Steam Cleaners

tintin82

tintin82

tintin82

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Are they worth it? Do they clean as effectively as standard cleaners and bleach?
Quite interested as I would like to reduce the amount of chemicals we use to clean with, however not too sure if a steam cleaner would do the job. Anyone swear by theirs?
 
I have 2 in a box waiting for when I move house, they were recommended to me because the house I am moving too is filthy. I got a Karcher one from the Karcher outlet and a handheld Vax one.
 
We have a handheld Vax one, nothing expensive, it works however our house is already tidy so you don't see much improvement, but where there's improvement to be made, you definitely see it.
 
As much i hate TV ads and their blurb.. Steam is a really good cleaning method and it doesn't need to use of extra chemicals. Temperature can vary from 150-170 degrees which is plenty to shift dirt, tricky stains and most bugs, The other benefit of the heat is that once the floor is clean it will dry off quickly too.

Just telling my mum that it's time for a steam cleaner as most her floors are wood now.
 
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I have a Vax steam cleaner. Best thing I ever bought, my apartment is all hard floors and having a steam cleaner makes it so much easier.
 
1. Fill it with water, wait for it to heat up. (4-5mins)

2. Use it for 5mins.

3. Wait for it to cool down enough to be able to refill it. (15-20mins)

4. Go back to step 1.

While you're bored at stage 3, use some good old fashioned elbow grease and remove that nasty stain in seconds instead.
 
doofer said:
1. Fill it with water, wait for it to heat up. (4-5mins)

2. Use it for 5mins.

3. Wait for it to cool down enough to be able to refill it. (15-20mins)

4. Go back to step 1.

While you're bored at stage 3, use some good old fashioned elbow grease and remove that nasty stain in seconds instead.
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I don't quite agree with that.
I bought one because... well because I wanted to try it, to be honest.
I have one of these: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/22628/Shark-Steam-Pocket-Portable-Steamer

Personally, I think it's good/great. Not amazing, but not bad. It doesn't do the floors very well, as it's a handheld but I didn't really buy it for that. I just use a mop for that anyway.

What it's good at:
Sinks/Bathrooms
Cooker Hob
Worktops
Extractor Hood
Steaming Clothes

What it's not amazing at:
Cleaning mucky grout in showers - not sure if it's meant to be good at this, but it's not.

What I've not tried it at:
Steam dusting(?)

I find that it takes about 2 mins to get up to temperature, after which you can just keep refilling the reservoir (which lasts about 5 mins of constant steaming) and it does produce a good amount of nice, hot steam.
It gets things clean with a little wipe/scrub with a cloth / brush. It did a great job of my kitchen sink/taps - just required a wipe over with a kitchen cloth for a nice sparkling finish.

It did a great job of my greasy cooker hob, and again only required a wipe over with a cloth to mop up the water it left behind. I did use the brush attachment on this, though... Has plastic bristles, which do kind of bend after not that long using it, but still seems to work ok and I've not used the spare brush yet.

Kitchens and bathrooms it's good at, and came with a squeegee attachment thing for shower enclosures - did a goodish job of that. Probably could have done better with a scouring pad and some Jif, but hey.

What it's brilliant at is cleaning stainless steel cooker hoods. Mine was kinda disgusting with grease, but a once over with this thing and its big cleaning pad - not a mark on it, and it was CLEAN.

The best thing is you don't have to wait for it to cool down between fills. If I had to then I'd say don't bother.
 
We have a tile floor on the downstairs. While I thought it was clean I for some reason decided to buy a Karcher steam cleaner with a nozzle attachment.

Jesus, I had never seen my floor so clean, it took a lot of hard work but nothing else touched it for getting the grim away. we did other parts of the house that had stubborn stains.

Parked it upstairs until we need to clean like it again, was around £130 quid iirc
 
I use a Shark steam cleaner throughout the house as it has wooden floors and does the job perfectly. I would definitely recommend one for those with solid floors.
 
Are these safe for Laminate and Lino floors?

Also do they completely remove the need to have mops and the like? Are they as effective as using bleach?

I currently bleach my floors but its annoying as it A: Takes ages to dry, and B: My cats love rolling in it which im not hugely fond of so I typically have to lock them away somewhere.
 
Emjay86 said:
Are these safe for Laminate and Lino floors?

Also do they completely remove the need to have mops and the like? Are they as effective as using bleach?

I currently bleach my floors but its annoying as it A: Takes ages to dry, and B: My cats love rolling in it which im not hugely fond of so I typically have to lock them away somewhere.
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It will get stains away no problems and clean the floor. you may still need to clean parts depends how mad the stains are. I sware by mine
 
Regy53 said:
It will get stains away no problems and clean the floor. you may still need to clean parts depends how mad the stains are. I sware by mine
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I clean the floors in our house once every weekend so we never have stains on them. I just like to ensure its dirt free basically.

Would they suffice for that?

Doesn't the steam kill just as much germies as normal floor cleaning chemicals would? Or thereabouts.
 
for hard floors steam cleaners are great as compared with moping you only really have a second if that where the product is working, so you mop, leave part of the solution down which then loosens the bad dirt and then leave that to dry on the floor.steam cleaning helps loosen more as it wipes so less dirt is left.

for general cleaning steam cleaning is pointless other then it gives pressure so you can push dirt out of corners. i've run a cleaning company for 4 years now, we mostly do moving house cleans so top to bottom leaving the place spotless. we bought a steam cleaner for general cleaning and it was slow and pointless. most dirt will come off fairly easy, with things like limescale and grease being what you need a good strong product and tool for, and steam doesn't affect this one bit. having a good scourer is imo far better and will reduce the need for chemicals.

if you really are worried about chemicals try eco products like those linked below. for all surface cleaners, daily shower cleaners/toilet cleaners, and glass cleaners "natural" products work just as good.

http://www.naturalselection.biz/cleaning-laundry

steam is also harder to control and has risks so you can't as easily force the kids to tidy up once in a while.
 
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