Choosing a Carpet Steam Cleaner

Weather your conducting a little spring cleaning, planning for guests, or even hosting the holiday meal, now is the right time to purchase a new carpet steam cleaner. The issue can be, with such a large selection of different carpet cleaners in the marketplace to pick from, what kind is right for you. Let’s walk through a few of the possibilities and figure out which options you may need in a carpet cleaner prior to laying out your hard earned dollars.

First we have to clarify that there's absolutely no steam used to clean in a carpet steam cleaner. It is usually a combination of hot water and a scrubbing action which loosens the soiled dirt. The excess water is then removed along with the debris and deposited into a holding tank where it's later dumped. Some models have a cleaning wand with the main unit separate and others are completely self-contained in one stand alone unit. The all-in-one styles are the ones we will be emphasizing because that is the most common on the market right now.

If you are a home owner you'll, in all probability, be looking at a consumer grade model. Bissell and Hoover remain the major players in the marketplace right now. Each has their benefits and disadvantages. It truly is determined by what capabilities you are interested in and what you will be primarily using it for. If, for instance, your home has very large rugs or has numerous spaces with wall to wall carpeting, a good upright model will most likely be effective for you.

If you are a pet owner, one thing which needs to be considered is the cleaning of the brush rollers. This is not the most pleasant job on most units. Almost all carpet steam cleaners on the market today have some type of brush system that is designed to aid the soap solution in dislodging the dirt. Be sure to decide on a unit that the rollers are easily removable. Pet hair will end up clogging the rollers and will need to be cleaned regularly. There are many models in the marketplace that publicize easy removing of the roller brushes for cleaning. Generally, it seems, Hoover carpet steam cleaners have brushes that are more easily removed for cleaning that their Bissell counter parts.

Another nice feature you will need to keep in mind is the units’ solution to heat the water, if at all. Heated water is essential in the cleaning process. A number of the lower priced models do not provide you with the ability to heat the water on board the machine. This is usually a benefit of the mid to higher priced units. These, lower priced machines, count on the water temperature an individual adds to the machine as the total temperature of the water used to clean the carpet. Hot water really helps break up the embedded dirt between the fibers and is a major benefit to getting the carpet clean. Mid level to high end machines usually have on board water heating systems. Some models heat water within the tank, some heat water while in the line between the tank and the discharge nozzles and some actually heat the floor where the solution is being sprayed. The key here's to make sure the water is hot when it passes through the nozzles. The dispersion of the water out of the nozzles will drop the temperature a little, so the closest to the nozzles the water is heated the better. Heating the floor is usually used to aid in the drying of the carpeting and is not as good to help with the cleaning.

While we are on the subject of heating the water, be sure you have the capacity to shut off the heater in cases where you're going to clean something delicate. You won’t want to ruin an Oriental rug, wool carpeting, or delicate furniture with excessive heat. The final basic feature you need to know about selecting a carpet steam cleaner is the ability of the unit to pick up the water after it’s already down inside the carpet. The extraction process is really what separates many good cleaners from the bad. Many different models offer numerous patented strategies for picking the water back up, and they all sound great, but that's where you really need to read customer reviews. After narrowing down your search to three or four models, go to Amazon.com or some other site that offers customer reviews and read through them carefully. Customers are frequently most vocal about wet carpeting. So, if a particular machine is leaving the carpeting wet, choose a particular machine with little if any negative comments about the extraction process.

Those are really the major components to look at when choosing a carpet steam cleaner. There will be other options that make some machines more attractive than others, however, if you receive a machine that gets the above options right there will be a good chance you will be happy with your purchase.