Carpet cleaners

Pudney

Pudney

Pudney

Soldato
Joined
6 Sep 2005
Posts
6,004
Location
Essex
So currently we have two cats in our house, which as they tend to do reasonably often bring up furballs, food and other even less savoury things onto our floors. After a year of this our carpets are looking quite tired of it.

Getting rid of the cats is not an option, in fact keeping the number down to only two cats is a challenge in itself given my other half's desire to be a crazy cat lady.

As such we're thinking of getting a carpet cleaner to occasionally give the carpets a decent clean of the marks that get left behind. I know that any domestic option will never clean as well as a commercial one we can hire, but quite frankly I can't be bothered hiring one every so often.

So bearing this in mind and in the faint hope people may have experience with these things are there any recommendations or things to look out for when purchasing carpet cleaners? I know nothing about them except not to wear socks when walking over the carpets afterwards...

I also have no budget as I have no clue what to spend on this type of thing. I had a quick look at ao.com last night and they seemed around the £150 mark.

Cheers!
 
I've got a vax in the garage and it may as well go in the bin. First time I hired a rug doctor made me realise how useless the vax is in comparison. Lots of effort and minimal results.

I've only kept it I'm case I need to use it to suck up water from the washing machine flooding or similar.
 
My experience is the opposite, we've got a high end Vax and it gets the carpet like new, buckets of dirty/gritty water are pulled up.

It's also amazing on cloth car seats.
 
Positive experience with a Vax here too. Did all the carpets in our new place before we moved in and the difference was astonishing.
 
How much did you guys spend on the Vax's if you don't mind me asking? Thinking whether £180ish would get a good one or if they're entry level.

I've used hired Rug Doctors before and they are great. I just don't think I want to buy one and given the randomness of when our cats decide to create "presents" I think I'd get irritated with having to hire. Moving in and out of somewhere they're great but for day to day living it's a bit much!
 
We have a cat and purchased a VAX carpet cleaner, works quite well, can get clogged up, not as good as a proper machine but given the VAX cost sub £200 (non heated one) i can live with that.
 
Parents had a Vax for 15 years, been flawless in all that time - in fact I still have it and still use it now. £180 ish is mid level - but its about what the one I have cost when we got it.
 
we have a cat & use a combination of a decent dyson for day to day (weekly) cleaning the have a can of vanish carpet foam for the furballs etc - one or two applications of that seems to keep the stains off :)
 
you can get the VAX Rapide Ultra 2 on the rainforest (W90-RU-P) for £99 with Prime delivery for tomorrow if you have it! Quite a good deal. I've had the use of one before and not found much difference between them and the Rug doctor stuff.
 
I find our vax rapide ultra to be pretty much as good as a rug doctor, i have used both extensively. Obviously the machine is nothing like as well built as a rug doctor but i find the results are similar and its not as if a privately owned machine is going to get much of a beating.
 
We have this one and it does a fine job. We got ours from the Original Factory Outlet and only paid £99. The stuff it gets out of the carpets is quite shocking (as in it didn't look that dirty to begin with).
 
Cool, thanks for the replies everyone. Seems the Rapide 2 is the winner!

Also thanks for the heads up for the price on Amazon, I do have Prime so will order it on Friday :D
 
Mrs Mum has a Vax carpet cleaner and it was pretty woeful when we were cleaning our rented flat with it a few years ago.

It just left lines in the carpet where the jets fired water down and didn't seem to get it much cleaner. No idea if it was borked but after one room I promptly switched it off and took it back to her.
 
Surely it's pointless just mentioning brand names and not model numbers, as the different models differ massively from what I've seen. It's like saying you shouldn't buy a Honda S2000 because you thought the Honda Jazz sucks.

Tempted with the VAX Rapide Ultra 2 based on reviews here and on the rainforest. Just £90 from the Warehouse Deals section where I've found most stuff to be like new with just box damage.
 
Em3bbs said:
Surely it's pointless just mentioning brand names and not model numbers, as the different models differ massively from what I've seen. It's like saying you shouldn't buy a Honda S2000 because you thought the Honda Jazz sucks.

Tempted with the VAX Rapide Ultra 2 based on reviews here and on the rainforest. Just £90 from the Warehouse Deals section where I've found most stuff to be like new with just box damage.
Click to expand...

Valid point.

I've got something similar to the "Vax V-020TC Washvax Carpet Cleaner". I think the issue is that it doesn't have any form of brush or vibrating head so it just dumps out water and sucks it back up. By comparison the Rug Doctor agitates the carpet as well as sucking the water out.
 
We have one of the Bissell spot cleaning ones. I's green but looks like models have changed over the years.

It's great for what you're talking about and fairly compact.
 
I have a Numatic George. It's a Numatic so it'll last forever, and parts are ultra cheap if things do break. Plus it comes with all the attachments to convert it into a normal everyday dry vacuum which is a bonus so you can use it to vacuum your house or pickup building rubble/dust.

FY9Siyv.jpg


Plus he has a smiley face like the Henry. /thread
 
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