If you’d hire a professional to clean your home, it would cost between $100 and $180 to clean a 900 square foot apartment.
It’ll be more expensive for larger homes, and it doesn’t include the stairs.
You’ll need to do this once every year and a half or 18 months as a maintenance procedure.
Great for spills
But when you have a lot of “accidents” where your kids spill a cup of soda or a plate of spaghetti, you may need to do it more often, and the costs pile up.
The Hoover SteamVac will help people who would like to do this task by themselves.
It won’t cost you $180 per square foot but less than that. So if you’re able to clean your home’s carpet at least once, you’ve already recouped the initial investment.
Not only will this machine clean carpet, but it’ll also scrub bare floors with the brushes underneath.
A quick look at the features
- Two water tanks one that houses the hot water/cleaning solution while the other catches the dirty water
- 20-foot hose
- 8-foot flexible hose
- Floor tool has five brushes with an “off” feature to shut it down (if you want to use this on hard floors)
- Has 3-speed brush control (high, low and off)
- Comes with a spin scrub hand tool and upholstery tool
- 12 amp motor
- Carpets dry up quicker because of the heated drying feature
Pros
- Excellent for deep cleaning carpet
- Separated container for dirty and clean water – prevents cross-contamination
- 3-speed brush control adjustment allows you to use this on plush carpet or tiled floors
- Has an 8-foot hose that you can use on stairs or upholstery
- Does not have any belts – less maintenance
- Strong motor
- Easy to remove brush
Cons
- With the tank filled up, this is heavy, probably close to 30 pounds
- Bulky – not for small homes with limited storage space
- Noisy (around 85 decibels based on a review by Vacuum Wizard)
- Latches on plastic tanks are prone to breaking if you are not careful
- The dirty water tank on the small side so you’ll have to make a couple of trips to the sink when cleaning a medium-sized room
What to expect from this Hoover carpet cleaner?
Take note that this is not a steam vacuum despite what its names say, the SteamVac uses mainly uses hot water and a cleaning solution to clean stains and odor.
It has five brushes that’ll scrub carpet thoroughly to agitate and loosen stains. A combination of hot water and the cleaning solution runs through carpet strains to disinfect, deodorize, and pull out dirt rapped.
Two water tank system
This product has two water tanks. There’s one tank for the clean water and cleaning solution and another for the dirty water.
This carpet cleaner will remove stains and freshen up carpet. While it can suck up tiny bits of dirt like sand, that is not the primary function of this cleaner.
You can use this on upholstery and stairs, thanks to the 8-foot hose and handheld attachments that come with it.
Attachments and accessories
This machine comes with two attachments, the power hand tool, and upholstery tool.
If you need to remove stubborn stains, use the SpinScrub brush (tool on the left).
It also comes with a 16-ounce cleaning detergent that you right off the bat. But you’ll have to need to buy more as this will not last for a long time.
Cord length
The power cord is around 20 feet long, but it does not have any cord rewind, so you’ll have to wrap it around cord slings on the back manually.
Filter clean up
There’s only one filter to clean, and that’s the filter on the dirty water tank.
You don’t need to soap it or anything, just rinse and wring it to remove excess water and then place it back in.
Make sure to empty the tank after every use and rinse with clean water to remove any debris trapped.
Lastly, make sure to wash the scrubbing brushes after every use.
Warranty
It only comes with a one year warranty.
See it in Action
A little demo on how to use this on carpet
How to use the hose
Bare floor performance
Yes, this can pick up spills, but most consumers bought this to deep clean their carpet floors.
This machine will work best on tiled flooring. One consumer mentioned that he used pine sol and was happy with the results.
On painted floors, this didn’t do well as it left too much water – hand mopping would be more efficient.
Carpet performance
Despite its name “SteamVac”, this does not clean using steam; instead, it uses hot water along, cleaning solution and five agitating brushes to remove stains from carpet.
While this carpet cleaner has suction, it only picks up the dirty cleaning solution. You will need an upright vacuum to remove dirt such as dust, sand, hair, etc. before using this.
It is capable of picking up spilled drinks on carpet, but it’s a rather bulky product. So I doubt that you’ll use this to pick up small messes.
Here’s what vacuum wizard thinks.
For stubborn stains, you will need to pre-treat the carpet before running this on it to give the cleaner enough time to loosen the stain.
What separates this from other non-commercial carpet cleaners is that it has a heated drying feature that turns off the brushes and blows hot air on your carpet.
Doing this will cut drying time significantly.
Upholstery performance
It comes with a couple of attachments that you can attach on an 8-foot hose that will work well with upholstery.
The first is the power hand tool has a scrubbing brush tool that allows you to spray the water/cleaning solution mixture, agitate then suck it back up again.
This tool works great for removing small patches of stains on carpets or fabric upholstery.
The second is an upholstery tool that does not have any brushes but only suction that can suck up any spilled liquid.
Pet hair removal
Again, I’d like to repeat that you’ll need to vacuum the carpet first to remove any pet hair on it before using this. You can check out our article about vacuums for pet hair to help you out choose the right product.
It should work great for folks concerned with removing pet odor on carpets.
Hoover sells a specialized formula that can help remove pet stains and odor from carpet.
Product specifications
| Features | |
| Attachments | SpinScrub Powered Hand Tool Upholstery Tool 3" Tough Stain Brush Tool |
| Cord Length | 20 feet |
| Auto Cord Rewind |  |
| Motorized brush |  |
| Brush on/off switch | |
| Swivel | |
| Headlight | |
| Filter clogged indicator | |
| Full bin indicator | |
| Bagless | |
| Multi-surface | Carpet, Upholstery, Stairs and bare floor |
| Self propelled | |
| Net weight | 20 pounds (with an empty tank) |
| Shipping weight | 32.1 pounds |
| Hose length | 8 feet |
| Cleaning Path | 11.25" |
| Overall length | 29.5" |
| Tank Capacity | 133 Ounce(s) |
| Filter type | One uses a small filter inside the dirty water tank to prevent water from going in the motor plus it uses water for filtration |
| Power | 12 amps |
| Voltage | 120 volts |
| Manufactured in | China |
| Warranty | 1 years |
Customer reviews
Despite not having the highest rating this is the bestselling carpet equipment in Amazon with over 5,600 reviews and counting, a lot of people who bought this because they didn’t want to spend $120 a pop for a professional carpet cleaning service.
It makes sense when you consider that carpet spills are inevitable, especially with children around the house, and paying that much money to clean your carpets adds up.
Pays for itself in the long haul
Like what I mentioned in the intro that using this just once pays for the investment you make, granted that you’ll need to do the heavy lifting, but you’ll save a ton in the long run.
In terms of cleaning and sucking excess water off carpets, it does an excellent job thanks to the five scrubbing brushes and strong suction.
Fresher carpets
Use the right amount of cleaning solution will result in cleaner carpets that will smell great.
If you look at the instruction manual, it says to use hot water, but some consumers have used boiling water and reported better cleaning performance. I’d caution this approach because the container is plastic, and it can deform the plastic container.
Some consumers also say that it uses a relatively right amount of cleaning detergent, so if you’re buying one, get the bigger one as it is more cost-effective.
For really stubborn stains, consumers also recommend pre-treating the area with a good quality stain remover to loosen up stains.
Make your cleaning solution.
You could also make up your cleaning solution consisting of vinegar and hot water. Others have used Oxiclean and tide without any problems so far.
It does a good job sucking up most of the dirty water off carpets plus it has one additional feature that will cut down drying time, heated drying, this feature turns off the brush roll and blows hot air over the carpet which cuts down drying time drastically.
Some complaints
Complaints about this problem stem from the leaking problem and lack of suction that several consumers have encountered. Still, a few people have refuted this claim saying that they didn’t assemble the water tank correctly-which is the main culprit of the leaks.
For the latter issue, make sure to line up the water tank to line up correctly before securing on the latch. Failing to do this will create a vacuum and lose suction.
Noise is another complaint, and in a test by Vacuum Wizzard, this machine produced over 85 decibels.
Lastly, quality can be an issue because this product is mostly plastic. Compare it to commercial-grade cleaners that are mostly metal, and it won’t last as long.
But that is the trade-ff you should consider because the price difference is significant.
Where can I buy this?
You can buy this budget carpet cleaner in online stores like Amazon and Walmart. If you buy it in Amazon, it will be eligible to their free 2-day shipping via Prime. Amazon also sells extended warranties of up to 3 years if you want that extra peace of mind.
To wrap up
This full-sized carpet cleaning machine would be excellent for people looking to DIY the carpet cleaning chores that are a MUST DO for every home with any sort of carpet in it.
Owners of homes with wall-to-wall carpeting or at least with a substantial carpet area will appreciate how this cleaner will pick up dirt that you didn’t know even existed.
If you’ve watched the videos above, you will know what I mean. It’ll be able to pick up bits of sand and tough stains. To clean tough stains, you will pre-treat it before using this machine.
While Hoover brands this as a steam cleaner, this is by no means a steam cleaner.
It just uses hot water and five brushes to loosen and agitate stains. And then suction to remove dirty water from carpets.
The bottom line, if you’re looking to invest in a proper cleaner without having to spend a whole lot, the F5914900 SteamVac Carpet Cleaner from Hoover, is a great choice.
