Decision to buy and purchasing experience My neighbor told me about a steam cleaner she got from Shark so I went to take a look at them. I was distracted though with the Shark Steam Mop. Wow what a great idea to be able to clean without using chemicals.
I have become increasingly more sensitive to the chemical smells and scents and they make me feel ill after cleaning. I was really excited to try this new concept in cleaning.
I have to say the item was a bit pricey at $79.99. I got mine from Bed Bath and Beyond and my neighbor gave me a 20% off coupon for one item so that made it more affordable.
Contents and Packaging the Shark Steam Mop is packaged in a box that is padded well enough to ship it directly in the box. It weighs only 3 lbs. It comes with the unassembled mop, a 20ft cord, a cup to use for filling, a funnel necessary to fill, and 2 washable microfiber cleaning pads. Also in the box are complete instructions and warranty information.
Assembly I am not good about reading the instruction and this item was easy to put together so luckily I never had to read the manual (yet) I pulled it all out of the box and the handle with the electrical cord and the water tank etc is all one piece. Then there is an extension tube that had to be pushed into the handle assembly. I had to really push hard to get it into place and nearly consulted the directions to make sure I was not going to break it...but after giving it a good push on the floor it snapped into place. After that the mop end had to be snapped on at the bottom. The cleaning pad attaches with a sort of velcro type thing. I put a cleaning pad on and was ready to go. Wow that was easy!!!!
What you might need that is not in the box One interesting little note here: on the box it says it uses regular tap water, so I was like "cool, it does not need distilled water. Then, when I was getting it assembled I noticed a note attached to the water reservoir cap that says it is recommended that you use distilled water. Good grief why didn't it tell me that when I was at the store? I did try it out with tap water because I am not a patient person and I really wanted to try it out.
Before you can use the steam mop you MUST sweep or vacuum your floor. The steam mop is NOT a vacuum and will not pick up particles it only washes the floor.
Also it says that if you have a tough stain that you can apply a little cleaner and let it soak in to that area before you begin mopping. So having a spray cleaner on hand might be good if you need it. I have not found it necessary yet but I thought I would tell you anyway.
How to use it Ok ready to go. I filled up the cup to the maximum fill line, unscrewed the water reservoir lid and placed the funnel into the reservoir and starting pouring. After a little more than half the water was in the tank, the rest of it overflowed and poured out onto the floor. Ok, I realize I did not read the instructions, but what part of maximum fill line am I not understanding here? So there is a learning curve with respect to figuring out exactly how much water this great invention will take.
After you get it all set up. Pad on, water in, cap back on tightly....then you plug it in. Wait only 30 seconds for the water to heat up then you pump on the handle 10-15 times to get the steam flowing. After that the normal back and forth mopping motion keeps the steam pumping.
I tried it first on my vinyl floor in my foyer. I had just cleaned it the day before with a swiffer premoistened pad thing. So it was already clean. I went over the area once or twice and then looked at the pad....wow, my clean floor was dirty. One nice thing that I noticed was that it did not leave the floor wet. It was dry within a matter of minutes.
It is pretty neat that you can wash and sanitize the floor without using any chemicals, but that is exactly what it does.
After I did the foyer I moved to the kitchen. I tried it on some spills near the fridge and I noticed that it took more than one swipe to get it up. It does seem that if you have a spot if you hold it on there for a minute to give the steam a chance to work that it will lift the stain so you do not have to scrub it.
I learned through using it to slow down with the mopping. Since it needs the steam to have a chance to come in contact with the dirt on the floor a very slow motion works best. If you mop fast you will defeat the purpose and be using your elbow grease instead of the steam to clean your floor, plus I am not sure if it is really sanitized if it only came in contact with the floor for a second.
That was all there was to it. Then I sat back and enjoyed my nice clean floors. I noticed that the vinyl shines more than it has in years. The only drawback that I noticed was that it does not do corners very well. It does a surprisingly good job with edges because the pad overlaps a little, but the corners are pretty much impossible. I would suggest rather than washing them first just wait till you are done then take a rag and wipe the corners. They do seem clean but it tends to push the dirt into the corner, so a rag or paper towel will pick it up quickly.
How well it cleans I believe that this thing cleans better than regular mopping or the swiffer disposable pads. My vinyl floors have more shine than I have seen in them for years. I have a feeling with repeated use I will see even more improvement.
Maintenance and Storage This is the easy part, remove the pad and throw it in the washing machine. The Shark steam mop has a thing at the top and the bottom to wrap the cord on. Wrap up the cord and secure it with the clip attached to the cord and you are done. They had extra cleaning pads in the store but I did not buy them because they were expensive. I found some on ebay though that were a better deal. It recommends washing the pad separate from your other laundry so that you do not get lint from your clothes on the pads. I ordered 6 more pads so that I could wash a small load of 8 at a time. They are not all that wet so I just put them on top of the washer in a small bucket until they are all dirty then I wash them together. Make sure not to use fabric softener and only a mild detergent. You can wash them on warm and dry them in a cool dryer but it is recommended that you let them air dry to keep them lasting longer. Also it is not recommended to use bleach while washing the pads.
Customer Service I did call customer service to ask a question about the shark before I used it. I looked up online and it said it was not for use on no wax floor but was ok with vinyl. I always thought that vinyl floors were no wax floor so I was confused and wanted to make sure it was ok on vinyl. The guy who answered was clearly not english speaking and I had to coax the answer out of him. He wanted me to create an account and give him my name etc before answering a simple question. I refused to give him any personal info and he eventually answered my question. Yes it is ok to use this on vinyl floors.
Update April 17, 2008(Walls & cooktop) I was thinking I need to wash my walls in the bathroom because when people go to wipe their hands on the towels the water drips down the walls and eventually you have a lot of streaks. I hate to do it because often it is hard to wash without it showing the marks where you wiped. I was thinking that the steamer might be just the thing. It took a little extra thinking to figure out how to keep the steam pumping while it's on the wall but it did a really nice job and left no marks. I have latex paint that is a satin finish. I am not sure how it would do on flat paint. I am not sure if it is designed to do walls or even if the manufacturer suggests it but it worked for me. Now to the upstairs bath. It would be nice if you could telescope the handle to make this more versatile for walls and counters.
Oh I also cleaned my cook top with it. I have one of those glass top or whatever they call them...where your burners are under the glass. It did a nice job. They were not filthy because we wipe up but it did give the stove a like new appearance.
Update June 13th I ordered the carpet glider for the shark floor steamer, and tried it today. It is basically a plastic form that the steamer fits in so you can glide it on the carpet with or without the cleaning pad. For cleaning you would want to use the pad. If you just want to steam your carpet to fluff it up you would not need to use the cleaning pad.
You could not clean your entire carpet with this, but it does have value. It is good for going over high traffic areas and gets surface dirt off the carpet leaving it fluffed up. It did get dirt off the carpet and improved the appearance. It does not leave your carpet wet but depending on how much you go over it, it might be damp for a few minutes. It should be completely dry in 30 minutes or less.
I also had some dents from furniture that I used it on. If you want to get more steam use the glider without the pad first to get a good hit of steam into the area that needs to be smoothed out. Then go over it with the pad in place to fluff up the entire area. This worked extremely well.
Update Aug 2009 Sadly my steamer stopped working. I think I should have used distilled water because it clogged up and just stopped steaming. I did use it a lot before it broke and also it was in storage a couple months while we were moving so who knows what happened to it there. I upgraded to the new pocket mop which is much stronger. I still like this little guy too though and might watch for one on sale as they push the new one I bet they will close out the old ones.
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