Bissell 1950 E Quickwash

Author's product rating:   

Durability

Short

Advantages:	Cleans hard floors very well .
Disadvantages:	Only lasted 3 months, expensive shampoo and Noisey !

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Hello everyone and welcome to this review.

So what is a Bissel Carpet washer? Bissel has been a known company for around 130 years, they create many types of cleaning machine such as vacuums and carpet washers. Bissel believe their carpet washers are the best and are designed to clean efficiently and beat any dirt that may be lingering in your carpets!

Before we owned our lovely Vax we bought this carpet washer. Bissel have a good name for their cleaning products and I really thought we were getting a bargain for £89 in the Empire Direct catalogue. The description promised a very light and easy to use machine with fabulous cleaning power, it also stated that it was suitable for hard floors which was great for us as most of our floors are Oak. We went online and bought this machine and two days later it had arrived.

What was in the box?
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In the box was, the Bissel itself,
A handle,
Hard floor adaptor,
Two solutions, one for carpet and one for hard floors,
and the instruction book.

Setting it up
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Setting the machine up for it's first battle with our filthy carpets.... Well filthy is a bit strong of a word, lets use grubby, in need of freshening up. The box was quite small which surprised me but the machine was rather large. It was the usual scenario... The handle needed attaching! What was unusual was you usually need a star head screwdriver for most vacuum handles? this handle used a flat head screw and a flat head screwdriver is something that unfortunately does not exist in our house. There was one screw so we resorted to using a knife this time. When the handle was attached it felt strong and like it was never separated in the first place.. Great!

Time to get washing.
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Before you start washing your carpets they must be thoroughly vacuumed to ensure most of the dirt is removed, failure to vacuum your carpets before washing can lead to new stains and damage your carpet deep down! Once vacuumed and furniture is moved the Bissel can be used.

To start washing it was a rather easy job. I had a flick through the instruction manual for the filling up and how much solution to put in etc. The tank on this machine holds an okay 1.5 litres, for this you require about two capful's of solution. The tank for clean water is located on the back of the machine, this simply lifts off with the big handle Bissel have included. There is a little cap that twists off and the warm water..... Yes! Warm water cleans your floors more thoroughly than cold, not boiling but warm, I learned this when I almost melted the tub!

When the solution tank is filled it just popped easily onto the back of the machine, I found this very easy to do and almost anyone could do it. Most carpet washers are extremely hard and complicated to use but so far thumbs up to Bissel.

The dirty water tank is in the head of the cleaner, it simply lifts off for emptying, this has to be on for cleaning so I made sure this was secure and the little dust filter inside was fitted. The filter in the dirty water tub must be dry for cleaning, otherwise bubbles can start flowing out, it's not very pleasant when that happens!

Time to switch it on, the machine is very easy to turn on, there is a water proof switch on the back of the unit that you just flick, away you go! The first thing I noticed was how loud the machine was. This machine really does scream, sounds like it is going to blow up at anytime but it seems perfectly safe. To start the washing you start at the end of the room and work towards the door. There is a trigger built in the handle that you pull to let the clean water into the carpet, Bissel recommend that you push forward with the trigger pulled and let go when you pull back, this ensures that the clean water is injected and sucked out.. Hopefully leaving a clean carpet.

When I was using the machine... It seemed to be doing an okay job. There is a brush under the machine that unfortunately does not spin to my greatest disappointment, the spinning or rather rotating brushes do a great job at loosening dirt which is where I think Bissel have gone wrong on this machine. There is a very soft static brush that is pretty much just sitting there. It does not touch the carpet very much but it must help somewhat. It would be of use if you have a dirty spot in the carpet by pulling and pushing the machine over it many times. I have tried that but it does not get the spots out of the carpet, I even pretreated them with solution before hand. My Vax which is the machine I purchased after this one easily lifted out the spots in the carpet on its first pass!

After cleaning for a while and the clean water tub was nearly empty the cleaner started making a funny noise and smelled a bit hot, this was not good as it had only been on for around 5 minutes, then all of the sudded a load of bubble full of hair and dust shot out of the side airvent. These bubbles went all over my wall and ruined the white paint! I was surprised that the tank filled up so quickly to squirt it's contents from the side. The carpets still semmed very wet, not damp but very wet, this could however be our carpets. They are of a medium pile and quite thick. However even though the carpets were wet they were lovely and fluffy and looked revived.

Anyway back to the positives, the machine was picking up some brown coloured liquid from the carpet so it was cleaning something up, just unfortunate that it was not cleaning the dirt that could not be seen. The machine did run out of solution many times in the room sized 30 metres squared. It could be expected but I did not plan to use a whole bottle of Bissel carpet solution in one room, I thought I must have been doing something wrong! But I have been told by a friend that also owns one that it is normal, gosh that Bissel shampoo is nearly £7 a bottle in Asda!

Hard floor cleaning
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The carpet cleaning really was not as good as we hoped, it cleaned okay but missed most of the dirt we could see... Time to try the hard floor adaptor! It was very simple to set it up for hard floors. The brush that I sakd about on the bottom, this pops out and the hard floor attachment is clipped where the brush usually goes. The hard floor attachment is a piece of plastic with what looks like a piece of a mop on the bottom with a scrubber piece, it looks like a piece of sponge covered in a net, not a harsh scrubber but a softer and safer version that is suitable for hard floors.

Bissel recommends that this cleaner is NOT used on unsealed floors! Sealed floors only as it could cause damage to the machine and the floor.

Once the attachment was fitted it was time to fill the tank with the solution that Bissel provided free in the box for hard floors. This is in the white bottle for anyone wanting to find this in the stores! The hard floor solution looks thicker than the carpet solution and smells lovely, like grapes!

Time to wash those wooden floors!
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It was very simple to do, the same as when you do carpets, pull the trigger when going forwards and let go when going back.

The floors were instantly gleaming when I tried this, worked so much better than the carpet cleaning. The floors were left almost dry with the usual slight damp feeling after washing the floor and drying with a towel. I prefer this method of cleaning to a mop as the same water is never put down on the floor, the Bissel always uses fresh water which ensures clean floors. Again as the dirty tub started to fill up it shot dirty bubbles out, was not pleased at all. I did however find the answer to this problem, if using this Bissel always empty the dirty water tank half way through the tank of clean water. This will ensure that it cannot go over filling and wrecking walls and of course your clean floors.

The hard floor cleaning was very good and the floors looked lovely, the colour of the water lifted was disgusting, it looked a lot like milkshake. I never realised how dirty our floors were.

Cleaning the Bissel out
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Everytime the Bissel is used it must be cleaned of any dirty water and dirt inside. The fresh water can be left in the machine for around 3 months if the solution is made by Bissel. The floor head contains the dirty water tank and it pops off with ease by pulling the two flap typ handles on the side. The dirty water can be emptied down a drain.

I do not recommend emptying down a sink as it could easily get blocked with dirt. The water is very hard to empty without tipping it everywhere. There are four holes in the tank for different parts of the cleaner and water comes out of almost every hole when emptying. Really is messy,

Once the dirty water has been emptied I recommend that you clean the dirty tank with bleach to stop any nasty odours. You should also let teh tank dry completely before re-installing in in the machine. There is also a filter on the side of the dirty water tank that must be cleaned after every use. It collects a lot of hair and it is surprising how much dirt your vacuum can miss!

However 3 months after buying this machine it decided to stop working. It still turns on but makes a really bad grinding noise. It sounds like something is jammed in the pump that sucks the water out of the carpet. I have tried to open it up but it is not at all user serviceable. The whole pump unit is glued together and there is no way of getting to fix. It looks like I will be needing a whole new motor unit but I got the Vax instead.... So much better.

Possives;
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Very easy to use,
Quite powerful at 500 watts
Cleans hard floors very well.

Negatives;
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Shoots dirty bubbles from the air vent
Is very noisey
Does not work great on carpets
Leaves carpets very wet after cleaning.
Does not last very long. Not very durable

Overall this machine is okay, I would not recommend it as it only lasted three months, the cleaning was okay but nothing special. The machine has no hose and is only suitable for small areas. I would not have paid £89 for this machine if I knew what it was like. If they brought the price back to £39 I would be more than happy to recommend. I am unsure if they still have this model available as I bought this 4 years ago. It is still sitting in the garage:)

Their website: www.bissel.com

Thank you for reading, sorry if I have bored you lol

Nick nickbrown60