Hoover Floor Mate - Does it work?

[mom to little e]

DM picked an old Hoover Floor Mate floor cleaner up at a thrift store thinking it was a regular vacuum. It is a basice model that she gave it to me since my kitchen floors are always getting a mess with DD. I tried it and "think" it works but since I have no manuals, I'm not really sure I am using it right. It "kind of" seems to work but I'm curious if anyone has one and how they feel about it. If they work, the idea would be fantastic!


Maryann
Mommy to Ean & Mia!

[KrystalS]

I have one and I love it. We used to live in military housing and all our floors were linoleum, a nightmare to keep clean. The floormate was the only thing that really kept our floors clean. It's not hard to use. Did you buy the cleaning solution? You probably don't have to use it but thats what I buy. You take the lid off the bucket and it has a little line that shows how much solution to use, then you add water. I first use the scrub brushes in a small area then go back over it with just the vacuum to suck up the water and soap. You might look on the Hoover website, they may have an online manual you can look at.

[carolines mommy]

I have one and love it for my hardwood floors. I just use water and vinegar for cleaning. It is better for the environment, cheap and doesn't leave residue on my floors. Used it this morning still works great after 2 years. I do sometimes go back over the hardwood with a swiffer-like dry mop to eliminate all streaks from any left over water.

Erika
Mommy to Caroline Nov 03 and Chelsea April 05

[Moneypenny]

I think I am in the minority, but we had one and I would rate that, overall, the end result was slightly less than fine. For the time it took to fill the thing up and use it, I could have easily filled a bucket with water and vinegar and used a regular old mop and gotten a better result.

So, if it were faster and cheaper, I would have kept it, but for the price and time it took to use, it didn't do as well as I thought it should.

Susan
mama to my cutie pie, Avery
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[kimbe]

We have one and love it. Our house is mostly tile and hardwood laminate. For about 6 months, I mopped and it was useless. I was angry because our floors were never clean and it would take me all morning to do the job. After much research we bought the Floor Mate and I wish that I would have gotten it to begin with.

Even though you are supposed to use the dry vac option before you actually wash the floor, I don't. It picks up all the crumbs on the tile and in the grout, scrubs the floor and then picks up the water. If I have time, I do the dry pick up, but it dries fast even if you don't use it. I clean with hot water and vinegar or hot water and castile soap.

My complaints about it --- sometimes it looses suction. You can hear when it happens and I just turn it off and then turn it back on. It seems to do that if I hit the baseboard or if I put too much water down. If there is a really dirty/stickyish spot on your floor, you have to go over it a couple of times to get it up. (It takes a couple extra passes to get crayon off of tile too ;) )

We had our tile professionally cleaned and we think that the floor mate actually does a better job. We regret spending the money for the professionals and should have just bought the vaccuum to begin with.

If I had a smaller kitchen and less tile/laminate, I don't think that I would be so thrilled. However, in my situation, it saves my back, saves me a lot of time and energy and gets my floors much cleaner than I can with a mop.

I hope that it works out for you!