I bet you did not expect to see me do a post about carpet shampooers or as some call them “carpet cleaners” or “carpet cleaning machines”.  We’ve owned dogs and had kids for years plus we have light colored carpets.  Keeping them clean is no easy matter and maybe 4-6 times per year we shampoo them – plus occasional touch ups if something gets spilled, etc.  It makes a HUGE difference.

We used to rent Rug Doctor carpet cleaners and while they do the job you have the expense and hassle of having to rent one.  Back in the early 2000s we bought our first Hoover.  We went with one from Sam’s Club if I recall right.   One of the big selling points over the competition at the time was that the clean water reservoir was built right into the unit whereas some models make you run a hose way back to a bathroom, utility or kitchen sink.  That just would not work the way our house was laid out.

We wore out our first unit in probably 5-6 years — it last quite a while and did a ton of cleaning with it.  We then bought a newer model that we are still using and just got a brand new model to do my mother-in-law’s home after it flooded.  It is a FH50258 “Hoover Professional Series Power Scrub Elite Pet Plus Upright Carpet Cleaner”.  That is a mile long model name but it really did a fantastic job.

Why Did We Get It?

Thus summer we had a crazy storm that just parked over our town and dumped a ton of rain for two days,  Pretty much everybody had problems with water coming into their basements including my mother-in-law.  We were super busy and other than helping move stuff out of the way and putting a dehumidifier down there, we had to wait a bit to do the cleaning and restoration.

One of the reasons we bought a cleaner for her house was to leave it there in case of future problems plus we can use it for shampooing.  Something we found out many years ago is that a shampooer can suck up water from a carpet like there’s no tomorrow.  If you have water come in and get  carpet wet, a heavy shampooer will suck a ton of water our compared to a light Ship-Vac wand and hose.

This new unit is lighter than our old one plus the tank appears much more ruggedly made.  We busted the tank on both previous units – the “ears” that would clamp the lid to the tank would bust off way too easily – they fixed that design flaw with this model.  They also say the unit is blowing heated air to help with cleaning and drying – I can’t speak to that.  We use hot water from the tap to begin with.

Here are some photos of the new unit:

In the next photo, you can see the reservoirs pretty clearly.  The main reservoir on the top is for the clean water – again, we always use hot water to help clean and dry faster.  The smaller top right reservoir holds the soap.  The big tank under the black bar with “ELITE” on it holds the waste water.  It is easily detached and you can pour the filthy waste water down the toilet.

Our Approach

At any rate, mama had lived there for about 10 years and it had never shampooed her basement so it was worn to begin with.  Add in the water and she had stains all over the place.  My wife used hot water and plenty of carpet shampoo to clean the carpet.

In the above photos, you can see where she already cleaned and what was still dirty pretty clearly.  We tend to use either Rug Doctor or Bissell shampoo.  For the above we were using Rug Doctor shampoo.  My wife has worked out a method that works well – she shampoos the carpet twice and then does a third pass just rinsing.  We’ve found that carpets seem to attract dirt less if we rinse them and make sure no sticky/gummy residue remains.

Look at the example area below.  We had shampooed the lighter areas already but you can see the dirty carpet pretty clearly:

This is during shampooing:

And this is the end result

After we shampooed the carpets, we ran fans a dehumidifier to dry things out.  The shampooer did a great job and I figured it would be worth it to pass along the word.  We bought the exact model above at Home Depot for $149.  We did mama’s house and were so impressed that we bought a unit for ourselves.  I’d say we get at least five years from our older models so you can do the math as whether you want to continue to rent or buy a shampooer.

For us, the shampooers have been very worthwhile.  We have always liked the quality of the results and we don’t have to rush and rent a unit if family is coming over, we need to clean up an accident or even clean in general – we can just do it whenever we want.

As mentioned, this is the third Hoover we have owned/used and were very impressed.  If you are interested, check the various Hoover models and see what is getting good review on Amazon, Home Depot, etc. and also falls in your budget.

I hope this helps you out.

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