Stean cleaner advice please.

andygb

I have been considering buying a steam cleaner to give the whole house a good going over, and then move on to the cars. I saw a presentation on one of the shopping channels (Film 4 before the films start) this morning, where a guy was demoing an X5 Steam clear for around the £1oo mark. It is just the sort of thing which I am looking for, but after Googling it, and reading the reviews, there seem to be some other (better?) alternatives - Vax, Holme, Molfiss.
Has anyone here got any recomendations based on their experience, because the going rate seems to be from £39 to well over £100.

Cheers.

penrhyn

Polti used to be widely featured on QVC, I've used a Morphy Richards one, you get a bit fed up with changing, and washing out the flannels used to mop up the dirt.

Quite good at blasting the muck out of crevices, but it goes everywhere unless you are careful, easier to use a toothbrush.

Of course the Shopping channels will bang on about them sanitising surfaces, maybe be true maybe marketing hype.

andygb

penrhyn wrote: »

Polti used to be widely featured on QVC, I've used a Morphy Richards one, you get a bit fed up with changing, and washing out the flannels used to mop up the dirt.

Quite good at blasting the muck out of crevices, but it goes everywhere unless you are careful, easier to use a toothbrush.

Of course the Shopping channels will bang on about them sanitising surfaces, maybe be true maybe marketing hype.

I was concerned about this. Sure, it is steam (very high temperature), but that is no substitute for an anti bacterial cleaner surely?

Reluctant_spender

Thought I read that steam has to be in contact for 5 mins to kill all nasties etc

London50

Hi
We have been using both the floor and the hand held steamers {bought from the shopping channels} for many year, like you we were not sure as to just how good they would be both for cleaning and sanatizing but after about a month we stopped buying anti bacterial sprays and wipe and have never had a problem with germs or viruses. The only two "problems" we had was {as has been stated} you are forever washing the cloths each time you use them and it IMO does not clean gease out of an oven the way it is shown on TV. Steam will sanatize any surface and a lot of hospitals now use them for the "deep cleans" they do so IMO if a hospital uses them they can't be all bad:0)
At the end of the day the choice of course is yours but from our use we would never go back to cans, bottles and sprays

pimento

All my (very expensive) steam cleaner does is move the dirt around, it doesn't suck it up like a hoover. I've owned it for about 12 years and have used it about three times. Every time I use it it reminds me what a complete waste of money it was.

Don't believe the hype about it cleaning your oven, it doesn't.

devildog

I would agree to not believe all the hype too.
Oven's instructions say not to use a steam cleaner, window installer said not to use steamer on windows.
On carpets it will slightly 'lift' the pile but anything that is mildly 'dirty' will need a soap cleaner. Majority of downstairs flooring is Amtico, can't use it on that either cause it will lift the tiles.
On any other flooring like hard tiles, vinyl etc it will 'clean' it but tbh the affect isn't really that much better than a good old mop.

One of the things it does best is if it is on a nozzle head it does a brill job at blowing out dust/cobwebs from behind radiators