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List Price: $299.99
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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program My carpet is old and due for replacement. While this Bissell carpet cleaner couldn't remove years of wear, it did remove a surprising volume of dirt. At first, I didn't think it was really doing all that much. But once I emptied out the tank, my God, what a filthy carpet I was walking on! The used water was a very dark gray bordering on black. Yuck!
There's a handy little spinning wheel icon on the base of the unit (aka the flow gauge) that tells you if everything's going according to plan, or if you need to change the water, add cleaning fluid or some other issue. If it's spinning, you're in good shape. When it stops, you need to fill or empty the tank(s).
The cleaner has 4 different "custom clean" settings. I mostly used the "normal clean" setting and then switched to "heavy traffic" for the dirtiest regions. The "Dry Aire" feature sends hot air to your carpet to aid in drying. As I write this, my living room is somewhat humid and the floor is damp. I don't think it will take long to dry though.
A small bottle of Bissell cleaning solution is included. Do yourself a favor and buy a larger bottle before this item arrives. You'll go through it pretty quickly, so probably best to buy a decent sized refill in advance of delivery. Otherwise, you are flat-out going to run out of cleaning fluid before the job is done.
So what's not to like? Well, it's somewhat heavy and bulky. For someone small and weaker, it might be a bit hard to move around. Obviously, it rolls on the carpet fine, so that's not an issue. But it's a big unit and you probably need at least a little bit of muscle (but not too much) to use it properly. The tank filled with water might be a bit heavy for some as well. You carry it like a bucket, but toting around a bucket full of water and bending down to insert and remove the tank isn't a simple thing for someone without a moderate amount of strength.
Assembly was quite easy. You put the top half into the bottom half and secure it with 3 Phillips screws. Nothing too tricky there. The tool rack requires a touch more attention. The illustration was not as clear as I would have liked and it took a bit of head scratching to figure out where a couple of tools sit on the rack. You'll figure it out, but again the illustration could be clearer.
While the top of the hose rack secures with a screw, the bottom does not. I noticed that one other reviewer said that the bottom of the rack (no screw to secure it) would not stay in place. I initially had the same problem. However, I looked at that bottom rack a bit closer and there's a tab that needs to snap in place and if you don't do it just right, it will keep falling off. Play with it and you'll see what I mean. If that bottom hose rack is popping off, you probably haven't installed it correctly. It's not hard, but you need to slide the lower hose rack piece in just right so that it clicks and locks into place. It's not just gravity that's holding it in place, but that's what you'll think if you don't do it right.
The only other problems I had was that my knee and/or the cord kept knocking the hose off of the hose rack and onto the floor. I'm no engineer, but I think it could somehow be secured a bit better. Once, I knocked the hose off and then put it back on the rack. However, the head's trigger was pushed on the stain brush, which I didn't notice. By the time I discovered that the button was pushed, my leg was very wet and the brush had soaked my wallet and remote control. Fortunately, they are fine, but keep an eye on that so you don't spray cleaning fluid where you don't want it. Also, the coiled power cord rests right next to the coiled hose and they interfere with each other. I can't help but think that they could have designed this a bit better.
I went back and forth as to whether to give this unit 4 or 5 stars. If you solely look at whether it does what you expect it to, it's a 5 star item. It cleans your carpet well and gets out a lot of visible dirt. There are a few minor issues, but overall this is a nice carpet cleaner and it cleans very well. However, I knocked that hose off so many times either with my knee or the cord that I have to give it 4 stars.
I think that this Bissell will go a long way towards keeping your carpets looking nice and potentially extending the life of your flooring. I recommend it, despite a few minor issues.
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I purchased my 2x pro heat about 1 month ago. Prior to this I used a low end Bissell which I thought was good, but with one pass on this new cleaner I was impressed.
I want everyone to know that I recommend this cleaner, it far surpasses my lower end Bissell and the high end Hoover I borrowed from the neighbor.
Reading some of these other reviews I understand the problems with some of the negative reviews.
One person writes that the cleaner left all the water on the floor. There is a red filter/flapper on the dirty water resivour. If you get too much foam in the container there is a flap that closes the intake so that the foam does not get sucked in the cleaner. Go dump the dirty water. Then check that red flapper and make sure it is not stuck to the intake. If it is just tap the container and it will flip back down. If it is sticking then you may be using too much cleaner.
When you finish up make sure you fill the soap container with water and run rinse water over the last part of your carpet. You are asking for trouble if you do not do this. Regardless of what Bissell says, get the soap out of the lines before storing the cleaner.
If the carpet is so dirty that the water is sucking up black. Between cleanings make sure all the moving mechanisms do not have stuff caught up in them. Your asking for a belt to break otherwise.
Do not be a fool and use some home brewed serum for carpet cleaner. Use Bissell carpet cleaner products. This cleaner has a heater on-board so the home brew stuff might cook and create chaos! Never use oxyclean or comporable products, they are desintegrators of plastic. You can use Bissells oxy proucts and I recommend them. This is how I lost my old cleaner. When I was speaking with the salesperson I heard a gasp when I told them of my cleaning serum.
Some people are just not mechanically inclined so they do not think about these simple things. I hope my review allows people to understand some of the bad reviews. There is nothing wrong with this cleaner...and if I ever need to contact their customer service and I get lousy service they will not hear the end of it.
I am a director of customer service for another company.
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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I had previously owned a Bissell ProHeat back in 2002 and felt that there was a lot of money invested in a cleaner that didn't really show a lot of promise. When I moved across the country, I didn't feel much of a loss when the moving company accidentally "misplaced" the ProHeat. When I saw the newer 66Q4, I wanted to test it out in order to see if Bissell had made any marked improvements over their previous lines, and alas, there's not a whole lot of change.
For around $300, you're paying for a couple of things. First off, you're paying so that you can clean your carpet on your own time; no need to schedule a professional steam cleaning company to do it for you. You're also paying for the clean that comes with "washing" the carpet instead of just vacuuming up the dust and dirt that's accumulated between the fibers. Most professional steam cleaning companies charge around $100-200 for their services (obviously depending on the size of the house/apartment), so there is a lot to be said for just purchasing your own machine and cleaning when you need to. Unfortunately there has yet to be a single-unit device made that can match the power of the multi-thousand dollar units that the pro's use. The ProHeat is no exception to that rule. So the question comes down to: Will the ProHeat work well enough that your calls to the professionals is lessened? The answer is: Yes, however you will still call them on occasion when you want your carpets "really" clean.
If you are new to carpet cleaners, there are some generic things you should know that apply to all carpet cleaners:
They are heavy and cumbersome, even without the liquid
They are messy, both to use and to clean up
They will probably end up smelling (think vacuum funk)
They take a long time to use (3-4x's as long as a normal vacuum, not including dry time)
The cleaners are expensive and get used up quickly, and arguably, unneeded
The unit itself worked as well as expected. The dual brushes do a good job of agitating the carpet fibers so that a significant portion of the dirt embedded gets dislodged. After cleaning the area was visually "brighter" than non-cleaned areas. However, unlike professional cleaners which have a huge suction pull behind their steaming process, the ProHeat does not do a good job of reaching into the carpet pad underneath. Therefore the ProHeat will do a good job of cleaning the surface stain, however it will not remove all traces of things like pet urine (after a good cleaning with the ProHeat, the black light will still glow). Using the spot cleaner along with a little bit of enzyme-based pet urine remover formula will help. Also, it should be noted that the brushes themselves are quite stiff, so if you are seeing a lot of carpet fiber ending up in the cleaning liquid, you may want to reconsider using a agitation-based cleaner (hypothetically you should already be seeing the same behavior with your vacuum).
All-in-all, the ProHeat isn't a bad unit, however if you're considering "upgrading" from a previous model, there's not much new here; nor has the core functionality been improved. If you've never owned a carpet cleaner and just need something to do a good carpet shampooing twice a year, this is a good buy (I would consider this a bit too bulky for a day-to-day spot cleaner) and the unit itself works great as long as you understand that it is not on par with a professional steam cleaning service.
Honest reviews on BISSELL ProHeat 2X Healthy Home Full Sized Carpet Cleaner, 66Q4
We got this carpet cleaner because we have an autistic child and she can get a little bit messy. I wish we had done more research before buying because now I realize just how bad the design of this cleaner is. Instead of having two separate tanks for the clean and dirty water the Bissell has a bladder system in which the clean water is poured inside the bladder and the dirty water is stored in the tank around the bladder.
If germs bother you then your not going to pleased with the disposal process of this unit. It's a pretty disgusting process of pouring out the nasty smelly water that sits around the bladder that the clean water goes in. The bladder design also makes it difficult to clean the tank out when finished. We used the hand tool a lot and it worked pretty well but now the water isn't spraying out and I have to turn the unit off for a few minutes to get it working again.
Finally I just recently noticed that the bristles on the floor cleaner are no longer spinning. We paid over $200 for our machine and for that much money I would have thought it would hold up better than it has. After reading many of these reviews I think I will be looking at another brand in the future.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for BISSELL ProHeat 2X Healthy Home Full Sized Carpet Cleaner, 66Q4
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This review is lengthy so here is a summary spoiler and my general recommendations:
SUMMARY:
Based on my experience so far I'd say using the proper chemicals and technique the bissell can do just as good of a job as most professional cleaners if you are willing to put in 2x-3x the amount of time for the same area.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
If you have a large carpeted area (500sqft+) I'd say definitely get a pro.
If you have a few bedrooms or a relatively small area (300sqft or less) and don't mind repetitiveness, some leg work, and giving up the better part of a Saturday then give this tool a go.
#############/Spoiler##############
This is not going to be a complete review of all the product features. However, please consider this a review of the bissell's capabilities and a general carpet cleaning guide to get carpet's really clean with this tool.
MY BACKGROUND:
My dad's company does carpet cleaning professionally and I have worked for him in the past. I am not an expert but I do know a good bit more about carpet cleaning then the average joe.
EXPECTATIONS:
The most important part of carpet cleaning is extraction--getting as much water out of the carpet you are cleaning as you can. So I want this thing to suck.
TECHNIQUE:
I didn't do things by the bissell book. I only used hot water and extraction from the ProHeat, no chemicals in the machine. Before I used the ProHeat I pretreated the carpet with 2 professional cleaning products and began cleaning immediately after I finished spraying down the first room.
I cleaned the carpet in small sections by doing a wet and a dry pass for each section. I repeated this process until the water in the extraction tank was clear and free of foam.
Also, I had all furniture removed from the carpeted areas before starting.
RESULTS!:
I used way to much cleaning product on the pretreatment step. As a result my extracted water was coming clear after 3 wet/dry passes but I was still getting foam. I took 2 additional passes to get a more-or-less foam-less extraction tank.
So 5 passes when using professional equipment could have done the same in 1-2 passes. Keep in mind a professional will saturate the carpet with a lot more water in fewer passes because he has a gas power engined running in a van outside that can extract all that water. In that regard I knew this equipment could not measure up because experience has set reasonable expectations.
However, I wanted to know how clean the carpet got and how dry it was left?
The Answer:
Clean and dry.
The carpet was as dry (or more!) after 5 passes with the bissell then it would be after 1-2 passes with a pro tool (carpet wand/rotovac). With a ceiling fan running it was dry in 12-24 hours which is on par with pro equipment.
Okay Okay, but how clean was the carpet???::
Spotless.
Before cleaning I would say the carpet was a 3-4 on a scale of 1-10 (10 being very clean). Most carpets we did professionally (rated on the same scale) were in the 2-6 range.
The carpet was (by my estimates) 3-4 years old and never cleaned professionally. There were a number of latex paint stains that required spot treatment with a latex paint remover. The whole carpet had a black dingy coat to it either from smoke, paint, or a combination of dirt+grease. There were a couple of pet stains that came out completely without any additional attention.
After 3 passes all of that was gone.
SUMMARY:
Based on my experience so far I'd say using the proper chemicals and technique the bissell can do just as good of a job as most professional cleaners if you are willing to put in 2x-3x the amount of time for the same area.
Although more time is spent using the bissell, the work is far easier. Keep in mind pro's have to drag hoses in and out of houses, up stairs and all around. Also, professional tools are usually either back breaking to use or very heavy compared to this plastic bissell.
CAVEAT(S):
The water will not get nearly hot enough to pull some stains. However, water that is too hot can damage some carpets.
Because the extraction is limited some stains will just not move. This isn't really the bissell's fault though. When some stains (especially red stuff like wine) are allowed to soak into the carpet all the way to the pad, using cleaning equipment can make them more visible by pulling more of the stain up from the pad with the extraction equipment. Even with professional extraction this can be a losing battle in some cases; armed with the bissell think sling shot versus goliath but you don't have any projectiles! IE, if it gets worse with a few passes probably better to replace that area of carpet or just live with it.
I purchased 3 professional cleaning products (1 gallon of each) that combined cost over 100$ and they couldn't be purchase in smaller quantities. The good news is I used way to much and that was 1/10 of a liter of each for a 150 sqft room.
I'm also not sure how durable the bissell will be, but 1 cleaning with it is cheaper then 1 pro cleaning.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
If you have a large carpeted area (500sqft+) I'd say definitely get a pro.
If you have a few bedrooms or a relatively small area (300sqft or less) and don't mind repetitiveness, some leg work, and giving up the better part of a Saturday then give this tool a go.
(Sorry, I have not yet used the hand tool to review it.)
