Bissell 1631 Power Steamer Questions

[huskyvacs]

Has anyone ever used one of these shampooers before, if so, how well does it do?



I need to get my basement carpeting cleaned so badly. The problem is my basement flooring situation does not allow me to use an upright shampooer. I need a wand style cleaner. It is short pile commercial grade carpeting glued down to poured concrete floor. The carpet is about 40 years old and the glue has separated it from the floor in many spots so it kind of just "floats".

The problem is that the poured concrete floor was leveled by someone very drunk. It is so uneven and hilly in a lot of spots that using an upright shampooer is virtually impossible to even push let alone get it to bond to the carpeting. The shampooer bottoms-out on the high spots and gets stuck and scrapes across the floor or doesn't even stick to the carpet at all in low spots.

It is a large room and so that rules out smaller tank cleaners. I figured this particular model was my best bet. It looks like a good one.

I am wondering, can you do an entire floor with this? I know it will probably take a long time with its small nozzle but that is okay with me. Rome wasn't built in a day.

It also states that is a power steamer, so I am assuming it has an onboard heater?

There is a gargantuan amount of parts on eBay for these so I am wondering about their reliability, I don't want to buy a lemon. I intend to buy one to use and put it to work, so I don't really care about getting a mint in box model.

 

[madman]

LOL

I had two of these as a kid. First one, my mom eventually threw away. Then a couple years later I got another one. Both were trash picks. Keep in mind I was like 12-16 when I had them. I don't think they were particularly good. But I liked to have them simply because we lived in an apartment building with dirty old carpet everywhere. Even then, I didn't use them much. It was a hassle, and they didn't seem to clean very well. Perhaps it might've been different if I knew what cleaning solution was best. The problem seemed to be that there was no agitation. It's about the same as spraying soap water on the carpet then sucking it off with a shop vac.

And that's exactly what this machine is. A shop vac. It does not have an internal heater, or an internal anything. It's legit just a funny looking wet/dry vac, that happens to come with a 'steam' cleaning wand. The wand gets hooked up to your sink for hot water supply, and has a soap pickup tube. You'll notice in the video that the water tube from the wand does not connect to the machine, it just conveniently goes off to nowhere.

Also the wand was cheap brittle plastic, and it was that way 10+ years ago. I can only imagine how bad a machine as old as those would be now.

If you can't get one of these cheap or free, I would consider just using a shop vac and a garden hose, cuz that's about all this machine is. I wonder if you can buy just the wand... Then again, I suppose if you could improvise a water heater for it, that might do the trick. But yeah, it's just a shop vac.

 

[ridgidwd0670]

I had that Bissell 1631 Power Steamer & used it a lot for shampooing carpet (mostly car interiors) While it did great I had to scrub the surface with the Electrolux then go over the scrubbed area with the Bissell. I now use the Shop Vac Steam Team with the Vax SpinScrub head but no longer have the Bissell

1 thing I liked was the continuous water flow; although I could go only as far as the water supply hose can go (50ft long)

 

[kirbyklekter]

huskyvacs,

My sister has a machine like that. I have borrowed it to clean the rugs in my car and a small area in the house. I'm used to using uprights like my old spin scrub or the Bissell. There's a solution bottle that you hook up to the sink faucet with a mechanism that has a valve that blends hot water with the solution when you pull the trigger. They say to always have the solution tube in liquid so if your just doing a rinse, just put water in the solution bottle. The problem I had with this setup is that if you stop spraying for a minute or two, like to move something, the water in the line cools off,so I ended up keeping a bucket handy to spray in to until hot water returned. Also the mixing valve is famous for cutting out on sending the soap consistantly so you have to watch for that, again a bucket to spray into helps. I some times have problems with soreness in my lower back and wouldn't even try to clean a whole room. If the spray nozzle had wheels like the pros have on theirs it would be a lot easier to use. Tell you what, they work well on cleaning furniture like a couches and upholstered chairs.

 

[huskyvacs]

Well I think I might give this a shot anyway, because I had an idea.

What if I used a Kirby with the Rug Renovator tool to agitate the carpet, and then a sprayer bottle to spray a carpet cleaner solution onto the carpet. Then use the Kirby to scrub the solution into the carpet and agitate the carpet pile and let it settle. Then just use the Bissell with hot water supply to rinse and extract? I just am not sure if the Rug Renovator brush can be gotten wet/moist, I don't see why not. I won't get a brand spanking new brush tool, I'd look for a junky kind of decrepit one first.

 

[kirbyklekter]

No onboard heater

it relies on your hot water at the tap. You can turn your water heater up to 140. I read that the upright Bissell cleaners with onboard heaters crank the temp to 190! I know I wouldn't ever try to get that from a hot water heater, probably have a rocket launch. You just have to keep the sprayer going to maintain hot water coming through the nozzle or hand held upholstery brush. I never needed 50 ft. of plastic tubing to reach where I was cleaning so I shortened it to about 30ft. and that shorter distance the water had to travel got me hotter water and faster too! More steam pressure.I also had to sometimes go back over a few areas with just the upholstery brush with no pipes just on the trigger end of the hose to pick up extra water in areas that were harder to get the nozzle to make good contact with rug. I just pressed down on the clear attachment and you can see the water coming through. I think these machines work better for cleaning car carpets than trying to use an upright, more portable and they spray stronger than the uprights, way better. The better the water pressure in your house the better these will spray. Faucet adapters are almost always needed depending on how your tap is threaded. I can switch from kitchen to bathroom to most faucets. Have about 6 different adapters. Also make sure there is a filter installed where the ball floats up towards the motor when tank is full. It doesn't sound like you have padding underneath the carpet down there so this should go pretty easy for you as far as dry times go.

 

[kirbyklekter]

I forgot to mention

that there are two switches one for the pump and the other for the vacuum. You can use either the floor nozzle or spray by hand using just the upholstery brush set up.That way you can distribute the solution and use whatever method of scrubbing you decide on then follow up with a rinse with the Bissell.

 

[huskyvacs]

Yeah it's just 40+ year old glue down carpet over concrete - no pad. I used my Kirby on it once and it sounded like nacho chips afterwards, the Kirby had agitated the carpet so hard it broke the glue in places (probably not hard seeing as its so old).

If it needs a high faucet pressure I might hook it up to the utility sink. That has a threaded faucet already to accept a garden hose diameter, and it sprays out with an extreme amount of pressure.

 

[kirbyklekter]

That should be great. If yours has a solution bottle with a tube that is part of the hook-up connector, it just needs to stay submerged in the solution or water whatever you have in the bottle. They say it's bad for the mixer valve, I think it loses it's prime mostly. I doubt you will even use that much solution to run dry. I'd use some cheap foam ear plugs or better, just sayin'. The water pressure is a balancing act, too much/not enough, just have to see what works best. You also have to keep an eye on the hoses connecting to the trigger, they are only threaded a couple turns on the plastic nib and there's a lot of strain on the fitting. You can give the hose a little more slack in that area, you'll see what I mean. Sorry for the book, I should have written their instruction manual! Hope it goes well for you. Billy

 

[huskyvacs]

Thanks Billy, yeah now I see why these are so rare. By the time you get done hooking it up, time to take a nap! haha But I really don't know of any other large capacity wand-type shampooers like this one that are affordable.