Vacuum Cleaner Reviews

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!

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.

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.

The information on the pages that pertain to this hose needs to be changed to reflect the fact that the hose DOES NOT fit Hoovers with a HEPA system. It only fits Hoovers with product #'s beginning U53.., U54.., U64.. I ordered it along with a new Windtunnel that has a Hepa system, since the product information stated that these 2 items were bought together by other people. Unfortunately, it does not state that these people (now including me) have to return the hose because it does not fit all Windtunnels. So be sure to check and doublecheck before you buy. ...

Upon opening the box I found that the information given in the buying information for this product did not reflect the actural product. For one thing it only fits unright WindTunnel models that use bags. This hose is for models beginning with U53, U54 and U64 only.

False advertising. It is only 15'-16' *fully* stretched and is only a "20' reach with wands and crevice tool" according to the tiny print on the bottom box. This is not an extension but fits as a replacement, so you are only getting 9'-10' more reach than the original 6' hose. That is still helpful, altho the quality of the tubing is 1/2 that of the original hose and will not sustain pulling or pinching with the same durability.