Bissell Vac & Steam Review

Living in a house with two boys (three if you include the grown up one) a new puppy and living in the country we tend to have an awful lot of mud on the inside of the house. Yes they’re “supposed” to take their shoes off when they come inside but normally they’re running so fast it never happens. So any cleaner which comes into our house has to be up to a fairly good task. Also anything which comes for review also gets tested at my mothers in the spirit of umm lets say science?  

Now we come to our latest review – The Bissell Steam & Vac. We’ve had floor steamers before and I have to say I’m not overly impressed by the ones we’ve had. I don’t have time to shut the kitchen off for the day while the floor dries nor do I have time or the inclination I have to say to vacuum, sweep and wipe down (yes one once required I wiped the floor before I cleaned it!) however the Bissell comes up well on reviews so I was more than happy to see how it would do.

Firstly I made sure the floor was extra muddy (that’s allowed yes?) its winter and we’ve been putting up new fencing in the vegetable patch (which currently resembles a mud wallow) It took more than one sweep to clean the floor (it took 3) On my mums floor (the one in the video) it took going over three times to get the dried in stains off the floor - Coffee, custard and sauce – I did make her drop them before so we could test. Both attempts were on high steam, there is an option to choose low too, and the video is with the vacuum on too.

The positives? Well…

No chemicals! A huge bonus is this household as I’m allergic to most and with a puppy and boys rolling around the floor the less of those the better! Plus it kills 99.9% of germs and bacteria!

The footprint is fantastic. It actually gets under things easily so you aren’t left having to manually clean the edges after. Its smooth, it glides! No strain or pushing on your shoulder so while it’s not the lightest on the market it moves a lot easier and you don’t notice!

It dries quickly. Even using the high steam the floor was dry in a matter of minutes. A huge benefit in my opinion.

There’s no dirty water reservoir to empty. The bin needs emptying at the front and even when on steam & vac no water gets in to this chamber.

A lovely long lead and no batterys. Both my mum and I have large kitchens and there was no need to unplug and replug in at the other end.

No disposable pads. The pads are antibacterial microban and can be popped in the washing machine.

The negatives?

You are supposed to use distilled water (there is a filter though and tap water is fine)

Noisier than I’d like but then it’s not for the whole house and the suction is pretty effective.

The handle is ok for me (5ft 11) but my husband finds it a little short (6ft4)

So my overall opinion?

 While it didn’t save a huge amount of time on manual cleaning it was just as effective, cheaper (no chemicals to buy) quicker to dry and vacuumed at same time and not as expensive as you might originally think. You can pick it up at less than half price on some larger shopping sites