Hoover F5914-900 SteamVac Upright Vacuum

Let me preface this review with the following:

Within the last 6 months, both of my pets (an 11 year old cat, and an 8 year old dog) have been diagnosed as diabetics. Where in animals, it's diabetus mellitus (sp?), the vet told me that if we were to give them human labels, the cat is a Type 2 and the dog is a Type 1.

Keeping this information in mind, add to the problem that the dog is a miniature schnauzer. Schnauzers are incredibly difficult to regulate with insulin.

We knew the cat was having problems when her box filled up with clumped urine and her water bowl was always empty. It's easier to spot when a cat has the problem. But when the dog's bowl started to be empty all the time and she began to have urinary accidents in the house...

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The Hoover F5914-900 SteamVac Upright Vacuum is a GODSEND. It was marked down from $199.99 to $100. even at my local Kmart, and I bought it a week ago tomorrow.

While I have only used it this past week, it has restored my living room carpet and the upholstery on my couch to pristine cleanliness, as well as restoring my sanity: With the couch and carpet only 3 years old, with what I spent on them (the carpet is from Home Depot but was of "better" quality and the sectional is a $4K La-Z-Boy we found marked down to $2600 + tax, but still, that's a lot of money)...I was terrified that I'd have to rip the carpet out and throw the couch away if I couldn't find a machine that could take care of the problem.

You see, my carpet is a deep burgundy color, and my couch is a brown/sable. Both colors were used in decorating in order to hide sins: I'd rather vacuum daily to remove lint than have a light-colored carpet ruined by one stain. Brown for a couch is versatile, as well as the color of dirt, so with an active kid, a husband and animals, I thought I made good choices.

When the dog would have an accident, before we bought this machine, it was manual cleaning of it. Immediately, the spot would be covered with paper towels and the first thing available to grab was generally some hot water and Tide liquid laundry detergent. In some instances, we used the Urine-Gone product with the black light.

We thought that we were doing alright...until one day, when the light hit the carpet just right, we saw these wide in circumference yet thin in actual lines, circles, covering a good quarter of the living room (the room is 18 ft. by 18 ft.) It was like looking up at an almost cloudless sky..it makes the white *that* much more prominent.

I knew I had to get something to get it out. I practically RAN to the computer to figure out what to do. I didn't trust calling a commercial service like Stanley Steemer because many companies will actually refuse to give you service if you've ever used products like Resolve.

I went through a mental list of what grocery stores even rent steamers/shampooers anymore, and came up empty. I remember as a kid, once a year that we'd rent the clunky, cumbersome thing and bring it back the next day.

I then went the route of trying to find a machine $150 or less.

I have always had excellent luck with Hoover products. My current vacuum (bagless) is theirs, and I'd challenge anybody with a Dyson to a duel. I bet I'd win, too.

I read a million and five reviews, and was torn between a Bissell and the Hoover, but the thing that tipped the Hoover into favor was the fact that it had less chance of error: You add the cleaner directly into the water, whereas the Bissell has a separate little cup and can get finicky.

I can't *do* finicky right now. I needed to get the stains out of the rug. Fast. As in before I had a freaking aneurysm over them.

No sooner do I make the decision to get a Hoover than I hear my husband cursing, with the words "Not again" in a resigned sigh. The dog lost control of her bladder on the couch.

It was my turn to curse. I told him to blot up what he could and I'd be back shortly.

I hoped I'd be back shortly, anyway: I headed out to Walmart, where they only had one Hoover on the floor, and it wasn't this model. It actually looked like something from the late 80s or early 90s. While this Hoover doesn't score points on looks, it isn't the ugliest model out there, either.

A display model was out and there were no Hoover boxes to be found. When I finally got an associate to help me, I asked if there were any in the back and was told that the department had "loaned their scanner" to another department so she didn't know. The lady in Towels was using it.

Dumbfoundedly, I said that I needed to purchase this *now* and as the shelf didn't have a price (the only ones that had prices were Bissells, $130 and up), it was at least a $100 sale. Didn't Walmart want that, rather than selling what, a $5 towel?

I got a look of apathy, and I shook my head in frustration, disgusted. Here I am trying to buy something but I'm not about to beg. And I've got dog urine drying at that moment on and into my couch.

I --FLY-- to Kmart. My local Kmart is always a ghost town, especially since Walmart came to town. And I was SO relieved when I got to the department, even before I looked at price tags, that there was an actual *selection* to choose from. There was more than one Hoover. There were all sorts of price ranges, from about $89-$275.

I'm going through the boxes and my jaw just dropped. A little Kmart yellow tag was stuck on THIS model: Clearance. Reg. $199.99. Sale: $100.

I'm thinking...No WAY. I can NOT be this lucky. With my luck, some oaf switched tags. So I go through the next aisle, where a whole bunch more of this model are there, in their boxes.

EVERY one of them had the sale tag.

SCORE.
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I didn't have to buy cleaner, because included *WITH* the machine was a small bottle of carpet deep cleaning solution as well as a bare floor cleaner.

The machine can also do sealed hardwood and tile. While it won't be used in my dining room (Pergo), it will be used everywhere else in the house.

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We get home and are ripping this thing out of the box. I'm getting rid of the packing material as my husband is reading the directions and assembling it. He said the assembly wasn't hard at all. I leave those tasks to him, so you'll have to take his word for it.

It was put together and ready to go in less than 15 minutes. He was about to put the soap in the water tank and I stopped him right there:

I wanted to run 2 cycles of PLAIN hot water, to see what we could get up from the rug, before adding anything else. I was starting to suspect that some of the white lines we were seeing might've been soap residue. When you use this, add the hottest tap water you can get: The box says "Heated cleaning" but some people in other reviews complain that the machine a) doesn't make steam on its own or b) takes forever to heat the water. I averted both of these by simply filling it with the hottest water I could stand.

So now I'm running JUST water. The machine couldn't be easier to operate. Some people have complained about it taking days for their carpets to dry, but I found that by running the ceiling fans, as well as making extra passes over the area to suck up the water, that these dried before the end of the day. If you're running like a maniac doing 5-second passes, then yeah, everything will be soaked and you'll think that this machine is a piece of crap.

I'm as impatient as they come, but somehow I found it within me to take my TIME with this. (Probably a shred of self-preservation rising to the top and putting me on auto-pilot). When you're releasing the water, you're pressing into the handle, like a trigger. The water release is identical to the steam release on the Shark Steam Mop (my first review.)

So if you hit the trigger once or twice when going forward to wet the area, you simply pass over it double and taking it easy, taking care to go over the areas again.

The cleaning tools for the upholstery couldn't have made it any easier. Everything is clearly labeled. The hose is long enough to let you work without the machine falling over and spilling or hitting you. The electric cord is more than sufficient. I believe it's 20 feet but it might be more.

The cleaning tools operate on the same premise as the regular vacuum part, except of course on a smaller scale. The used water that was being sucked up was black. It was disgusting.

I was so happy to get all of that garbage up that I didn't wait until the next day to work it with the cleaning solution. I'm embarrassed to admit that I spent about a good 12 consecutive hours between 3 rooms with this machine...that might read as a little obsessive, but I'm hoping you appreciate how desperate I was.

I honestly couldn't believe how much better everything looked with just water. And now we broke out the solution: 5 oz. to a tankful of water. I've read that some people use a touch of liquid fabric softener in lieu of soap, but in this case, ew. No thanks. I'm looking for actual clean, not just imitates-clean-and-smells-nice.

I would not be ashamed to have any of you come into my living room now. Owning this machine and keeping it at the ready in my foyer closet ensures that when the dog is having trouble regulating and might wet, we don't have to lose our minds over it.

This is the best hundred dollars I have ever spent. While I haven't owned it all that long, I don't know how long it will hold up. However, what I spent on this machine was cheaper and less of a hassle than having a professional come in and do it...yet I got the same, if not better, results.