Wednesday 14 December 2011

Vax Rapide Ultra review

I hate, yes hate, my living room carpet with a passion, it is a beige colour and the 14 ft from door to door gets all the muck and mess from the front door at one end of it and from the dog coming in with its muddy feet from the back door ( through the kitchen) at the other. I had asked the landlord 18 months ago if I could change it and was told no, so it has annoyed me for 2.5 yrs now. So having won a gorgeous pandora necklace last month that was not quite me, I swapped it and use the swap to buy a  carpet cleaner to at least make it more tolerable.

I have hired the rug doctor a few times and borrowed another from a friend but at this time of year its impossible to keep it clean so decided I really had to buy one. I always do a lot or review reading before I buy anything, not is a financial position to buy something, decide I dont like it, shove it in the back of a cupboard and buy another as some people do.

So having done my reading, and my research on the cheapest place to buy it I bought the Vax Rapide Ultra as it had good reviews and was less than half this price in Argos at the end of November.

So we wandered off and bought it, and believe me the box is big and heavy and the provided carry handle digs into your fingers like nothing on earth. Luckily enough we bought it in an indoor shopping mall with nice slidey tile floor so I dragged it 2/3rds of the way back to the car, and only carried it once I got outside. Had I pre-planned I would have taken a supermarket shopping trolley with me and pushed it back to the car, but I didnt so hey ho.

When I got it home and opened the box the machine required just the handle to be added, which was done with one very easy clip and that was it done. This machine comes with a  hose and wash tool that can be used to spot clean before you start, to do your stairs with  or to clean furniture. Now by no stretch am I  thick but for the life of me I could can not work out how this is attached to the machine for storage. There is a frame work for the flexible hose and its end attachments to go onto, but mine is in the cupboard under the stairs. The instructions for attaching this is none existent and I thought as you dont actually need it to shampoo the carpet then I was not going to let it stress me. It is easy enough to see where it attaches to actually use it and that will do good enough for me for now but I think they could do with adding a page to their manual.

So what did I think of it in use? Dead easy to set up, take off the water tank, just by pressing a button in the same way as you empty a modern upright vacuum cleaner, filling with water and placing back in. The foot pedal that you press too tilt the machine handle back and the one on the opposite side that switches the machine in and off could have done with being a bit bigger as I found them awkward to operate and the pedal to tilt the machine back needed pressing 3 or 4 times to get it to operate.

The machine is heavy empty but is very heavy time you add 4.5 litres of carpet cleaning solution. It is heavy to push backwards and forwards, but by the very nature of it being heavy it makes very good contact with the carpet. The top handle has a easy pull switch to allow the clean water to be squirted onto the carpet and it has rotating brushes to beat the clean water into the carpet, which loosens the dirt and then helps along with the suction to soak up the now dirty water into a separate 3litre tank. Not quite sure why the dirty tank is smaller than the clean one as you do need to empty the dirty water out before the clean water is finished. It has a very long electric lead on and comfortably was long enough to do the rooms I have.

dog hairs deposited back on the rug
I vacuumed my rooms before I started to clean ( as per the recommended instructions), but was impressed how much more dog hairs this attracted, and then deposited in a lump back on my carpet. Not a problem dead easy to pick up, guess I need a better vacumn cleaner



What did I think of the cleaning abilities? I was very very impressed. The machine does a fantastic job. I took this last week up to an elderly friends house (the couple are both in their 90's) to clean their hall, living room and dining room carpets. Their carpets are a light grey colour and have had a lot of coffee spilt on the way from the kitchen through the dining room into their living room, the great grand children have spilt juice, coke and goodness knows what else over the last 3 years I have known them. Their carpets came up a treat, all the stains came out, the carpet was truly deep cleaned and the pile came up wonderfully. The carpets are only damp time you have finished, they are not left wet.

I would highly recommend this machine, much easier and more efficient than the rug doctors I have hired in the past. Certainly the best home machine I can honestly say I have ever used and would recommend this machine to anybody who may be contemplating buying one.

This is not a sponsored post it is just my thoughts and findings on a product I bought to use in my own home, and I was impressed enough to want to share it with you all.

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