I live in a house with little carpeting. Most of our flooring is covered by hardwood, ceramic, or laminate products. Only the stairways and landings and a small portion of our basement is covered with carpet. BUT, with 2 kids, 3 cats, a messy husband and 2 aquariums (okay, so the fish don't make that much of a mess), it is amazing how much damage is inflicted upon our poor carpeting.
We previously owned a Bissell Little Green Machine, which lasted about 3 years, and then died an ugly death. We replaced that with a Bissell Powerbrush Spotlifter, which works great, but only deals with very small areas at a time. Next came a Kenmore Steam Cleaner from Sears, which wound up back at their service department every 2 weeks (basically every time we used it, something broke). So, back we went to Bissell, and purchased a ProHeat Upright Steam Cleaner. That was in March 2005, and here's the dirty little secrets you need to know about this steamer:
REPUTATION
I read the reviews available on this cleaner, and admittedly, they are hit and miss at best. Even I had a bad experience with an earlier Bissell Little Green Machine. But Bissell makes a lot of products, and we were willing to try them again. Bissell products are competitively priced, and while not the cheapest on the market, are considerably cheaper than Eureka and Hoover. This too was a deciding factor in our purchase.
FEATURES
Visit www.bissell.com for a full list of bell and whistles, but here are the main features in a nutshell:
Built-in Heater - will heat up to 25 degrees hotter. HELPFUL HINT - If you want it really hot, then start by adding already very hot tap water.
Dirt Lifter Power Brush - 6 rows of motorized brushes turning to lift dirt up and out of carpeting
ScotchGuard Protector - an attachment that sprays out ScotchGuard liquid to protect your furniture/upholstery, and carpet
12 AMP Cleaning System - it's all about power, apparently!
PERFORMANCE
We have had lots of luck with this steamer managing to clean up a variety of yucky messes. Cat puke, urine (kids and cats', not husbands'!), hairballs, and spilt beverages including red wine and chocolate milk are common disasters in our house. These all come out easily with the ProHeat 79011. The only thing that hasn't cleaned up well was a dried-up wad of chewing gum that some ingrate deposited in our new basement berber. Likely the result of my brother's stag night party, but that's another review...
We have not had any breakdowns yet, and we use this machine about twice a month on average. We also lend it to my parents, so it actually gets used more often than that. We add HOT tap water to the tank, and it heats up even hotter. No complaints there.
ATTACHMENTS
The ProHeat 79011 comes complete with the ScotchGuard spray attachment, and a variety of nozzles and wands for convenient cleaning of automobiles, stairs, and upholstery.
FLUIDS...
We have used both Bissell cleaning fluids and other name brands in our ProHeat steamer. There has been no noticible difference in the cleaning results, we find that it comes down to personal preference and the price. Other liquid cleaning brands tend to be cheaper to buy than Bissell, so we've tried most (Orange Glo, Hoover, Endust). We like the smell of Endust, so we use that one the most often. There seems to be no negative effects on the ProHeat from using cleaning fluids made by companies other than Bissell.
WEAR AND TEAR
We have not yet needed to replace any parts, including belts, and had no reason to contact the service department. Same goes for Bissell's customer service department. It's almost been a year since we purchased this machine, and no problems for us as yet.
BOTTOM LINE
We like this steamer. It is a bit large for stairs, but that's where the attachments come in handy. Unfortunately, you can't use the power brush feature with the wand attachments, and our stairs could benefit from that for sure. Other reviewers have had many problems with breakdowns, but we haven't had one. Maybe theirs were lemons, or perhaps we've just been lucky. Who knows. This steamer has provided us with great performance for a small upfront cost. We're happy... now if the cats would stop horking up hairballs (or learn to do it on the ceramic flooring), life would be grand.