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Blast germs and grime with one of these steam mops, including cordless and handheld cleaners
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Steam zaps 99.9 per cent of germs without the need for harsh cleaning products
Steam cleaners can be the best weapon in your housework arsenal. They offer a cleaning method that gets rid of germs without the need for any chemicals or detergents, which makes them gentle on your home as well as the environment.
In fact, steam cleaners, when used properly, can zap up to 99.9 per cent of germs. What’s more, they’re brilliant at lifting otherwise-tough-to-banish stains and dirt. You can use steam cleaners on fabrics, such as curtains and sofas to refresh them. They can also tackle hard floors such as sealed wood, laminate and tiles. And they’re useful in the bathroom and kitchen too, lifting mould, limescale and grease without you having to scrub for ages.
There are a few different kinds of steam cleaners. Handheld steam cleaners are quite like a kettle. Pour in water, switch on and, once the cleaner has reached the right temperature, you’re good to go. A trigger button will let you control when the steam blasts out. These steam cleaners are great for small areas – stains on carpets or rugs, say – and windows, kitchens and bathrooms. They usually have attachments to tackle all of these areas.
A steam floor cleaner, or steam mop, usually looks like a mop but it plugs in. You fill the reservoir with water, much in the same way you would with the handheld options, but then you push it around the floor. Some even propel and scrub as they go, so it’s just a matter of you directing where you want the mop to go.
Things to consider when buying a steam mop are where you’ll be using it. If you just want to cover your hard floors, a steam mop is a sound investment. If you want to do a range of different jobs, a handheld or something like the Dupray neat (more on that below) is going to be better for you.
We spent more than a month blasting our house with hot jets of steam. Testing took in all different types of cleaners, and they were used for all different jobs. Stains on carpets were tested to see how they budged; finger-print-heavy windows were zapped; our stove underwent several brutal facials, and our bathroom grout has never been so clean. What we were looking for were steam cleaners that actually worked, and did what they claimed they would. We wanted easy-to-use machines that elevated our clean, rather than being just another gadget that grows dusty in our cupboards. Here are the ones that got a clean sheet.
Handheld options are great when it comes to carpet stains and smaller areas
Handheld options are great when it comes to carpet stains and smaller areas
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This may just be our new favourite home appliance. The steam cleaner is so slick and a lot of fun to use. The small white cube is incredibly lightweight and compact – it’d fit in a kitchen cupboard or under the stairs no problem. It has a telescopic handle for carrying it around, and the cord wraps under the unit, so it’s all neat and tidy. It comes with two retractable handles, so you can reach high-up corners, or use it to mop the floor. There are also five nozzle brushes, including a brass one for cleaning barbecue and oven racks – genius. There’s also three floor pads, one microfibre bonnet and one microfibre cloth. Basically it’s got everything you need in the box.
We found the nozzle brushes lifted off every inch of mould and limescale build-up in our bathroom. The steam jet is super powerful, but, crucially, it never leaves excess water. The triangle tool was amazing at lifting stubborn stains out of our carpet without leaving a huge amount of water soaked into it. We also loved that it could do our hardwood floors and windows. Basically, we’re in love with a steam cleaner and we’re not afraid to say it.
Probably best known for its vacuums, Shark also does a line of steam mops. We tested the S6002, which scrubs and sanitises floors at the same time. It’s very easy to use. Attach the pads – you get two sets in the box – then fill the tank and switch on. You can choose between light and normal settings, depending on how thorough a clean you want. We went for normal, and it lifted so many stains that our regular, non-steam mop couldn’t remove from our wooden floors.
The pads rotate and scrub, and sort of propel the mop along, so it’s not hard work at all and, in fact, led to a very speedy clean. We cleaned the whole of one floor in about 15 minutes – a job that usually takes a good hour. And that includes the slightly annoying faff of having to unplug the steam cleaner, as we ran out of flex. However, our floors dried incredibly quickly, meaning our kids were soon free to walk on them and mess them up again.
This budget-friendly steam cleaner purports to lift grease, kill germs and be lightweight and portable. Certainly with its nine accessories in the box, it can do some heavy lifting in the cleaning department. It has attachments for windows, fabric, scrubbing, a flexible hose and an angled nozzle – so it should be good at getting into every nook and cranny.
We found the finish on this steam cleaner not quite as high-end as similar ones in this round-up. However, it got to work on our slightly grimy windows and lifted off every stubborn finger print that had been bugging us for months. We found it performed less well when it came to cleaning fabrics, as it dripped slightly. But it was very lightweight, heated up quickly and was easy to use.
If you really want to blast your house clean, this is your go-to gadget for getting into all the crevices. It’s easy to use – although we found the trigger a bit fiddly to hold at certain angles – and has plenty of attachments to suit pretty much any job. The 250ml tank warmed up and got to work pretty quickly. Although, we did find the tank ran dry – you can fill it midway through a clean but it’s important to be careful of the steam.
We liked the window squeegee attachment – it got our windows sparklingly clean – while the round brush is handy for scrubbing hobs and cookers, as it lifted grease easily. We found that the fabric attachment was pretty good at getting stubborn stains out of carpets but, as the reservoir is 250ml, it’s best for spot stains rather than attempting to clean a wider surface area.
One of the big players in the steam-cleaner world (yes, that is a thing) is Bissell. This is their entry-level steam cleaner, and it comes in handheld form. The steam shot feels the most premium of all the handheld steam cleaners we tested – it just feels well made. It comes with seven attachments, three of which are brushes that are colour coded, so you won’t be scrubbing the grout with the same cleaner you use on your stove.
It did a fantastic job of lifting grease off our extractor hood in the kitchen. And we were impressed with the specific hob-cleaning attachment – although we did find it left a lot of surface water on our hob. It also cleaned windows well, but again there’s quite a lot of excess water that we found ourselves having to mop up. Points we did like were the extra-long flex, and the strap to keep the flex tidy. The trigger button is by far the easiest we tested of the handhelds, and was comfortable to keep pressed down, even at awkward angles.
This is a great option if you want spotless floors with that just-clean smell. As well as a 350ml water tank for steam, there’s a 200ml tank for your floor-cleaner of choice. It’s also good for all types of floor covering. There’s a mop head for hard floors, such as tile and wood, and a different one for carpets. This is particularly useful if you have a wide expanse of carpet you want to steam clean, as it’s fast and it does a decent job, lifting all but the most stubborn of stains.
We found this floor cleaner a really good, versatile choice for flooring. As we have hardwood on one floor and carpet on another, it was good to know it could cover all bases. We also liked the way you could angle the handle to get under sofas and other annoying furniture. There’s a certain level of smug satisfaction knowing the carpet under your bed is absolutely spanking clean – or is that just us?
We were very impressed by this steam mop. It is modelled on a cordless vacuum but in a steam cleaner, and it offers many of the same benefits.
Although it’s tethered to the mains, you can use it as a handheld model or attach an arm that allows you to either use it as a floor mop – or to extend your reach to get into hard-to-reach corners. We particularly liked that, on the extended-reach mode, you can attach not just the mop head but also the other fixtures, such as the grout cleaner. This meant we were able to reach right to the tops of our tiles without putting out our back.
The accessory holder is super useful for taking all the bits and bobs around the house with you as you clean, too. In fact, it slots on to the bottom of the body of the cleaner, so you won’t lose it.
Overall, we found this steam cleaner lifted limescale and grease with ease, and got our floors sparkling without leaving loads of excess water behind.
It is advised to not use anything other than water in the steam cleaner, including any cleaning solutions or bleaches, as putting chemicals in your steam cleaner can cause corrosion. The heat of the steam will sterilise surfaces and floors, so you don’t really need any harsh chemicals or detergent. Most manufacturers also recommend only using demineralised water.
As you may have discerned from our glowing review, we loved the Dupray neat. It’s powerful, easy to use and relatively compact. It performed well in all areas we tested it in, and lifted every inch of mould and limescale from our bathroom as well as stains from our carpets. The steam is powerful, but easy to control and the reservoir and long flex mean there’s not too much faffing around when you’re cleaning.
If you’re after a new vacuum, we’ve found the best cordless models and the best robot vacuums
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