of equipment I have ever purchased. Mine is now in pieces at the bottom of our steps. I have only used it 5 times and it has never cleaned anything, gets glogged up when you look at it and I ended up on my hands and knees with my Bissel Little Green Machine trying to soak up the water it spewed all over my carpet. NEVER BUY THIS HOOVER PRODUCT.

I have pets and a messy husband, was tired of renting steam cleaners. You never finish before it is time to return them. I tried a canister first, but found it difficult to drag around. So I bought the Hoover Steam vac Deluxe. I love it. I am careful with it as it has many plastic parts, but I am very satisfied with how it cleans, for the money. Now I can take it out whenever I have the time..this will save you time and money. Won't be without one anymore.....

We took an afternoon and went shopping for steam vacs..... It is easy to use, very easy to clean, and we did a large room with only 3 changes of water. Neither of us had ever used a steam vac before, and we had no problems. From start to finish (including removing the vac from the box, assembling, moving the furniture from the room, and cleaning up afterward) it only took 2 hours to do a large room. We were very impressed with the quality of the cleaning, and couldn't be happier with our purchase. We can highly recommend this product.

I was shopping for a carpet steam cleaner for two main reasons: 1 - my kids were making messes all over the rugs in the house, and 2 - I always seem to be cleaning up the carpets in my cars fairly often. I needed something that was portable enough to let me room the house in search for stains and I also needed something that didn't require a hot-water hookup so I could use it in the garage. This little unit fits the bill perfectly. My wife & I are totally amazed at how well it removes stains (we were able to shampoo out a 4 month old orange juice stain on the carpet that endless hand-scrubbing couln't budge). Some people might be skeptical about not having a hot-water hook up, but I just get the hottest tap water I can find and then go right to work. This little machine did wonders in the cars removing grease and oil stains from the floor mats! I love this machine!

I bought this machine two years ago. One of the locking clips just broke and I've ordered another Steamvac Jr. as replacement. I want to share with everyone our experience with this machine.

We've used it on cat vomit (we've got two cats and the long-haired one always stays indoors), dog accidents, all sorts of stains from children and grownups alike. We use it exclusively on carpeted areas of the house. It does clean and does a better job, in my mind, than the spot-cleaners that come in pressurized cans, because this machine leaves little residue and requires less scrubbing than SpotShot.

It does not come with a heating element, which means that one must put in hot hot tap water. Often, there is hot-water left over. One has to either dump the left-over detergent solution, or use it next time cold or luke warm. We've done both. And it does not seem to have made a major different in its effectiveness, though I feel that with hot water the cleaned spot dries up faster. I do have to regularly use bleach to clean up the interior of the machine (the hose, the filter, as well as the dirty water container), esp. in the summer time. I also ordered spare filters, as the filter gets yellow quickly (we do clean quite a bit of cat vomit). Overall, we are glad we have it.

Recently, one of the locking clips broke. Without the locking clip, one cannot pick up the unit by its handle, so we have to carried the whole unit from the base all over the house in order to use it. It seems we can't live without it. I researched the web and various stores looking for an alternative model, thinking that with so much cleaning to do, we might be better off with a more powerful model, perhaps one that uses steam rather than hot water to clean.

However, there is nothing on the market that is as light-weight and portable as this one, not to mention there are few models that are remotely in the same price range--other than a hard-floor cleaner. The Steamvac Jr. cleans carpet!

Given the fact that we exclusively use it for spot cleaning, not for house-wide steam-cleaning, we decided to get another Steamvac Jr. We figured that its price is well-worth two years' of constant heavy use.

We hope your Steamvac serves you well.

Two days after we had brand new carpet installed, my husband spilled paint on the carpet. He tried to clean it up after 4 hours, but it left a crunchy mess. About 5 days later, I received the Steamvac and thought I'd try to get that stain out, that by this point was also trapping dirt. I was amazed that the Steamvac completely removed the stain! I did have to scrub the spot with the bristles on the suction head as the manual suggests doing, but I didn't have to put much muscle into it. I also used VERY hot water, which I'm sure helped.

In addition to doing a great job cleaning, there are additional pro's:

- The unit is very easy to get ready to use (just add hot water and the detergent that comes with the machine into one opening).
-The unit is very light and portable.
-The unit seems to be constructed well.
-The machine does a great job of sucking up the water from the carpet, leaving it almost dry.

My only complaint about the product is that cleaning the machine after using it takes several steps, but I'm sure it will go more quickly the next time.

I would highly recommend the Steamvac.

Very Misleading carpet cleaner name "Steam Vac". Where is the steam? There is no steam, just hot water that gets cold very fast. I used mine around the house and it made the carpets wet...did not do much to the stains. I rented a steam Cleaner and it did a lot better. For the money I will just rent for a large job. For the small stuff a brush and a small bucket of carpet shampoo in hot water will do the same or better.

I wish I'd spent more and bought a better model with the power brushes. This model does an adequate job and is simple enough to operate that I use it frequently. I wish that they had made it so that the front cover over the area where the water is sucked up could be cleaned. I hate putting it away with the gunk like carpet fibers and lint in there (ok, so I'm a little obsessive).

I love the fact that Hoover knows how to make house cleaning easier. This was the first product my husband purchased for me and its jewel. I use it not only for carpets and furniture but to clean out my car carpets and seats. What could be simpler that pouring hot water and the solution into it and letting it do all the work. Way to go Hoover!