Big Green, Upright Carpet Cleaner, Professional-Style Deep Cleaning, Out-cleans The Leading Rental, 48F3E

When this machine arrived I was surprised it wasn't bigger. It is the same size as a normal upright top of the range carpet cleaner only you can fold the handle down so its actually easier to store. It also seems a fairly simple mechanism so won't be hard to repair, I liked that. I have used a VAX all terrain carpet cleaner and a Vax platinum power carpet shampooer. Both top of the range, both about £300. The all terrain had very awkward to place water containers, so it would leak until you got them exactly right (and no indicators what 'right' was so I'd waste a lot of time trying to stop the leaks, the carpet brush stopped working after 18 months, replacement didnt' help. Then I bought the Platinum, oh dear. hardly picked up any water at all and not surprisingly didn't seem to pick up much dirt. I'd spend 1/3 of the time cleaning, then 2/3 trying to remove excess water to stop that awful damp smell. After less than a year I gave up and bought this Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine. Used it once. What a difference. Even though I used the platinum a week ago, the water was black (the best I'd get with the platinum was a brown water). It was obviously full of much more dirt. I did pretreat but used a home made concoction of biological washing liquid and vinegar (as I have pets) and left it for 20 mins or so. Then I used the Bissell shampoo supplied with the machine. I used one lot, then started rinsing. There's no real need to keep using the shampoo as you need to rinse the carpet to get all the shampoo out, and the dirt still comes away. I am a bit of a perfectionist. Once I have a shampooer that works, I don't tend to stop until the dirty water is almost clean. Then I know I have got all the dirt from my carpet. However, I've done two or three complete runs with the Deep Green so far and while the water is still dirty, I can see the brown dirt film that was covering my carpets has gone, which is the first time I've seen that for a long time. I also do two or three dry passes over the carpet to remove as much water as possible (remove water, remove further dirt). For the first time in years, the carpet is fairly dry. Will finish drying overnight, it won't take days with all those nasty damp smells that stay with your carpet. It costs more than one standard top of the range carpet cleaner, but think, I have bought two in the last couple of years and still not had a clean carpet til now. I can only say I wish I'd bought it instead. I am very impressed by its ability to pick up dirt and water. Yes I am a bit finicky but if this machine can satisfy me, I would highly recommend it to anyone. I did manage to buy it with a sale discount (for £546 rather than £683) so am really really happy. I have back problems and arthritis but haven't found the machine too heavy or cumbersome to use. The machine is well designed. The water containers sit on the front of the machine so the wheels take the strain of pushing the machine with at least 8 litres of water in it. The positioning of the water tanks means the suction gap is pressed into the carpet when you need it to be, so it gets the maximum amount of water/shampoo/dirt out that any machine can. I think this is why the Platinum didn't extract much water, the tanks with their weight were not over the suction gap. I look forward to using this for many years. Comes highly recommended.

Besides having a young boy who somehow manages to spill any liquid that he comes in to contact with, i've been doing renovation in my property so my carpets really have been getting a lot of hammer. I wanted to buy a cleaner that would last for a long while as well as one that would be able to deal with the 4 year old spill monster and after quite a bit of umming and arring i decided on the Big Green Cleaning machine. My first impressions were that it was smaller than i expected and is very compact to rivals such as the Rug Doctor due to a handle that folds down over the cleaner. Its of a solid construction and is quite heavy. The hose that comes with it is going to be a nightmare to keep tidy but apart from that, it's a nice and neat appliance. The cleaner is much easier to handle than i expected thanks to the swivelling handle although i noticed that when its turned on, it tends to start moving to one side or the other slightly instead of staying in a straight line which i found to be quite annoying. I'm not sure if it's designed to do this or not though. The performance of the cleaner is exceptional, it cleans very well on it's first pass and leaves the carpet almost dry which i was very surprised by and the cleaning time is cut down due to the cleaner working forwards and backwards. I was expecting a little bit more performance out of the upholstery cleaning attachment but it still does an adequate job, if not a little excitable with the detergent spray though. Cleaning is a breeze and takes a couple of minutes. You simply remove the top tank which contains the dirty water (the bottom contains the clean water and detergent) and empty it out into the sink or drain, give it a quick wash out and then replace it on to the machine. You then just give the rollers underneath a wipe and you're ready for next time. All in all, if you are willing to invest the money and have the room to store it, you are going to get a very good cleaner and i can't recommend it highly enough. Happy cleaning.