The Flip-It Vacuum by Bissell: A Product Review
Bissell's Versatile Cleaning Machine Claims to Vacuum and Wash Your Floors with a Simple Flip
Cleaning: B-
If you've got a simple cleaning job ahead of you, the Bissell Flip-It can do the job. This slender, electric broom style vacuum sweeps the floors well (don't even think about using it on the rugs and carpets) when vacuuming up light dirt and dust. It blanches a bit at heavier jobs such as winter salt and sand and cat hair and requires repeated passes. It has no attachments, so, as with any electric broom, the corners of your home will require a little added personal attention.
Once you've vacuumed the area to be cleaned, simple "Flip-It" over. The vacuum becomes a floor washing machine with the flip of a wrist.
Again, the Bissell Flip-It does a fine job on easy cleaning jobs. If your floors are fairly dirty or are soiled with something more obstinate than the usual dust and traffic dirt, you will either need to repeat the cleaning several times or choose another method to get your floors sparkling.
Ease of Use: B
The Bissell Flip-It is an easy little machine to use. It certainly lives up to its name. The flipping mechanism is surprisingly fluid and the easy trigger that sprays the cleaning solution onto the floor is conveniently placed and simple to work. Once you've deployed the cleaning solution onto the floor, release the trigger, and the Flip-It works as a wet vac, vacuuming the dirty water back up off of the floor and into its dirty water tank.
The challenge of using the Bissell Flip-It is that it is a small, lightweight machine with small tanks. The dirty water tank and cleaning brushes require frequent emptying and cleaning, interrupting the job and adding to the cleaning time and effort.
Price: A-
At approximately $100.00, plus several dollars for their special, proprietary cleaning solutions for hardwood floors and vinyl or tile, the Bissell Flip-It is an excellent bargain. For simple cleaning jobs, the Bissell Flip-It is worth the price, making light work of light cleaning.
Published by K. Cauldwell
I enjoy the reliable consistency of my ability to make people say "um... what?" I have danced on stage with Bono, and I can walk barefoot over hot summer asphalt. I am a great admirer of people who just wan... View profile
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- The Bissell Company Website
- The Bissell Flip-It is a handy, easy to use vacuum/floor washing machine for light cleaning jobs.
- Its struggles with tough jobs, and frequent tank emptying and cleaning, keep it from a top rating.
- At approximately $100.00, the Bissell Flip-It is a great value for light cleaning jobs.
2 Comments
Post a Comment(post was clipped, here's the rest) When flipped over to wet mode, the unit scrubs on push, and sucks on pull. The brush is not powered, so you do have to scrub a bit in the heavily soiled spots, and it can take a bit to scrub up the dried-up ketchup spots, but they do come up with some work--and a lot easier than getting down on hands and knees with a scrub brush. The vacuum sucks up most of the water if you pull it back slowly, just like using a carpet shampooer, and if you're not stingy with the spray, it leaves behind a thin film of water that dries quickly and cleanly. I think the end result was as clean as I've seen the floor get, and both a bit faster and with less effort than with the full sized floor cleaner. The fact that it's a whole lot lighter and easier to use should also mean it gets used more often, which means a less soiled floor next time.
Just got one of these yesterday, and attacked a dirty tile floor with it. The tiles are slightly rough in texture, and off-white, so they show any dirt. My wife thought the Flip-It looked promising, since we've been having trouble keeping the floor clean. The full sized carpet/floor cleaner we have (also a Bissell) does a decent job of cleaning the floor, but it's big, heavy, and leaves a lot of water down on the floor. The Swiffer mop quickly saturates its pad, and then you're just pushing dirty water around, which leaves the floor wet and dirty, and the soft pad is no good for scrubbing dirt or, worse, dried-on ketchup (which with 3 kids, we get lots of).
The Flip-It comes with an interchangeable soft pad for (I assume) wood floors, and a bristle brush for scrubbing tile. When run in dry mode, the pad/brush are held up, and the unit acts as a light vacuum; not up to the standards of a full sized unit, but decent enough for the Dustbuster-on-a-stick that it is. When flipped o