I have 3 large dogs that drool any water left in their mouths after a drink, and a large textured ceramic floor that collects dirt in the grooves of the texture. I bought a Hoover Floor-mate in hopes of eliminating the mop and bucket, and because I felt that after a while I was pushing around dirty water. The Floor-mate did pick up a lot of dirt, but it is too large to get under cabinets and the brushes are too soft and too high to get into the crevices of the texture in the ceramic.I decided to try the Flip-It because it is supposed to vacuum and wash the floor. First of all, you really have to vacuum first and clean the receptacle before washing. Otherwise, you will end up with a yucky mess to clean from the receptable and filter. I didn''t find that the vacuum blew the hair as one other buy had reported, but I agree that it doesn''t vacuum very well. It picked up some hair and small crumbs, but didn''t get all of it. This was obvious when I washed the floor. More hair was picked up in the washing process.
With the rubber brush and a little pressure, this cleaner did get much more of the dirt out of the floor texture. I still had to scrub some with the brush on the unit, but I would have to do the same with a sponge mop. At least with this cleaner, the dirty water is vacuumed up and clean solution is dispensed for the next section. Even with my uneven floor, the unit did pick up the water, and the floor dried quickly.
The first floor bathroom, hall, kitchen, and foyer are pretty large, kitchen alone is about 12'' x 18''. I had to refill the cleaner 3 times. I filled the unit with hot water from the tap. So maybe that helped. I don''t think this is too bad because I had to refill the Floor-mate as many times and it didn''t get the floor as clean.
I wouldn''t use this unit as a vacuum again, but as a hard floor cleaner, I think it works well on floors that need more scrubbing than a soft brush.
The idea to have separate dedicated dry vacuum side and wet pick-up side was what initially sold me on this unit. I was comparing to the Hoover Floor Mate models about which I read that dry pick-up is not very good, plus they are 60%-70% more expensive than the Bissell.
The unit indeed is very easy to assemble and was ready to use in less than 5 minutes after attaching the handle with one screw. The handle was a bit squeaky due to all screws being rather loose, so I tightened them about a 1/4 turn of the screwdriver to remedy this. The build quality seems fine and the motor noise acceptable (at least compared to the overly noisy full-size Hoover SteamVac I got for carpets, which by the way cleans carpets very well).
I noticed that the amperage rating of this unit is only 3 amps. Compare this to the 10-12 amps of most regular vacuums or carpet cleaners (or the 5 or more amps on wet/dry vacs you might use in your garage) and you will get an idea of the suction power. It turned later that indeed it is not very strong (but it would have been adequate if not for the serious design problem which rendered the unit useless for dry pick-up)
After filling in the solution tank with the supplied hard floor cleaning solution and warm tap water, I was ready to try it.
First I tried the dry vacuum function. Immediately, I noticed that as soon as I approach a piece of lint, dust or any light particle on the floor within a few inches in front or to the side of the cleaning head, the exhaust air stream would blow it AWAY from the cleaning path. This makes it impossible to even go near the things you want to suck-in, unless they are heavy enough to not be moved by the exhaust air stream. Once over them, the suction is OK to retrieve them in the dirty tank.
I thought I perhaps assembled the unit incorrectly, which would be hard if not impossible to do. Still, I reassembled it more carefully, taking care that all openings fit where they should snugly. Same problem! Then I removed the dirty tank to look at what''s going on (exhaust air was escaping at a great force down from around the elliptical opening on the back of the dirty tank this is on the top/front side when you vacuum and on the back/bottom when you wet pick-up). There are two plastic ducts on the inside of the machine, which blow air down for some reason. The actual exhaust port is pointed sideways as it should, and is blowing air out too. But it looks too small, so most of the exhaust air actually comes out through these two openings. The dirty tank is supposed to block the air from escaping down to the floor, or at least to the front in dry pick-up mode. It has some insulation on the inside of the machine, but it is not adequate, so air escapes around the dirty tank and out down through the opening and towards the floor. In effect, the exhaust air blows down pushing away any light debris that you try to approach...
So much for dry pick-up not good and definitely not usable for anything but stuff like cheerios, heavy crumbs or seeds (hair and light stuff moves away due to the exhaust blowing down).
Second, I tried the wet pick-up with the supplied brush installed. This works OK cleans dirty step marks fine and dries the water. BUT ONLY if you go backwards moving forward, after the brush has been already saturated with water/solution, leaves a wet streak even if you no longer push the spray trigger. So you need to move backwards to leave the floor dry in front of the machine...
It does a fair enough job of drying the tiles and the water in the dirty tank was quite dirty. The kitchen floor was cleaned well enough, although sticky stuff had to be scraped-out by hand (a steamer would have loosened and cleaned these out).
Although it does not look to be the case, I hope I have a defective unit after all I''m probably one of the first customers to buy this at Sears the day they received it in the store... It would be a pity if this relatively moderately priced device with good potential fails miserably due to poor design or execution...
I''d be curious if other reviewers experience the same problem.
--Update 10-7-2004 --While returning the cleaner to Sears, I tested the floor model. It has the same problem blowing air down from the same place mine did. I''m starting to think that if the engineers flipped (!) the cleaning head 180 degrees so that only the wet pick-up is affected by the downdraft, it will actually help dry the floor, and it won''t interfere with the dry pick-up, as it will be blowing now behind the cleaning head in dry mode instead of in front of it... Getting a less restrictive exhaust port would help too. The only other change needed might be to put the outlet on the clean water tank on the opposite side when they rotate the head to allow all solution to drain to the bottom. I''d try this if I had my unit still with me, but now it''s too late :(. My only hope now, besides finding something affordable that works, is when Flip-It 5200 "Plus" (a.k.a. revision 2 with all bugs fixed) comes out with these changes implemented, I''d get a dollar for each one sold, or at least a free one :)
One other thing I forgot to mention was that the capacity of the water tank was sufficient to clean my kitchen of about 15''x8'' with a 6''x3'' counter in the middle. So for larger rooms you will need to refill halfway through.
Buy BISSELL Flip-!t Bare Floor Cleaner Now
I don''t think that this little machine is nearly as bad as some of these reviews make it out to be. I think alot of people have much too high expectations on what a product like this should do.A little over a year ago I purchased the hover floor mate, And I thought it was the best invention ever. For a person like me who hates a mop and bucket and hates waiting for the tile floor to dry because it is deadly when it is wet. Fast forward to this week when I started to mop the kitchen and the motor blew up on the hover. With three children and three dogs I needed to quickly replace it. Despite the many poor reviews on the bissell I decided to try it figuring I could return it if it was too awful. I was pleasently supprised with how it performs. I wouldn''t say that it cleans the floor any better or worse then the hover did, especially considering the much lower price. But I will point out what qualities I noticed right away that I do like better. For one it is much lighter than the hover. It is easier to switch from wet to dry vac and back when you notice that tuft of dog hair you missed. The hover would get clogged very easily if you tried to vacume dog hair while the inside of the vacume was still wet from mopping. And finally, I find the bissell much easier to clean out and put back together when done cleaning.
I don''t feel that any of these machines are really designed to ''scrub'' deep down into grout lines and yes, as with any mop, you sometimes have to make several passes over a tough spot, but atleast you don''t have to put any pressure down on it to get the spot up. Just let the scrubber part rest on the spot for a sec. All in all, it works great for me as a daily quick clean up for the dog hair, drool and sticky mistery goo that the kids always seem to leave behind :)
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I saw this on a TV commercial. We live in the country with dust and dirt constantly making it''s way into our home. We have tile floors and thought this would make a great addition to our cleaning supplies. I was willing to spend money on whatever it took to make cleaning my house easier. So I bought one for my family and one for my parents who also have tile floors.We were sent the flip it''s immediately and got right to work. My husband assembled it for me, and I started to clean the house. First I used the dry vacuum side. The previous ratings were correct. The air does blow out and makes it near impossible to suck anything light up. Then I attempted the wet vac side. It leaked all over my floor. No matter what I did to stop it from leaking it to this day continues to leak. I have even re-assembled it. To no avail, it is still leaking.
Not only does ours leak, my parents are having the same exact problem with theirs.
Do not spend your time or money on this piece of junk. I could''ve sent it back, however, didnt want to deal with the issues of returning a large item.
BOTTOM LINE: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT.
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I purchased this product for the wet floor cleaning ability. I am sold; I think it is wonderful and great. I paid 75 dollars for mine at a discount retailer and have been impressed so far. We have 2 dogs and a toddler in our house which is 75% ceramic tile so there are many things that I like about this unit.1. It is light and easy to use with one hand and truly does go from dry to wet on the fly. Of course the sacrifice for this is that the tanks (both clean and dirty) are somewhat small.
2. It picks up adequately on the dry vacuum side Cheerios and dog hair don''t give it any problems and the dirt that falls in the grout comes up too. My house requires sweeping up first period. There is no way ANY vacuum could get into all the nooks and corners without a wand, but I do wish it was a little lower profile and a little wider on the vacuum side. Although it seems to pick up fine it just doesn''t feel very powerful as vacuum cleaners go.
3. The wet cleaning side is great, works beautifully and does not leave much water at all. I love it! My only complaint is that as others have said, the tanks are small and the filter does clog pretty easily. But I figure you have to make sacrifices for price and compact design.
All things considered it is easy to use does a great job for everyday cleaning and I can''t beat the price. It seems pretty durable too, the other day it hit the floor and both tanks and the wet vac. head popped off, I freaked out for a minute and the snapped everything back together and it ran like a champ. Although I am sure it is not recommended I did suck up and entire cup of coffee off the floor the other day with not so much as a dribble of the brown liquid left it did perfectly.
You also have to remember to leave a little time to get to know the machine. I experienced almost all the same problems as other users in the beginning too. Other users have commented about the dirty water on the floor and the fact that it doesn''t pick the water back up and it leaks etc. I had all these things happen and ALL were attributable to operator error! Vacuum does not pick up= I have never met an upright that didn''t blow stuff. EVER! Dirty water not picking up= filter was clogged, unclogged filter, took two minutes. Tank leaks= dirty water= not clicked in all the way. Clean water= screwed cap on wrong. Takes long time to dry= instructions specifically recommend NOT holding lever down on both forward and reverse sweeps and on the times that I have a stubborn stain I do this but I also go back over it with just the sucker and it turns out just fine. I also use my own vinegar water combo in the machine with no problem either.
All in all, you get what you pay for. I did not pay $200-$400 for a floor cleaner I paid $75, I expect and accept the limitations that affords me. It is so much unbelievably better than vacuuming my whole house with the wand of my upright and then using mop and bucket I am willing to deal with it. My back thanks me everyday!
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