Product Review of the Hoover SteamVac

How could an adult male get excited over a vacuum cleaner? I did, but there was a catalyst involved to trigger my interest. And, of course, it's a machine with mechanical parts that's sure to intrigue the male psyche!

The catalyst was our move to a new house. We actually knew the sellers from years ago and had a great buyer-seller relationship. They allowed us early possession of their house prior to closing and invited us over to review different aspects of the house.

While sitting at their dining room table, I noticed their rather large cat moving around us. I have severe allergies to felines and just knew he would make a beeline for me. He did, but Mark removed him to another room. After only twenty minutes in the house, my eyes were watering, itching and I was coughing. The dander really got to me.

My wife and I decided that the carpets would need to be thoroughly cleaned before we moved into the house. Which, by the way, is only six years old with carpeting throughout that's only one year old.

The choices came down to three options:

1) Do it ourselves with a steam clean rental.
2) Pay for a commercial service to come in and do it.
3) Buy a steam vacuum and do it ourselves.

The rental would mean that I'd pay a daily rate and have to return it. Then, I got an estimate from a nationally known commercial steam cleaning service that would have been $400 or more. We would also be at their mercy insofar as when it would be done and when we could walk on the carpets. After investigating all three, I chose to buy a steam vac.

Through the miracle of Google search capabilities, I settled on the Hoover SteamVac. Doing my usual Due Diligence, I checked Amazon for product reviews as they normally have a lot to peruse and make a decision.

The Hoover F5914-900 SteamVac with Clean Surge got rave reviews. The other deciding factor was the cost: It was only $169.99 from Amazon.com, plus $21.51 shipping. That was less than half what the commercial service would have charged, and I have the steam vacuum for future cleaning. It was a no-brainer.

Amazon shipped the Hoover in only three days via UPS. It arrived partially assembled, with a few pieces to assemble on your own. That only took ten minutes or so and was very easy.

Before using it, it's highly recommended that you first vacuum the carpet with your standard vacuum. That's done to remove larger debris and particles before using the SteamVac. The SteamVac's job is to extract the ground-in dirt deep down in the carpet.

As I said, the carpet was one year old and looked great. Regardless, I vacuumed it first with our old Hoover vac. Then it was time to test out the new machine!

But first, let me correct the misnomer of "Steam" Vac. There's no steam. There's no heating element in the vacuum to produce steam. Nor do the commercial "steam cleaning" services use steam. In actuality, it's a "hot water extraction" method. And it works very well.

You fill the carpet detergent tank as directed. Then, you fill the clean solution tank with hot water from your sink.
TIP: you don't have to buy the Hoover cleaning solution. My wife found a generic solution at the grocery store that specifically mentioned the various models that can be used, and Hoover was listed. It was much less expensive than the brand name solution.

Just follow the owner's manual for the actual cleaning. Yes, I actually looked at it and studied it. It recommends a pattern to follow when doing each room and how to change out the solutions. You will be doing a lot of that. The "recovery tank" collects the dirty, filthy water that's extracted from the carpet. It has a shut-off mechanism when it reaches its limit. You'll notice it as the suction is drastically reduced and the sound is different.

The SteamVac has four scrubbing brushes that spin to clean and pick up the dirty solution. You push the SteamVac foward and backward for one stroke while squeezing the trigger, then let off on trigger while letting off the trigger and doing the same stroke for the extraction phase. It's simple but highly effective. I couldn't believe what I was saw in the recovery tank when I emptied it!

For heavily soiled areas, you press the Clean Surge button to add more cleaning solution to the area.
You can also clean bare floors with the SteamVac, but need to make sure you follow the manual to avoid damaging the floor. The Hoover will not clean wood floors, however.

The SteamVac also comes with accessory tools:

a) Powered Hand Tool with rotating brushes for extra scrubbing action on small carpet areas, carpeted stairs, and upholstery.

b) Stair/Upholstery Nozzle with a built-in brush to provide scrubbing action on tougher spots.

c) Nozzle Cleaning Tool for removing lint and/or debris from nozzle before storage.

One thing to keep in mind - there's a lot of plastic parts on the Hoover, so care must be taken not to force pieces to fit or you'll snap them. I had no problem with the assembly and snapping things into place with normal pressure.

On the flip side, because of the predominately plastic parts, the Hoover is lightweight. This is important when you are doing multiple rooms and hallways in one day like I did. It reduces fatigue of the arm and shoulder.

TIP: a guy who does carpet stretching advised me to do the steam cleaning in the winter months. The humidity level in the house is way down and the carpet will dry much faster than in the summer.

I plan on doing the carpets again each winter with the new SteamVac.

PS: it removed all the hidden cat dander and I had no further allergy symptoms!