Bissell 1867 Stick Steam Cleaner

When I was shopping online this past holiday season, I came across the Bissell 1867 Steam Mop and started to seriously think about a bare floor cleaner other than my sponge mop. My home has 3 tile and grout floor entry ways and 3 bathrooms of tile and grout plus a kitchen with Pergo flooring. Therefore, there is a lot of mopping to do. I do not find the standard mop with the sponge efficient to clean the tile and grout since I have had to get on my hands and knees every few months and scrub with a scrub brush all the dirt and grime that collects in the contours of the tile. I looked at the Swiffer Wet Jet, the Clorox Mop, the Hoover Floormate and after some serious thought, I decided to buy this one due to the features and price. The Swiffer and Clorox mop would end up being too expensive by constantly having to buy new pads and chemicals and the Hoover was just too expensive from the beginning.

Features

· Mop Head Dimensions: 7 1/2 inches x 10 ½ inches
· Height is 45 ½ inches
· Weight: 6.9 pounds
· Uses steam for cleaning bare floors with no chemicals
· Low-profile pivoting head
· Washable terry cloth mop head covers
· Safe on marble, ceramic, stone, vinyl, laminate, linoleum, and sealed hardwood

The Product

The mop is white plastic with a flat mop head onto which you attach your mop terrycloth. Two mop cloths are included with the product. There are two hooks to wind the 16 foot electric cord, a sturdy handle and a carry handle. The unit comes with a hook attachment so you can hang it on your wall and get it off the floor and out of the way. The water bottle is on the back of the unit and is plastic. The manufacturer suggests using only "distilled" water like one would use for the iron in order not to plug up the vents unless you have a good water filter on your water tap. Also using distilled water is suppose to keep your filter beads clean for a longer period of time.

After simple assembly which consisted of two Phillips screws to attach the unit to the mop head, you are now ready to put on the white terry cloth. Think of it as putting a "fitted style" sheet on your bed and this is how to attach the terry cloth on the bottom of your mop head. It also has an elastic cord to close tight after fitting it snugly on the head.

My Experience

The manual instructs you to vacuum or sweep the area before mopping. However, I wanted to see how this would really perform without vacuuming and my bathroom, entry ways, and kitchen generally have water spots on them anyways.

Next, you fill the 2 cup plastic water container with the distilled water. I am not going to chance this with regular water since you can buy distilled for .68 cents a gallon. The water tank sits on the back of the unit and slides back in over the top of the beaded filter.

You then wait for the "ready indicator light" to turn green which takes about 2-3 minutes. Just like a steam cleaner or steam extractor, there is a finger trigger on the handle which you hold to dispense the steam. When you first begin with a dry mop head, you should hold over the area for about 15 seconds to get the steam going. Steam will release as long as you hold the trigger. Once you release the trigger, the steam stops. Just think of a steam iron and how you glide it back and forth over the ironing board to see if it is steamy enough to begin.

The manual states to pass the mop forward and back slowly in small strokes. To disinfect an area, hold in place for no more than 15 seconds. But, I found that by going back and forth with the mop, the terrycloth starts moving around too much until it reaches the point of coming off. So instead, I take the mop and move slowly back, lift up and place where I want it and slowly move back. This way the terry cloth stays on and the dirt comes to one gathering spot where I can reach down with a paper towel to pick it up. The machine only weighs even with the water less than 7 pounds so picking it up to place it where I want it is not a problem.

I mopped two rooms with my first use. The first area was my Pergo kitchen floor using one terry cloth. I was amazed how well it removed dried up food and those annoying sticky areas where your shoes stick to whatever was spilled (normally soda).

My next room that I was anxious to try was one of my tile floors. I put on a new terry cloth after looking at the kitchen one. It really exceeded my expectation of cleaning the tile and grout. I will tell you more about it in my section on what impressed me.

Clean Up

When you are done you simply unplug and wrap the cord and empty the water container. Wait for a few minutes for the terry cloth pad to cool and then remove it from the machine to be washed. Now your machine is ready to hang up or store.

The Terry Cloth Pads

The pad is machine washable and dryable. One can also use bleach. I first machined washed and dried mine and they looked brand new, however when I went to fit it on the machine, I found that it had shrunk so it took longer than the first time to put on and I certainly did not need to use the elastic tightening cord.

The next time I hand washed it with laundry detergent and bleach and hung to dry, however even with soaking all night with the detergent and bleach it did not get white again so I ended up throwing it in the washer and it looked new once again.

I have not found these in any of the stores yet since I wanted to buy more, so right now it is easiest to buy it online at places like Amazon.com.

What Impressed Me

This is easy to use and I really like the fact that there are no special cleaning solutions to buy and I can just toss the cleaning cloth in the wash.

As dirty as those two mop pads were, they came out looking white once again with no bleach added to the wash.

The machine is light in weight and the mop head swivels making it easy to maneuver underneath all your cabinetry. This mop goes places where my sponge mop was too bulky to go. This mop even goes by the potty area well. My sponge mop could not do that!

I was very concerned if this was going to get my dirty grout tile floors clean and I finally found if I used my way of putting the mop head where I wanted it and slowly pulling the steamer towards me on the grout line that it picked up all sorts of grime. Yuck! Amazing how much icky stuff gets into your grout, especially with 4 dogs and 2 cats.

I noticed that the first time I used this on each floor that the terry cloth would be pretty close to dark in color. On the second use it was not even close to that color meaning it cleaned it well the first time and now all I need to do is keep it clean!

Floor drying time was fast and there were no smells at all. The mop did not make any noise except for steam like your steam iron.

Cons

I did find after steaming for over 15 minutes, that my wrist began to hurt as you are constantly squeezing the trigger, so I took a 2 minute break and learned not to exceed it. I was use to my carpet steam cleaner of only lasting for 10 minutes with taking breaks of dumping the dirty water and refilling with new water and solution so my wrist would not hurt as quickly.

After the first wash of my mop cloth, I found if I used the back and forth motion that my mop cloth would fall off which is a pain to get back on when the cloth is hot and dirty.

The terry cloth pads should also already be "pre-shrunken" so they fit well after washing. Even if you don't wash it (give me a break), it is going to shrink just by how hot it gets from the steam. Bissell, you really need to pre-shrink these!

Final Impression

I really like everything about the steam mop as I stated and I will need to buy more mop pads since I need more than 2 to clean all my floors in one day. If you do not want to buy products that need refillable chemicals or pads (this is where the manufacturers make their money), then you should keep the Bissell Steam Mop in mind for all the facts that I have stated.

I use to hate mopping and now I do not mind it at all as I know it is actually finally getting the floor cleaned and disinfected at the same time.

The warranty is for 1 year.