Hoover Reviews

This little sweeper is the best thing since sliced bread! I ordered one after seeing it mentioned in the gardening section of the paper, but was skeptical that it would really work as advertised. I have a large stable with a very wide concrete aisle that must be swept daily, so it gets some serious use. It works soooo good! The brushes pick up debris and dust and even the dead lizards the barn cats bring in. It is easy to push and easy to empty the container, so that you can dispose of the material where you want, without having to use the dustpan. It has cut my sweeping time down by 75% and does a better job than a broom.
My friends that have tried it have all loved it, and are going to order one too. Hoover needs to market this thing to horse owners!
I have also used it on my garage and patio with the same great results.

If they marketed this product to horsepeople, they'd sell millions of them! I don't own one - tried a friend's on her 16-foot-wide x 60' long barn aisle - but I'm buying one ASAP. This is an ingenious machine that looks like a mini street-sweeper. It is totally 'human powered' - the wheels on the bottom turn the large bristle brushes as you push it. It's about as wide as a push broom, and it picks up leaves/hay/shavings - it even picked up small plastic items we threw down (measuring cups, etc) just as a test! It has a large capacity 'tank' that holds the debris it sweeps up, and its design is very uncomplicated... and the faster you push it, the better it sweeps! It could double as aerobic exercise, and it works so well, and is so much fun to use, (really!) you'll be looking for places to use it! (If you have small kids, this is a perfect job for them!)

...

For starters, I'm an ordinary Dad just trying to help my wife keep up after our 3 kids. I use it primarily on flat surfaces like hardwood and vinyl floors, but tile works out OK too.

If you are expecting a combination of high pressure deck washer, floor sander and shop vac, you will be disappointed.

And I'll admit, its not cheap, the on/off switch is out of place, and it is a pretty wimpy device, but the bottom line is: It works just good enough to be worth it.

The concept here is it has "just enough" of what it takes. Its compact, liquid tanks hold enough for one average floor cleaning, just enough scrub power to remove light dirt. With some care you can use it with your socks on, and they don't get wet. That's pretty good if you ask me.

Consider the alternatives: Filling a bucket for 5 minutes, screwing around with a tiny sponge or piece of baby wipe on those wimpy stick things.

My "trick" is to leave the device turned off and presoak the floor a section at a time. It still dispenses fluid if the power is off. So a presoak of about 20-30 seconds before cleaning it really helps with dried on stuffs. I think because it puts the fluid on the floor and "BAM" sucks it off moments later. So you need a few seconds to dissolve the dried up things that landed on the floor at lunch time etc. For normal areas, just use as directed.

Finally the concentrated cleaners are in full supply and economical at my local Dept. store. Its not a scam to buy the device and then pay an excessive price for the cleaning fluids. They smell great and work well.
4 start - room for improvements:
More dry suction power, longer bristles, larger tanks, and move on/off switch to better location.

No, it's not the perfect solution (as several other reviewers have already indicated) but it does a pretty good job just the same. My standards perhaps aren't as high as yours may be... I simply wanted something that would get my floors reasonably clean, and most importantly, something I would actually USE.

I have about 1,500 square feet of hard flooring (a mix of hardwood and ceramic tile) and two big labradors. Keeping the floors clean is nearly impossible, especially since I hate to wet mop. Hate the whole routine - filling buckets and/or the sink, wringing the darn mops, refilling over and over to avoid mopping with 'dirty' water. The Floor Mate isn't a whole lot faster than mopping, but it is soooo much easier on my back... and no chapped hands.

Drawbacks: It IS noisy.

It needs a switch to turn off suction so the cleaning solution/brushes can work a little longer on a particularly dirty area. You can work around this, but a simple switch would be a nice improvement in the next version.

The wet pickup 'dried' the floor well but the squeegee was designed with a number of parallel lines (to add stiffness and strength, I suppose?) which left corresponding parallel lines on the solid-color, smooth surfaced ceramic tile. The lines weren't visible on the hardwood, but showed up distinctly on the tile. I ended up dampening an old towel and quickly wiping over lines left in more visible areas. Perhaps with time the lines on the squeegee will wear down and not leave visible marks.

It's not fast. You must move the unit relatively slowly to give the brushes and cleaning solution time to work. It 'feels' kind of like a vacuum cleaner, and I found myself occasionally getting impatient and reverting back to 'vacuum cleaner' speed. I'm sure I'll get used to the slower speed, but it'll take some practice.

It is not a vacuum cleaner. I tried that option briefly, then decided to go with my 'real' vacuum cleaner for initially clearing the floors of loose dog hair. My vacuum works much better, and I needed the hose attachment to get into the corners and crevices anyway.

Bottom line is... I DO like the product, and I AM happy with the purchase. It is not perfect, but it meets my two basic requirements: it gets the floor reasonably clean, and I believe it is something I will continue to use (it DEFINATELY beats wet-mopping!)

After using this product for the past three months, I have decided that I could not live without it. I have tile floors in my kitchen and hallway - and the grout had become so dirty and I never felt that mopping was doing much more than redistributing the dirt. It is a pleasure to clean the floor with this machine! I use HOT water which really helps to kill the germs and by taking the dirty water up off the floor after it is scrubbed, it truly gets the dirt up and off the floor. Thirty years of dirt embedded into the grout is coming out - and my once blackened grout is now white again.

The other benefit of this is that the floor is dried almost instantly - which prevents my small children from slipping on a wet floor.

If this machine ever broke - I would replace it immediately. I put it in the same indispensible categories as my dishwasher, vacuum, and washer/dryer.

I recommend this machine - which is especially nice to be able to clean floors such as basement, garage, and other areas where a sink is not available to aid in mopping - besides, this gets it much cleaner.

the Hoover Floor Mate Plus didn't even come close to measuring up. The dry vacuum setting did not effectively pick up things that small children routinely toss or drop to the floor, like Cheerios or random elbows of last night's Mac-n-Cheese dinner. It would pick up finer particles (like bread crumbs), but in order to get anything bigger, I would have to pivot the vacuum up and set it directly on top of the item, sometimes having to do that two or three times before it would go in.

The wet scrubbing setting: A MAJOR fault of this brush design is that they are horizontal disks that spin sideways. This might work if you have Pergo floors that don't have any little crevices to speak of, but if you have ceramic or terra cotta tile with recessed grout lines, those flat little brush disks simply cannot get down in those crevices in order to properly clean them. The fact that I had to go back and re-mop those areas with the scrubbie side of my mop did not make for a happy mom. :-(

On the plus side, the wet vac part worked great. All the water was vacummed up with little residual dampness to speak of.

Bottom line? The Hoover will be returned for a refund. I will be ordering the new Dirt Devil hard floor cleaner that has just come out and see how that stacks up - seeing as it features a rotating brush (like on many vacuums), it seems like there might be a better chance of it getting into those "hard to reach" areas. ;-) With two young children, four Peruvian Paso horses, a shetland pony and a Newfoundland dog, we are a household in need of some pretty serious muscle power in terms of cleaners. I look forward to writing in my review of the Dirt Devil and seeing how they compare.

I purchased the Hoover H3010 2 months ago and I am extremely pleased with it. I previously used a swiffer wet jet on my laminate floor, but wanted something 'stronger' to clean the floors. I have 3 kids and a dog, and the floor mate allows me to vacume up the dirt and dog hair, then with a quick swich of a button, I can scrub the floors. It gets my floors very clean and is good at tackling the dried spills that collect under the table from my children. The floor mate is also great because the floor dries much quicker. It is very easy to operate and clean. I love this product.

I got this as a Christmas/housewarming Gift from a male friend of my husband, who watched me sweep my new kitchen floor. With all the wet weather and at least one dog (sometimes three) when my daughter comes over, it was starting to become a joke trying to keep up. I had been using a swiffer, but knew the time was approaching when I would have to break down and really clean the floor. The first time I used the Floor Mate Plus, it left so little water, I wasn't sure if enough water was getting on the floor to do the trick. This machine did it all. The proof was in the DIRTY water afterwards and the almost dry floor immediately after the cleaning. It picked up the animal fur, pine needles, sand, outside dirt and dust. I love it for the tile floors but I love it even more for the wood floors. Buy it, you'll love it.

This vac worked fine for about a year and then the battery went dead. Now it will only work for a max of 5 seconds. Not a good investment.

Since we have a dog, and got her as a pup, this product has saved the carpet sooooooo many times. I would not be with out it. One of my better purchases

I have had one of these for six years now. The batteries lasted fine until last year. I changed the batteries by soldering in ones I purchased at Radio Shack. They are type Sub C. Anyway my dog chewed the filter and the gasket so I am going to buy another one.

A miserable experience. I bought this through Amazon when I contracted to have my hardwood floors refinished. The contractor took way too long, so I didn't try to use it until yesterday. Only the dry vacuum function worked, and not very well. I tried to call Hoover. They don't have an 800 customer service number, so I had to pay for a looonnnnnggggg long distance call. Got a busy signal the first ten times, then was put in line ("Your call is important to us") for 47 minutes, a total of one hour 13 minutes before I got a human being. She first tried to tell me that she didn't know anything about their products and that I should take it to my local appliance repair shop. I insisted and she finally suggested that I unscrew the handle and screw it on again. I did. Nothing, though I noticed that the internal "controls" are a couple of flimsey plastic sticks, the very essence of nineteenth century technology, but with cheaper materials. Ever heard of a switch?

I then drove across the county to my Hoover dealer. He told me that there were two screws missing, which should have been installed at the factory, and replaced them. He also pointed out that the "scrub" function is a misnomer -- the thing doesn't scrub; its brushes aren't designed to move at all. He assured me that the tiny dribble of cleaning solution he managed to get out of it was all it needed.

I took my expensive toy home and tried it. The advertised three-way action is actually about a half dozen separate actions, only two of them (vacuuming and dribbling) done by the machine. You have to do the rest. First you have to dry vacuum the floor. Then you switch over to wet/scrub and three tiny streaks of fluid appear. Then you go back over it to spread the fluid around and, supposedly, to pick up the fluid and dirt. After a few minutes the floor dries and you see dirty streaks everywhere. Repeat process. Same thing. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Then go get a mop and do it properly.

As far as I can tell, the purpose of this appliance is to moisten dust, move it around a little and leave it on the floor as streaks. The machine has no effect whatever on dried spills, footprints, scuff marks, dirt or any of the other things that routinely find their way onto a floor. And the tanks are so small that you can only do about half a room before you have to empty and refill.

I have bought a lot of appliances since I started restoring my house. Some have been great (Bosch dishwasher, Mac woodchipper, Mikita powertools), most good (Amana gas range, ShopVac), but this Hoover is the biggest piece of crap, backed by the worst customer service, that I have enountered outside the former Soviet Union. I gave it one star only because you are not given the option of none. And now Amazon won't take it back because 30 days passed before I could use it.

We ordered the FloorMate 2800 model from the Home Shopping Network last week by mistake (paid $165, including shipping). We hadn't done enough prior research to realize there were THREE different FloorMate models, and this was the bottom-of-the-line model with immobile brushes.

It went together easily; probably 10 minutes and we were ready to go. Somehow we managed to get it out of the box and assembled without noticing the brush configuration (there was no need to turn it over during assembly).

I vacuumed and cleaned the white linoleum in our 500 sf kitchen in about an hour, using about 1.5 tanks of water + 3 oz of solution. It did a great job of picking up dog hair, pepper, sugar, etc, and did an OK job of cleaning the floor (still kind of dirty in the pits of the linoleum. I was disappointed that it took so long, but amazed at how filthy the water was, when we had just mopped a couple of days before.

While cleaning it out I discovered it didn't have the spinning brushes. After some quick research, we found that both the 3000 and 3010 models have the spinning brushes. The 3010 model (FloorMate Plus) has only been out since Sept 2003, costs only about $35 more than we paid, and also has a longer cord and extra set of brushes. It didn't take long to decide to send back the 2080 and get the 3010.

We weren't completely unhappy with the results of the 2080, but figured for $30 more, the 3010 would do even better.

i too didn't realize there were diff.models [i researched it on the web] but saw it at brandsmart and thought i was getting a good buy. its not the magic bullet for tile but saves the mopping.who knew there were supposed to be spinning brushes?a little truth in advertising? problem is finding lysol concentrate for machine.is there somehing else to use?