Hoover SteamVac Carpet Cleaner with Clean Surge, F5914-900
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Hoover SteamVac Carpet Cleaner with Clean Surge, F5914-900
Customer Review: Hoover and Bissell side by side comparison
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been generally happy with my last two Hoover carpet cleaners and they have been durable for me. I used both TONS -- the 1st one was a very early model that was still going strong after 5 or 6 years of hard use, and I replaced it with one that had rotating brushes. It also got years of use but I accidentally damaged it thru my negligence. (Used it in an unheated cabin, left it overnight, and it got well below freezing - I broke the spray trigger when I impatiently tried to use it.) My last one still worked if you pushed the surge button and then pried it up again, but I decided to get a new one.
I purchased this model, but it leaked before even starting to use it, so I returned it and bought a Bissell Proheat 2x. I liked that it seemed easier to clean the machine than the Hoovers, and that it had a rinse option, although not conveniently located. I noticed immediately with first use that it wasn't as good as even my old (trigger broken) Hoover. The Bissell didn't extract water well at all, even though I went over and over an area trying to get the water up. It was obvious by looking that it also didn't clean as well (probably as a result of leaving dirty water still in the carpets.) If it'd been my first carpet cleaner I might have thought it great since it did get dirt out, but I knew they didn't look as clean as in the past and mostly they were WET. The next day, before returning it I bought ANOTHER Hoover 914-900 thinking the first leaky one was an anomaly. The 2nd one leaked initially also, but once I used it for a minute, pressed and released the trigger a few times and the seals got wet, it stopped leaking. Thus I had two new cleaners to try side-by-side. Where I used the Bissell after the Hoover, there was no difference, the Bissell didn't get the carpet any cleaner. Where I used the Hoover on where I'd cleaned with the Bissell the night before -- a BIG difference. The carpet was visibly cleaner; (it's a very light carpet so it's easy to see that) the dirty water collected confirms that it picked up dirt the Bissell left behind; and the carpet was drier. This was a return to what I expected based on my last 2 Hoovers -- damp carpet, not WET carpet, and I think it's why the Hoover cleaned better. The Hoover isn't perfect -- the tanks need to be bigger for fewer trips to the sink (if too heavy for some people, they wouldn't have to fill as full), and there is no good way to clean it! I did like the idea behind the Bissell of having clean water with which to either mix with the detergent and spray, or to rinse with, and it would be a plus if Hoover would find a way to do that. (Especially if the "rinse" button was on the handle and easily accessible.) But Bissell's technique of inserting a plastic bladder for clean water inside the dirty water tank means neither holds much water which makes for extremely frequent trips to the sink. Also, having to stop, bend over, and switch a dial on the base to "rinse" and the same to switch back to cleaning mode was highly inconvenient. Last, Bissell's on-board water heater didn't seem to make a difference. Leaving behind too much dirty water was its downfall, it didn't matter that the water went in "heated." I used the hottest tap water I could in the Hoover and it worked just fine. The "proheat" seems to me to be just another unneeded gizmo that can break. Overall, I guess it depends on what's most important to you. For me, clean carpets that dry in a couple of hours trumped ease of cleaning the machine.
Customer Review: Hoover vs/ Bissell - Cleans well, but man, it is LOUD!!!
Summary: 3 Stars
I got this machine after the very basic $90ish Bissell I had for 4 or 5 years starting stinking (Similar to this but older: Bissell PowerLifter PowerBrush Upright Steam Carpet Cleaner). It still worked, but it must have cleaned up one too many chocolate milk spills. We took it apart and cleaned as much as we could, but to no avail - those things are not designed to be cleaned, and we could not get the stink out.
I chose this Hoover model because it was so well reviewed and relatively inexpensive. I used my bissell probably every 2-4 weeks on my 14 year old offwhite carpet that we (husband, me, 4 year old twin boys and 2 cats ) eat and play on daily.
To compare the two just on the actual cleaning, to my eyes, they are equivocal. The Hoover was able to get the stuff out that the Bissell had been able to get out. The water from the Hoover was no dirtier than it had been in the Bissell. I will say that the cleaning solution they send with the Hovoer is not as good as the Woolite OxyDeep steam cleaning solution you can buy at Walmart. I used the Hoover stuff initially and was very disappointed, but the second time switched back to the Woolite cleaner with much better results.
The Hoover is, however, significantly better at extracting the cleaning solution. The waste water container filled up everytime before the solution tank was empty. With the Bissell, I would fill the tank with solution and only get about half of what I put on the carpet back up. This left the carpet very wet; I'd turn on the ceiling fan and place 3 box fans in our great room and 6 hours later the floor would be dry. With the Hoover, the carpets were slightly damp after cleaning, and were dry within an hour with celing fan and 1 box fan. In the end, this probably translates to cleaner carpets since more cleaning solution is being extracted.
The only major complaint I have with this machine is the noise it generates. It is ridiculously loud! I have used it twice and my ears rang and ached afterwards. I will actually need to buy some hearing protection for when I use this machine. I have worked on flight lines around multiengine jet airplanes and was less concerned about by hearing then than I am with this carpet cleaner. It is really, really bad.
Other small things that I've noticed:
1. The Hoover steamvac is MUCH easier to clean. The waste water container completely opens and you can thoroughly clean it before putting it away. The front can be unscrewed and the brushes can be removed to be cleaned. The Bissell's all-in-one tank was not designed to be cleaned, and that is ultimately why I had to replace mine.
2. Hoover's cleaning solution tank is oddly shaped, so if you have a standard kitchen sink and faucet, it is impossible to easily fill it up there. I had to start filling in the bathtub, which is not a huge deal, but not as comfortable to have to hunch over on my knees and try to get the water hot enough without making a huge mess in the tub.
So, I'm not planning on sending it back (although I was actually comtemplating it for a bit). It does what it needs to do and is a better cleaning machine than the Bissell, although it is certainly not a perfect steam cleaner. I won't be terribly sad when it's time to buy another steam cleaner.
Customer Review: hoover ubersucks X2, and not in the right way.
Summary: 1 Stars
Before saying ANYTHING else, please let me say Amazon ROCKS. This item was at my door less than 20 hours after ordering, and when I had to return it because it was dead in the box, NO questions asked, no charge for return shipping..I can not speak highly enough about Amazon itself!
However, caveat emptor. The more than 1600 5 star reviews for this cleaner had me quite enthused. However, like at least one other poster here, I received someone else's defective return item. I am not sure why my husband and I wasted more than 3 hours trying to assemble, reassemble, troubleshoot and try to get this moribund item to work.
The box appeared to have travelled to Mars and back a good ten times. The packing material was bent and crumpled; very obviously, it had been repackaged. Several parts of the cleaner were "pre-assembled". The bolts and screws were absolutely missing until I finally located them in an aftermarket ziploc bag UNDER one of the bottom box flaps..Hoover typically packages their screws in a very visible bright orange bag taped to some component or other; they don't arrive stuffed under the bottom box flap.
Still, we forged ahead, believing this would work out. We never got as far as plugging this in or adding water; the triggers were both solidly frozen once assembled. We took this apart and put it together again, at least 6 times, thinking we had missed something. We finally gave up, recalling the adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
During all of this I emailed Hoover tech support for some trouble shooting help. THREE DAYS later, after having actually returned the dead item to Amazon due to the bilateral frozen triggers, we received a very helpful email suggesting we depress both triggers at once (DUH.. been there, done that 10 times) and then, best of all, a suggestion of an out of state place 80 miles away that might "REPAIR" our supposedly BRAND new item.
They have got to be kidding???!!!!!!
If any of you are still reading, here is why I opted for refund rather than replacement. In the main,this is a very poorly engineered and designed piece of junk. The internal parts, in particular the trigger connections, are flimsy plastic which will fail, sooner than later. The external hose attachments are absolutely untenable and prone to slipping off constantly.The tanks take multiple attempts to seat properly; otherwise you'll have a half gallon of something blooped out onto your carpet. I'm almost glad I got a dead one.
Why does Hoover suck x2? If you can bear this tale of woe any further, I went the next day to a local discount store and picked up a much lower end Hoover steamvac for 59.00 (belt and brushroll assembly, no attachments).
I had it together in 5 minutes flat and merrily cleaned 2 rooms (with FANTASTIC results) in no time. At the very end of my session, small amounts of water dripped from the back of the cleaner, but I ignored that.
The next day when I started up again, water poured out like a river from the back/bottom of the cleaner. YES, everything was clicked and seated properly; yes, the water tank was intact without cracks. The gasket internally FAILED after a single use.
This one is going straight to the dump, and I will never have a thing to do with Hoover again.
Customer Review: Awesome cleaner for the home carpets
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had my Hoover Steam Vac going on 5 + years maybe longer. It has outlasted my standard vaccum until I bought a Dyson- but thats another review. I have 4 high traffic areas in my home, and this vac is amazing. Fist off you do need to listen for the click, I suggest you read the manual, as plug and play as it is, you would be surprised how much more you can use this machine by just taking the time to know how it works.
1. VACCUM all the areas you plan to clean. I never ever use any "machine" type liquids for my carpets, no matter what they always leave a residue, sorry.
2. I use my own mixture of cleaning solution and when used correctly there are no problems with the machine, my recipe has been used with other machines my friends and family have purchased and NO Problems. +DISCLAIMER-Again it is always recm'd to use whatever cleaning solution the manufacturer suggests, but call me a rebel.
3. For the cleaning solution get a large plastic 2 qt pitcher, fill it with hot water from your tap FIRST.
4. Add to the pitcher 1 cup windex or generic but same type of liquid, NO pine sol, fabuloso etc.... stick to my recipe.
Windex leaves the carpets squeaky clean and the dawn gets rid of the greace and grime- IT WORKS! I have light beige carpets and they look brand new.
5.Add to the pitcher 1 tsp dawn dishwashing liquid
6. mix well- slowly pour into the cleaning solution tank.
7. Begin cleaning, go over the area slowly, DO NOT clean your carpets on a day you are going to be rushed, it will look like you rushed and frankly whats the point? I wear white socks when I clean so my feet do not leave oil or dirt from walking around.
You can really see the dirt and grime that comes up through the cleaning window. I go over my trouble areas really good, then move on to other areas, and then do a another go over, so basically I steam vac 2 times the same day. When the foam is white and water is clear the carpets are "clean"
!!! if you go slowly over the area you know its dry when no water or foam comes up in the window you will change the dirty water more often then you add solution but it has never bothered me, I kinda find the whole process a bit of "home" therapy-because unlike vaccuming, you cant hear a darn thing around you and its totally blissful, as a mom you may appreciate this and use it to your advantage.
Anyway-- I just did my whole house this weekend and I steam my carpets once month, I got teenagers, a dog and cats-and vaccuming every other day doesnt cut the tracked in grime-- and for a 2000sq foot house with carpet everywhere but the laundry, kitchen and foyer, I use 2 bottles of windex and almost nothing of the dawn... Please Dont use any other brand dish soap unless you use the costco brand because they will foam up, no big deal just stir it better in the pitcher before you add to the machine dispenser.
++ Also be sure to rinse out the dirty water resivoir every time you toss the dirty water out and make sre you have a drain strainer, you dont want the stuff to go down your drain..and clog it.
When done cleaning- unplug, clean the brushes, the clear plastic cover and rinse the tanks..take careof your machine and it will take care of your carpets.
Also works great on area rugs.
Customer Review: great carpet cleaner for the price
Summary: 4 Stars
This review is written after owning the product for a week. Therefore, I haven't had a chance to test its durability. So I'll update at a later time to see if this device stands the test of time.
First off, although you're supposed to strictly review the product and not the seller, I'd like to mention Coolncheap because I was astonished how fast the carpet cleaner arrived at the house. I ordered in the afternoon with free shipping and the next day, it was at my house (not even 24 hours later). You can't imagine my surprise. It arrived via Fedex. Kudos to the company for such prompt service.
As for the device, it was very easy to set up. They made the device as foolproof as possible. Everything seems well designed, even providing nice compartments for your accessories. You have a clean tank that holds your water/cleaning solution and a dirty water tank below. The clean water tank is easily portable with a built-in handle. The cap for the tank is also the measuring cup for your cleaning solution so there's no guesswork and the tank itself has markings so you know how much water to pour in.
It comes with a couple of handheld attachments for cleaning furniture and stairs. They work about as well as most handheld attachments work. Wish there was a little more suction power though.
The instruction manual is not that good but it's not that necessary. The attachments can only be attached a certain way and all levers are easy to figure out without a manual.
The tanks are small so if you're doing a whole house, you'll be refilling numerous times. When the dirty water tank fills up to a particular level, it stops sucking any more to prevent the tank from overfilling. You can tell because the machine will suddenly get very loud, by design. However, it seems to stop before the clean tank is empty. They should've made the dirty water tank a little larger than the clean water tank (1 gallon).
I found that the Clean Surge feature was not really necessary. You have a normal trigger for a normal dispensing of cleaning solution but you also have another Clean Surge button so that you can dump twice as much fluid. When I first started using it, I thought, why not use the clean surge all the time? So by the time I realized how much solution was being dumped onto the carpet, half the tank was already empty.
To have a good cleaning, you really need to have a lot of patience. If you're expecting to use it like a vacuum cleaner, you'll be sorely disappointed. the only previous experience I had with a carpet cleaner was the Rug Doctor. Use an MP3 player to pass the time or something because it's slow going. Cleaning with Hoover was far easier and left a much dryer carpet than the Rug Doctor. Although you can clean more carpet before changing the dirty water/adding clean water tank with a Rug Doctor. In terms of cleaning, maybe the Rug Doctor was a little better but Rug Doctors go for some $600?
Besides larger tanks, the other thing I wish it did have was a longer power cord. We have a long staircase with no power outlets along the staircase. So the middle stairs were a bit difficult to reach. This was not an issue with any of our vacuum cleaners which had longer cords.