Today I was given the opportunity to evaluate an appliance that proves you just cannot believe everything you hear; the Shark Model S3101W Steam Mop .

My wife came home after one of her infamous trips to Sam's Club with a bundled Shark 3101 that as a bonus offered the SC 618 Steam Bottled, a toofer! I have expressed interest in a commercial steam cleaner and she thought it may be a good place to start; gotta love her!

The Hoo Haws

The S3101W steam Mop looks toy-like coming out of the box. Essentially, you fill the 1 cup reservoir and turn it on and you're off to steam clean and sanitize your kitchen floors, bathroom, pet area and anywhere else you feel compelled to kill germs, bacteria and generally mess with. Well, it's a romantic notion admittedly but that's not quite how this story goes.

The S3101W requires that you use a toy funnel to fill the bewilderingly diminutive fill hole on the 1 cup reservoir with an enclosed flask. Folks, let's stop here. Exactly how much floor surface are you going to get to with 1 cup of water? The answer depends on the present state of the room you intend to clean. Clean, now there's a word that presents a matter of interpretation, especially to the folks at Shark. I won't claim that the Shark Model S3101W Steam Mop doesn't clean but on a ceramic tile floor in our mud room, I did manage to move a few spots and loosen some ground in dirt, but the effort involved was monumental, to say the least. You have to pump the wand into the Genie Bottle - looking base to get steam to come out of the business side of the S3101W, only to pick it up with the easily attached 10" micro fiber floor pad. Once you transfer what little dirt, sticky residue or whatever else plagues the cleanly state of your floors onto the pad, you get the privilege of smudging it right back onto your floor surface in a new, steam generated version that you can then proceed to try and once again remove!

I do like the 20 foot power cord ,however, as it shows great optimism on the part of the company that anyone will actually get that far with the S3101W that they will actually unfurl the neatly wrapped power cord to get to the far reaches of any room!

The steam released on from the base of the S3101W is in fact steam, barely. The reality is, there is so little of it you would likely finish your floor quicker with a cup of floor detergent and a toothbrush.

Final Thoughts

My wife has a sense of humor, that's one of the compelling reasons I have spent all these years with her; we have a lot of laughs. Today, we did a good bit of laughing! Oh yeh, I loved the Shark Model S3101W Steam Mop!

Sometimes folks, you have to look at the mop and say, it's not a half bad tool. It's simple, inexpensive, gets the job done quickly and saves energy. I would say that the Shark Model S3101W Steam Mop is but the tip of the iceberg of problems at Europro, the manufacturer of this little wonder. My guess is that they may be top heavy with the owner's kids who received a doctorate in cranio-rectal insertion and couldn't get into Mensa.

This one is unbelievable! I have a hard time believing someone at the company actually let this one out the door! Folks, if you want a laugh, buy it, otherwise, get a mop!