Bissell 1970E

Bissell 1970E Carpet Cleaner

I have mainly hard flooring in my flat but I do have a lot of rugs and carpet in both of the bedroom that we have and considering both the rug and the carpets were a beige type of colour they were all looking a little bit grubby and in need of a good clean. I was finding that the vanish carpet cleaner and my hand cleaning wasn't doing a job enough job and decided what I needed was a carpet cleaner!

Price and Availability

Unusually I purchased this Bissell from Hurt's (rather than Argos) an independent electrical and home wear store on the Isle of Wight. I was able to use my 10% discount card on the item and at the reasonably priced £79.99p before the discount it worked out to be a fairly cheap carpet cleaner when you look at most of the branded machines such as this. Bissell is a long standing name in carpet cleaners and one I was pleased to be able to afford. The price at the time did have some money off as I think the RRP of this item is more like £100.

Hurst's had a full range of different types of the Bissell carpet cleaners but this one seemed the best suited to my needs and it was one of the cheaper ones available but you can pick up this machine from many places online but you will have to take into account the postage costs and I think the price I got it at seems a lot cheaper than anything I can find online although it is readily available.

Product Specifications

This Bissell 190E is marketed as being a small area and hard floor deep cleaning machine. It has a removable cross action brush with edge to edge cleaning and six rows of bristles. The long power cord enables easy cleaning in any home and the simple to use features make it a simple fast to use piece of home equipment. The 2 litres of water which is distributed onto the carpet is a good enough amount to do most small areas of carpet and hard flooring.

Look and design

I first thought that perhaps they had named the machine the 1970E model because the machine looked like something that had come form the 70s as the overall look is not something that is modern or sleek but rather old. The mush pea green colour is not especially appealing to the eye but on the other hand the upright design does make it fit well into my storage cupboard as it doesn't take up a lot of room.

The main power cable is long enough to be able to stretch through to a couple of rooms from the one plug socket as it is a long 7 meters in length and this is easily stored away as it can be looped over a couple of hooks neatly at the back of the machine.

There is a large 2 litre water storage container at the back of the carpet cleaner and this is where the fresh waster and carpet cleaning fluid goes in the first step of the cleaning process. This is a clear plastic which means you can easily see how much fluid is left in the bottle and roughly know how much longer it is going to take you to clean any floor This sits in place pretty snugly when the machine is being used and is easy to pop in and out to refill the fluid in between washes.

There is a clear 2 litre dirty storage unit at the front of the machine and this is where the water which is sucked up from the carpet and is pushed through to a storage area where, because it is made of clear plastic, you can see how dirty your carpets are once it has been cleaned and is nice in a disgusting sort of way to be able to see it all there.

The power button is located on the bottom right hand side and you switch this on with your foot. On the other side there is a button which is also foot operated and this enables the head of the machine to be released so that the bristles lay flat on the floor when you tilt the handle and begin to clean the carpets. Because of these being in an easy to reach place with your foot this is probably the best design that I have ever used because of its ease and simplicity.

General Use

There was nothing to set up at all when I got this Bissell cleaner home which pleased me quite a bit and the small instruction leaflet which came with the machine gave a very brief run down of what I needed to do to get the machine up and running and all that this involved was filling the fresh water tank up with a little of the carpet cleaner fluid (Bissell do there own and two bottles of the stuff was included with the purchase of this cleaner although a bottle costs around £5 to buy singularly). There is a small fill line on the fresh water bottle to indicate where you need to fill the fluid up to and then the rest of the bottle needs filling with warm water. Once this has been filled with the rubber cap fitted back on it can then be slotted onto the back of the machine, the power cable plugged in and then its good to go.

The machine is pretty loud once flicked on and not an ideal piece of kit to use at night or to try to have a conversation while using as this is a fruitless task! The water will not start to come from the bottle and through the machine until the trigger, which is located underneath the large handle, is pressed in. The trigger is tough and firmly in place although easy to keep pressed in while the cleaner is pushed around the floor.

The water seems to be distributed pretty evenly although I found I needed to fill up the clean water and washing fluid a good few times to do the carpets in the bedroom but the one bottle did do one go of my front room rug. The water comes out only when the handle is depressed and as son as the handle is released the suction of the machine will begin to suck up the water from the carpet so I tend to keep the trigger in until all the clean water has been pumped out and spread over the carpet and then I will suck it all out in one go.

The cleaner easily picks up all the water from the carpets and you can instantly see the dirty coloured water filling up the storage compartment and although 2 litres of the water is thrown out of the machine there is a little less water picked up as the carpets do feel slightly damp after use but this is really to be expected and the carpets are not left soaking and the machine does do a good job at drawing the majority of the water back out.

Emptying the dirt water container can be tricky and because of the holes where the water is pumped into the machine it means that you have to be careful not to splash all the dirty water back on to the carpet. The storage container does click in and out of position fairly well and and once emptied is no trouble to get back in place. I did find that cleaning out the dirty water storage bottle wasn't especially easy and the gritty bits of dirt would get lodged in hard to reach places that meant that putting it away after use took a while because of all the cleaning involved in getting this area to look spotless.

Overall Opinion

I found the machine surprisingly easy to use and with the memories of mum having one of the old style Vax machines that had various wires and things needed to do to perform the cleaning of the carpets this seems like a wonder machine in comparison. On first cleaning of my rug I couldn't believe how much of a filthy person I was and although it felt good to have the rug looking clean and as good as new I also felt rather ashamed that the muddy brown fluid that came from the carpet was what we had been living with for all this time!

The rug needed a good few times of going over with the machine and I was working on the assumption that I would keep going until the water ran clean and the first time of cleaning the rug did mean that I lost count of the times I filled up the clean water and emptying because it was so dirty. However the results were well worth it as the rug had a new lease of life and looked bright and almost as good as new. The carpets in the bedroom didn't take as many goes to make the water run clean but I did have to fill up the water compartment a few times just to cover all areas of the floor the one time.

The carpets didn't take too long to completely dry out but because of them being slightly damp I did make sure than no one walked on them for a the rest of the day and they were all dry by the next morning although I did keep the windows open to allow for faster drying. The rug seemed to take a lot longer to dry out and I did move it outside and raise it off the floor to aid with the drying process but I suspect because I went over the rug so much more than I did the carpets that there was more water deeply embedded into it.

The cleaner did remove all of the worked in dirt and daily grime from the areas I cleaned but I must say the rest of the times that I have used the cleaner I have made sure that I have gone around and spot cleaned with a carpet cleaner such as Vanish or 1001 before getting this Bissell on to it and this seems to work far better as the more dried on stains are then removed even better.

I have tried it on the laminate flooring but I found the machine to be far too wet and feel that it doesn't give a close enough clean for my liking and I much prefer to use a mop and bucket rather than this on the hard flooring and I have solely kept this item for the carpets and the rugs.

The subsequent times I have used the Bissell on my flooring I have found the carpets and rug to be a lot less dirty than that first time so because of that it takes less time to complete the cleaning and fewer times to fill up the cleaning fluid and fresh water so regular use is probably a good idea to keep floors looking clean, smelling fresh and to make sure that hours are not needed to do the cleaning all the time.

All ina ll I can't recommend this Bissell carpet cleaner highly enough. The fact that the price was affordable (especially when you consider how much a professional clean would cost) and the storage of the item is easy even for us in a flat because of the small and compact design of the cleaner. The simplicity of working the machine means that even the most non-technical minded of people would find it easy to use and quick to work out how to do it. The results that are obtained when using this cleaner are brilliant and although perhaps not the best on dried on and buried in dirt with a little bit of treatment before hand even these stains are worked out well from using this piece of kit.

I think a top score of 5 out of 5 stars and an exceptionally high recommendation is in order for this trusted piece of Bissell equipment. If you have never cleaned your carpets before I suggest getting this and I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

I do hope that this has been of some help/interest to you.

Many thanks for taking the time to read.