One of the things I purchased when I won a Best Buy gift certificate from Epinions was a steam cleaner for my carpets. It had become a ritual that about every two months we were renting a commercial cleaner to do the carpets in our home. Living in a rural area with dirt roads and dirt and crushed rock surrounding my home means there’s a lot of stuff tracked into my house and cleaning the rug in our living room has been an ongoing nightmare.

What I wanted was a steam cleaner we could use at home without having to make the trek to rent it when we needed. I wanted something I could use whenever I needed it - between the dirt, kids, and pets it happened more often that I like.

Enter the Bissell QuickSteamer Upright Vacuum. The price was right at $89.99. I liked that it was designed with a powerful brush to life deep-down dirt. I trust a name like Bissell who has a pretty good reputation when it comes to vacuums. The specs on it looked good as well. The only thing I would have liked would have been the ability to heat water instead of having to heat it up before putting it in the vacuum, but appliances with that ability cost a heck of a lot more.

I was surprised when it was delivered just how small of a box it came in. It only weighs a little over 12 pounds when empty, making it easy to move around the house from room to room or from floor to floor, if needed. It didn’t have a flimsy feel to it, either, but seemed to be sturdy enough to hold up to regular use. There’s virtually no assembly required and we were ready to start using it just a few minutes after taking it out of the box.

To use it, a small tank comes off of the body of the Bissell QuickSteamer Upright Vacuum. This gets filled with hot water and cleaning solution (a small bottle comes with the vacuum). I just use hot water from the tap as I don’t think water that’s been heated much more would be more effective, and it could possibly damage the vacuum. There’s another tank on the bottom for where the dirty water gets sucked out of the carpet. Each of these holds only about a half gallon, which can mean frequent stops while cleaning to dump out the dirty water and refill the cleaning tank.

Operating the vacuum is easy as well. It plugs in and I tilted the handle and off we went. There’s a trigger on the handle for squirting the solution/water mixture onto the rugs. It took a few tries for me to feel comfortable with the mixture I was getting on the carpets to soak up the dirt, but the vacuum was definitely working. I could see the dirty water being sucked up into the tank on the bottom from the carpet. It does an 8 1/2 inch wide path at a time, which I felt was cutting a good path in my carpet. Any wider and it would be a problem getting this vacuum into some smaller spaces.

The Dirt Lifter PowerBrush works really well. Bissell claims it will lift the deep-down dirt and gently grooms carpets for professional-style results. The first time it took several passes on each area of the carpet for it to look clean, but the brush did a terrific job lifting the ground-in dirt. Since then, it’s worked quite well. I do the living room carpet, where there’s the most traffic, about every other week or so and they look pretty good. When the carpet dries, it does look as nice as if it were done by professional carpet cleaners. (We’d had them come in several times in our old home.)

Emptying the tank when it’s dirty is easy as well. The only problem, if it’s a big job, is the frequency with which you have to do it. Even doing my carpets every few weeks, I go through 2-3 tankfuls of solution/water when I do just the living room, never mind the hallway and I have yet to tackle the bedrooms. The Bissell QuickSteamer Upright Vacuum is pretty maneuverable, but even this would be a project to try and do my kids’ bedrooms with all the clutter in there. The cord is 20 feet long and is long enough for me to reach all areas with it.

The brush needs to be cleaned off as well when finished. This and the tank can be pretty brutal, but it really doesn’t take all that long and it’s the only maintenance I’ve had to do so far.

As far as the noise level, it isn’t too bad. My house-mate has done me the favor of doing the carpets when I’ve been sleeping during the day and it didn’t wake up this light sleeper, even with him doing the living room carpet and my bedroom adjoins it.

I’ll actually probably switch my living room floor over to wood laminate flooring with an area rug when the carpet in here gets too worn to look good even with regular cleaning. Still, with carpeting in the bedrooms and an area rug, I’ll hopefully have this helpful vacuum around to keep them clean. It seems durable enough to last a very long time.

I’m pleased with the Bissell QuickSteamer Upright Vacuum‘s performance. It’s lightweight and yet durable and does a terrific job on my carpets. Having it around makes it convenient to clean my rugs on a regular basis, which is a must with kids, animals, and a dirt road!


Thank you Epinions! You made this review possible :-)

© 2007 Patti Aliventi

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): $89.99