29 out of 29 people found this review helpful.
Wood Floors and Tile Floors. Big difference in performance.
Date of Review: Dec 12, 2007
The Bottom Line: A must-have for wood floors. Questionable for tile. A person could never have too many cleaning appliances.
Is there anything funnier than watching a kid run through a kitchen and fall on their butt while you're mopping? The older, no more the wiser.
When we lived in Florida 50 percent of our floor was tile. I use to get a bucket of bleach water and have a mop sopping dripping wet flopping all over the floor. When I was done I'd set up all the fans and let them air dry. To speed up the process I would stand on a towel and scoot around. The whole house reeked of bleach for at least a day but what else could I do. Nothing else got the tile clean. Since it was Florida the humidity was terrible. The mop never dried and had a horrible smell.
My husband got tired of my mopping procedures and took me shopping for a better tool for the job. He felt confident that we could find an appliance that would solve all of our problems. He picked out the Hoover FloorMate for about $130. It also uses FloorMate Cleaner which is approximately $7 a bottle. The cleaning solution is also sold in the vacuum and carpet cleaner section.
How to Use
I was very excited to have it at first but my bubble quickly burst after the first use because it took FOREVER to clean the floor. The first step to mopping is still to sweep first. It's easiest just to sweep like you always do. There is a "vacuum" lever that can be pressed and used as a vac but it's totally useless and takes too long anyway.
Warm water and cleaning solution is added to the water tank. The process is pretty much the same as shampooing the carpet. The water is sprayed down as you push up the path and then sucked back up when you return back. The slower it is pushed the better it cleans. The action is much slower than a carpet vacuum cleaner. There is a button on the handle that is operated by your trigger finger to release the water. After an hour of mopping your finger gets tired.
The majority of the water comes up on the sweep back. Running the machine over the same spot doesn't really take up any more of the water. It's unbelievable how dry it leaves the floor. No more slipping on the floors.
This is such an easy gadget to operate that anyone who can vacuum a floor should be able to use it. My husband will actually use this appliance if he has to. He doesn't empty the water, but it's a step in the right direction.
The thing that I dislike the most is that the water cup is very small and there is nothing to notify you that it's out of water. The dirty water container will change in pitch when it reaches full capacity. Unfortunately it's never the same time as the clean water tank.
The cord is 24 feet. The appliance is very loud. I can not hear the radio or TV when it's on. The sound becomes annoying since it runs for so long. I think it's a higher pitch than a vacuum.
Tile Floors
I've had this for about three years and it is still working. This is the kind of thing that works great at maintaining clean floors but doesn't do very well on dirty floors. The thing about our tile floor was the grout would get noticeably dirty which is why I used the bleach in the first place. The Hoover just glosses over the top of the tile and doesn't reach the grout. The brushes don't "scrub" either. Therefore the grout never gets clean. It might sanitize it but it doesn't take the dirty look away. Nothing short of bleach and elbow grease ever did.
Wood Floors
We moved and ended up with sealed wood floors. Wood floors are not suppose to have water left on them so mopping with a soggy mop wasn't an option. Since the Hoover has a brush on it I was afraid that it might tear up the floor but it's soft and doesn't really do much. I mop a small patch with the wet vac then turn it off and polish it with a dry push mop to get up the excess water and eliminate streaking. It's a very long process.
Forever Cleaning
It takes at least an hour for me to clean the floors but I have a lot of area to cover. Despite the amount of time I spend on them it only takes seconds for the footprints and crumbs to land right back where they were.
It's a little inconvenient to get the Hoover out every time there is a little mess on the floor. I usually clean high traffic areas between regularly scheduled cleanings just because it's easier to clean up the mess because the longer it sits on the floor the harder it is to get it off.
It is easier to bend over and scrub an area that has dried food on it than to bother with the wetvac because you can drag it over it 50 times and it not come up. Not only do you waste a lot of time, but the more you use the cleaner the more frequently you'll have to empty the container. The more you fill the container the more you spend on cleaner.
The water is not heated so there's no "steam" cleaning.
Overall
This is a great way of mopping if you want floors that smell fresh and never leave puddles which is especially important on wood flooring. I think it does a fabulous job on wood floors and choose it over a traditional mop. It leaves a lot to be desired on tile floors. So long as there's grout, a regular mop is still preferred over this.
It takes a lot of time to get the floor clean but there's no effort involved. There are certain areas that this doesn't reach like between the toilet and wall. It doesn't clean the areas under the kitchen cabinets either.
Overall it's a must have for wood floors and good to have for tile floors.
Hoover.com--Offi cial Site
