This is the first machine I have owned; however, it is among many I have borrowed over many years.
Assembling and acquainting myself with it took only 10 minutes.
I was very happy to buy this unit as the cleaning solution and water vessels are separate. So, I can rinse my carpets after cleaning them.
The heating unit works in just one minute after filling the water bladder and placing it back on the deep cleaner. Then...you are off and cleaning your carpets.
Using it on a 12' x 12' bedroom and a 14' x 25' great room was pretty easy and pleasureable. The result was perfection in a spotless carpet! Most importantly, a spotless carpet with little shampooing residue left behind compared to other cleaners.
Why not 5 stars as a rating from me?...Well, the following are the issues I have but am willing to deal with:
*** They say you can leave the cleaning solution in the tank until the next time you clean, which could be many months from now. I do not recommend this as the unit seemed to leak while the cleaning solution was left in the tank and the unit was merely sitting with the cord wrapped up. Simply dump the cleaning solution back into the bottle and rinse out the vessel.
*** Carpet fibers seem to adhere to the bottom of the unit behind the brushes. To avoid dislodging these fibers onto the carpet during cleaning, the bottom of the unit should be wiped down frequently.
*** To keep the unit in tip top shape, the rollers, sucking unit, water bladder, and cleaning solution vessel should be removed, rinsed, and allowed to dry thoroughly. Direction are given in the manual to remove all of these items properly; however, it requires 15 minutes of dismantling...then overnight to dry...then another 15 minutes to reassemble. Unscrewing screws is involved 4 screws...this was to access the front sucking nozzle and two rollers. To remove the water bladder and replace it seems to put a bit of wear on the bladder and I anticipate having to buy a replacement for this in the years to come. BUT...each piece that is rinsed off cleans up VERY easily and dries well.
*** The design of the water bladder-dirty water vessel is a bit odd. You fill a bladder (plastic) with hot tap water. The bladder is seated in a rigid plastic containment unit. It turns out this rigin plastic containment unit is the dirty water vessel. The water from the carpet is sucked in and resides on the outside of the clean water bladder. Clever design, but somewhat of a pain as the vacuum/ no vacuum trigger can be easily tripped if the unit bumps into furniture or you move it left or right to quickly. The reason seems to be the water sloshing around outside the bladder and inside the bladder flow and trigger the valve to prematurely open and stop the sucking. Not a huge issue, just an annoyance b/c you have to turn off the vacuum and jostle the unit a bit to get the valve to close again.
*** The placement of the accessory hose is awkward especially if you are a left-handed vacuumer. My leg would bump into the hose and the latch they have designed to secure it is not very good at keeping it secure. I had to reseat the hose 5 times during the cleaning of my two rooms... Again, an annoyance.
*** The wheels on the unit are large in diameter, which makes the unit very easy to maneuver even though it is heavy (I agree with a prior reviewer that heavy is good in a carpet cleaner). However, I question how well they are assembled to the machine as there seems to be some give left-to-right as you turn the unit...we'll see about this in the long run.
All in all, I am still quite satisfied with the unit as it does all that I wanted it to do. I am not sure that you would not have other annoyances with other brands as well...in other words, I do not think there is a perfect carpet cleaner as I have been researching them for weeks now...all of them seem to have issues in some way or another. But the issues I describe here versus the result in clean carpets...has me very happy to own the Bissell ProHeat 2X.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
After owning Hoovers, I recently tried this model. I have been generally happy with my last two Hoover carpet cleaners and they have been durable for me. I used both TONS -the 1st one was a very early model that was still going strong after 5 or 6 years of hard use, and I replaced it with one that had rotating brushes. It also got years of use but I accidentally damaged it thru my negligence. (Used it in an unheated cabin, left it overnight, and it got well below freezing I broke the spray trigger when I impatiently tried to use it.) My last one still worked if you pushed the surge button and then pried it up again, but I decided to get a new one.
I purchased the Hoover 914-900, but it leaked before even starting to use it, so I returned it and bought a Bissell Proheat 2x. I liked that it seemed easier to clean the machine than the Hoovers, and that it had a rinse option, although not conveniently located. I noticed immediately with first use that it wasn't as good as even my old (trigger broken) Hoover. The Bissell didn't extract water well at all, even though I went over and over an area trying to get the water up. It was obvious by looking that it also didn't clean as well (probably as a result of leaving dirty water still in the carpets.) If it'd been my first carpet cleaner I might have thought it great since it did get dirt out, but I knew they didn't look as clean as in the past and mostly they were WET. The next day, before returning it I bought ANOTHER Hoover 914-900 thinking the first leaky one was an anomaly. The 2nd one leaked initially also, but once I used it for a minute, pressed and released the trigger a few times and the seals got wet, it stopped leaking. Thus I had two new cleaners to try side-by-side. Where I used the Bissell after the Hoover, there was no difference, the Bissell didn't get the carpet any cleaner. Where I used the Hoover on where I'd cleaned with the Bissell the night before -a BIG difference. The carpet was visibly cleaner; (it's a very light carpet so it's easy to see that) the dirty water collected confirms that it picked up dirt the Bissell left behind; and the carpet was drier. This was a return to what I expected based on my last 2 Hoovers -damp carpet, not WET carpet, and I think it's why the Hoover cleaned better. The Hoover isn't perfect -the tanks need to be bigger for fewer trips to the sink (if too heavy for some people, they wouldn't have to fill as full), and there is no good way to clean it! I did like the idea behind the Bissell of having clean water with which to either mix with the detergent and spray, or to rinse with, and it would be a plus if Hoover would find a way to do that. (Especially if the "rinse" button was on the handle and easily accessible.) But Bissell's technique of inserting a plastic bladder for clean water inside the dirty water tank means neither holds much water which makes for extremely frequent trips to the sink. Also, having to stop, bend over, and switch a dial on the base to "rinse" and the same to switch back to cleaning mode was highly inconvenient. Last, Bissell's on-board water heater didn't seem to make a difference. Leaving behind too much dirty water was its downfall, it didn't matter that the water went in "heated." I used the hottest tap water I could in the Hoover and it worked just fine. The "proheat" seems to me to be just another unneeded gizmo that can break. Overall, I guess it depends on what's most important to you. For me, clean carpets that dry in a couple of hours trumped ease of cleaning the machine.
Best Deals on BISSELL ProHeat 2X Upright Deep Carpet Cleaner, 9200
Others have gone into very good detail about this machine so I won't go over that again. What I will add, however, is that there are a couple weird things about this carpet cleaner that I didn't expect.
The first is that if you have pets you will have to go back and pick up clumps of hair even if you've just ran the vacuum cleaner. This is a good/bad situation as it's good that it's getting up all the hair that the vacuum cleaner missed but it's also a pain in the back (literally) to have to bend over every minute or two to pick up clumps of hair or risk clogging up the carpet cleaner with hair. We've lived in this house for 2 1/2 years and have had 2 cats the whole time, 2 dogs for 2 of those years so we expected some pet hair. We've ran the vacuum cleaner twice a week on average ever sinced we moved in, however, so you may not have that problem if you don't have as many animals as we have.
The second quirk and one that will effect everyone is the fact that it seems to leak. We have a "green machine" (portable hand held Bissell) that we have the same problem with so it seems to be a problem with all Bissell's. After you turn off the carpet cleaner and wrap the cord up you'll be surprised to see a mess of dirty water under where the carpet cleaner was. Tacks such as running a minute or so (continually moving it) before shutting it off doesn't work either. We have to store the carpet cleaner in the garage as it will continue to leak out over the next few hours or so and leaves a puddle of water about 6 inches in diameter.
The final little quirk is that, even though it cleans well, be prepared for the carpet to be very wet when you're done. The carpet cleaners that we're all familiar with that we rented when we lived in an apartment (rug doctors) dry your carpet better I believe because they're heavier. Bissell had to walk the fine line of making it light enough for the petite among us to use it while still cleaning the carept without doing damage to it. Like I said above, it cleans pretty good but the carpet is very wet afterwards. This quirk isn't that bad as long as you plan ahead.
Overall I give it 4 stars because it does it's job but the quirks keep it from being a must have product.
Honest reviews on BISSELL ProHeat 2X Upright Deep Carpet Cleaner, 9200
Positive:
* Machine is easy to maneuver and is similar to a vacuum cleaner in that the machine can be operated
* 2 in 1 tank recovery tank with solution tank bladder
* Electronic circuit breaker reset (power off then on to reset)
* Dual brushes lift pile well and make carpet look nice after cleaning
* Simple float design
Negative:
* The machine does not pickup water well. Several passes are required after water is sprayed onto the floor.
* First operation resulted in no water spray due to loose connection of the tank to the base.
* Second operation resulted in no water pick up due to loose connection of the tank to the base. A better instruction manual would help.
* Float trips too easily especially if machine is moved from side to side.
* The accessory tool location is awkward I cut my knee on it
* The instruction manual requires the tips and brush to be removed after each use
* Debris (mainly long human hair and cat hair during this use) easily clogged the vac shoe and left wet spots on carpet.
* Also little "hairballs" occasionally were dislodged from the underside of the machine. The debris collected behind the brushes.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for BISSELL ProHeat 2X Upright Deep Carpet Cleaner, 9200
I have never owned a carpet cleaner like this before. I used an upright Hoover a couple years ago that a friend owned but that's my only experience with this type of machine.
My wife and I have a large area rug approx. 12x16 and it needed cleaning bad. It had many stains from over 4 years of use. Most of the stains I had tried to remove with good'ol elbow grease but no luck. We decided to have it professionally cleaned but when we realized how expensive it was going to be ($300!!) we decided to buy our own. We purchased the Bissell Proheat 9200T from Target for $200 (Sorry Amazon!).
The unit was easy to assemble and use. Of course it took some getting use to but overall very easy. It ran out of clean water twice while I was cleaning and each time I didn't realize it for a couple of strokes. I wish there was an easy way to know if it needed more water. Also, like the previous poster mentioned carpet gunk gets stuck under the machine behind the rollers and it needs to be wiped clean periodically while cleaning. You also have to dismantle the front roller assembly by removing 5 screws in order to properly clean the unit when finished. I wish this was easier but I don't see it as a major problem as I don't anticipate using this everyday.
Our carpet is now spotless! We are thrilled with the results. There were dark black stains on our light beige colored rug for years and they are all gone now. I was only expecting a minor improvement but this machine made the rug look new again!!
For only $200 we have a brand-new rug and a great machine that will hopefully last for years. I can't recommend Bissell enough
.
