Carpet Cleaning

The Lazy Lady’s Dream Cleaner - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum

Can’t live without it - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum The V2 is our second Hoover SteamVac. We used the first one for five years, and having two large dogs, we used it ...

A problem they cannot/will not solve; a real lemon. - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum I purchased my Steamvac April 2005. After the first cleaning, the clean water tank was leaking. Instead of retur...

We live a couple of hours from civilization, which means we pay extra to have our carpets cleaned. It had been almost three years (rather than our normal annual cleaning). I had heard so many negative comments about most home cleaning units that I had stopped considering that as a solution. But earlier this week the New York Times published a short review of carpet cleaning units: Dirt Devil, Bissell, and the Hoover V2. We happened to see it at Best Buy for $300 minus $20 minus 10%. We figured we had little to lose. (We didn’t see any other similar Hoover models at the store. This model is currently listed on the Hoover site (it’s one of the three and the only one with the automatic rinse feature). The price at Costco when they carried it earlier had been $300, so we felt we got a good price.)

In ten minutes this morning we had the unit assembled and ready to go. My husband tried the first few swipes and he said he had to concentrate to make sure the return/rinse swipe covered exactly the same path as the wash/scrub path. We started with the dirtiest spot in the house. Since our model didn’t come with prespotter, we cheated and used some we had left from the supermarket rental unit.

We could hardly believe our eyes. We have tried the supermarket unit and ended up with a mess because it was so hard to stop and stop dispensing the water at the right time…we ended up with dirty streaks. But with the Hoover unit we had no trouble at all.

Even when we didn’t pretreat the areas they got clean.

And the reviews of the other similar Hoover models are correct: it extracts the water so efficiently that the carpets really were dry in an hour.

Of course, although this is called a steamvac, it doesn’t really steam at all. It requires that you use really hot tap water. So if you’ve turned down your water heater to save money, you might want to heat the water or crank up the water heater for this machine.

To use the V2, you release the latch so the unit is angled back towards you. You turn on the power, make sure the brushes are turned on, press the trigger and push it forward. During this swath the soapy water is dispensed while the brushes are turning. This is the cleaning cycle. Without releasing the trigger, pull the unit back towards you over the same swath. As you pull the unit back, the soapy water is automatically stopped and clean rinse water is dispensed (the brushes are still turning). This is called the automatic rinse feature and it’s wonderful. (I can’t imagine not having it.)

Now rpush it forward and pull it back over the same path but this time don’t pull on the trigger. During this cycle the water is being sucked up from the carpet. You’ll probably want to repeat this two or three times, depending on how slowly you did the wash/rinse cycle.

Unlike the huge unwieldly supermarket rental units (like Rug Doctor), the V2 is the size and shape of a large vacuum cleaner and easy to maneuver and push. You don’t have to have lots of muscles to use this.

Next I tried it on my kitchen tile floor. Normally I use a Eureka steam cleaner which looks like a big steam iron (it’s a flat plat with holes, covered with a removable cloth held on by elastic). My biggest problem with it is that nothing really cleans the grout.

My kitchen floor was only moderately dirty but I thought that while I had the V2 out and going, I’d give it a try.

Well, here I think the unit is really useless. None of the spots came off and I ended up having to vacuum areas that got wet when the water shot out. I tried it with the hard floor attachment and without and couldn’t see any difference. Please don’t buy this unit to clean tile floors.

While we had it out, my husband tried it on the car carpets. He thought the attachment stalled easily and it would be just as easy and effective to use other methods for cleaning them. He’s pretty picky so maybe others will like the attachment better.

Some of the other reviews for similar models claimed it was as noisy as a police siren. We didn’t think so. It is not quiet but it’s not nearly as noisy as I had expected. You cannot hear the telephone or doorbell while it’s going. But hey! It’s so fast that you won’t be out of communication long.

This unit has six brush heads and is something like 14″ wide. It gets under most furniture but if height is a critical item for you, measure the clearance you have and then check the height of the front of the unit. I think it’s about 3 inches.

This model does not have the prespotter dispenser but it does automatically dispense the rinse water when you pull the unit back to you while the trigger is pulled.

Unfortunately we didn’t think to buy extra cleaner while we were at the store, so we don’t have enough to finish doing the entire house today. If it weren’t for that, we surely would have.

We deliberately bought it from a store that has a good return policy, thinking that we would take it back if we were at all unsatisfied. We both agree that this is a fantastic unit and one of the best purchases we’ve made for the house in years.

Since we’ve only used it a few hours, it’s hard to me to say how durable it will be. But the material and design seem to be excellent. Nothing seems flimsy. Filling and emptying the tanks is a piece of cake.

Hoover SteamVac how about HotWaterVac - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum First let me say that overall I think the Hoover Steamvac V2 does a decent job shampooing the carpet but it is dec...

Great Machine - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum This is the fourth steamvac I have owned and each one keeps getting a little better. The new machines, suck the di...

The RED WINE Horror Story - by Hoover - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum Wish I would have had one of these at the beginning of the day ;) Well, it is holiday season here in the DC a...

My Wife loves it, sorry I bought it works to good - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum Well I had to call the company about a little leak in the top bottle that holds the water. They sent me a new wate...

Steam! What steam? Heated - REALLY - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum Steam - There ain't none. Heated - Oh really! Give me a break. Steam - There isn't any!!! In fact the instr...

This one breaks your heart!! - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum For anyone who has read my reviews, you know we have dogs and cats and carpet. This means we have a need to clean ...

Steam Vac V2—Blessing or Curse? - Hoover F7425-900 SteamVac V2 Widepath Upright Vacuum

Excellent Deep Cleaner - Hoover F6030-900 SteamVac WidePath Wet/Dry Vacuum

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