sleahy's Full Review: Euro-Pro GI468 Iron with Auto Shut-off
Let's start this off with a little background: After 40 years of workin' for the man, I now find myself ironin' for the woman, that woman being my wife. I just retired from my regular 9 to 5 and have taken up my pen to work as a freelancer from home. It is a wonderful freedom to be able to do that, but it does not come without catches. I will explain this in a second, but first let me clue you to a major sleahy fact: for, say, the past 20 years, I maybe ironed 2 or 3 articles of clothing. That's it.
How did I pull that one off, you ask? By never buying clothes that require ironing. Ever. Everything I have bought has been of the wrinkle free/no iron sort. And anything I bought that disappointed me by requiring ironing anyway went right into the thrift store pile. If it won't go flying right out of the dryer then it's outta here as far as I am concerned.
My wife, however, is the exact opposite. She cannot attain Nirvana wearing jeans, polyester polos and khaki perma-press like me. And she's fussy about it, too. She pretty much irons everything but socks and underwear. Hell, she probably irons her underwear, too. So now that I am home all day I reckon that it is my job to get her ironing done so she doesn't have to do it. Just two short weeks ago I set out to iron her togs for the first time in decades. And my what a goat rope it was, too. Our iron, an old Black and Decker, had more brown skid marks on its bottom than a stoplight bum. I was afraid to put water in it for fear of the brown gunk that would come out of it. And ironing? Ha. The thing, without steam, wouldn't even begin to set a crease. The wrinkles laughed as the pathetic iron lurched back and forth over them.
This will not do, said I. If I am going to be doing the ironing, I am going to be finding myself an iron that will steam reliably and cleanly; one that glides over hill and dale as if it were the angel of wrinkle death. I resolved to jettison our iron and find an effective, modern, replacement.
Talk about naiveté.
So what you are now reading is my account and review of the first iron I selected, the Shark Euro-Pro GI468.
The search began at Walmart and the pickings were slim. They had maybe 5 irons total to select from. My eyes naturally gravitated to the shiniest and most expensive one on the rack, the Shark Euro-Pro GI468. Shark? Hmm. Not too familiar with that brand. They make this little floor steam cleaner thingy my wife brought home last year. She likes that well enough. So I decided to try it.
Soon after I got it home the troubles started. The first thing wrong was the filler neck. I wanted to fill the reservoir with distilled water (yes, the Shark can use ordinary tap water according to the instructions but I do not want to give the iron premature kidney stones. Our water is loaded with minerals.) So I popped open this little trap door on the fill hole and started pouring. After maybe getting two or three ounces down the thing, it projectile vomited water out onto the ironing board. Hmmm. So I tipped the iron up on its haunches and tried to fill it that way. Nope. The water will not even go in that way. More spillage.
What you have to do, it turns out, is hold the iron up at a 45-degree angle with one hand and gently pour from your gallon jug of distilled water, slowly enough and carefully enough to neither spill all over the floor or overrun the capacity of the orifice to accept fluid. What a pain. Shark is good enough to provide you with a little plastic cup to fill the iron, but that is just one more thing to store; big waste. What you need to be able to do is plop the iron down and pour a couple of cups of water down its gullet without having to prop it up like it was John Wayne dying in an old western.
Duly annoyed, I finished filling the thing and turned it on, not exactly a straightforward operation either. What you have to do is push this little button repeatedly as the iron indexes you through various discrete heat settings. It took me awhile to figure that out as I was expecting the thing just to heat up once I saw a red light glowing.
With the iron finally up to temp, I found that it did glide nicely over the fabric. Smooth ironing, I thought to myself. The soleplate was shiny and perfect and steam began to issue forth from the holes thereunder as wrinkles scattered before it. Not bad. But what's this!? Suddenly, I picked up the iron to set it aside while I repositioned the garment and spits of water began to spew out of the thing as if straight from the Gorgon's teeth. WHHIEEEESHSPUHSPUHSPUH. There were water spots on the blouse. Damn! That is what I wanted to avoid.
When I put the iron back down again the same thing happened. Water everywhere. The water was coming straight out of the holes in the soleplate and it happened every time I tilted the iron back and forth, setting it upright to rest while I moved the garments and then back down to iron again. Water everywhere. And to make matters even worse, the iron is tipsy as heck. It is very top heavy. The soleplate is set way forward in relation to the base. Combine that with the fact that it has this puny butt end to rest on and it makes for a very unstable situation. Set it on its haunches and bump the ironing board and like as not the iron is heading for the floor (or some unfortunate tot's pate.)
That was enough for me. I boxed it back up and returned it. Although it ironed well enough with a smooth soleplate, the constant bouts of spitting and sputting hot agua all over your wardrobe along with the nasty tendency to fall off the ironing board and impale itself on your instep make this Shark a bad catch. I do not recommend it.
Of course, taking it back left me with only our crappy old iron. Be sure to watch for the next installment of the Great Iron Search of 2009.
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Dress for success with this powerful iron that removes tough wrinkles from your clothes and features a LED display to alert you to the current setting...More at Best Buy ®
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