John Swanger
Replace (About 90%) of your Elbow Grease with Steam!
Corny title aside, this has been a well-worth purchase. We recently moved into a house where the previous owners did not know how to clean properly. Whether they moved into the house with it like this or not, the grout on these kitchen tiles were so full of gunk and God knows what else that when we first moved in, I attempted to take a chopped down nylon bristle brush, a soapy water and bleach mixture, and go to town on these. My results were impressive, but it took hours, and hours, and hours of scrubbing just to finish the kitchen area, leaving the entire larger dining room portion as nasty as you can see in the image. I'm aware there's a few spots on the tiles themselves that don't look like the machine did a good enough job, that's not the case! I'm simply saving those spots to try out the steaming mop head part.Anyways, I knew if I wanted to get these clean, I was going to have to find another way. I've seen McCulloch steam machines recommended specifically for Auto Detailing, and based on the results I've personally seen, I imagine it'll do phenomenal there. But steam has its uses just about everywhere, and mine was in the kitchen.This was my first time using a steam machine quite like this, so I'm not sure if there's a better way or if I should be using more steam or not, but I set the dial back to use about as little steam as possible, and then bumped it up a tiny bit from there. I attached one of the wider Nylon bristle brush attachments onto the precision nozzle, and went at it.My process was to let the steam do as much of the work for me as possible. I've done more than enough scrubbing on this floor already, so I wasn't eager to do more. I pull the trigger, and move slowly over the grout line, letting the bristles drag on the tile. I do about 3 slow back and forth passes, and as I'm finishing up the 3rd pass, the gunk is already starting to wipe away with the very gentle bristle pressure.Once the 3rd pass is done, I start scrubbing my way back up and down the grout line, blasting the steam the entire time. At this point I'm using a little more pressure, but it's still hardly anything at all, just enough to make sure that the bristles are able to reach into the grout to take out all the nasties. At this point I'm just scrubbing anything I see, dark spots on the edges, dark spots in the grout, etc... just lightly scrubbing. I'm using so little pressure that I can apply the pressure I need with one hand, it's not difficult at all. It takes maybe a whole minute to do an edge of tile if I have to really scrub out a tougher spot.Once I'm done scrubbing, I take my trusty disposable automotive rag, wipe up the water, and I'm off to the next grout line. It's that easy. When the rag is soaked, I take it to the sink, wring it out under clean water, get is as dry as possible, go back and start again.As far as the machine itself is concerned, it can put out a lot of steam. While I don't see anyone needing to use it for a true 2 hours straight (I got the big one), I'm almost certain the machine can handle that. The quality of all the parts seem fine, they're all plastic, but given that they're supposed to withstand the high temperature steam that's coming from the machine, I'm sure they're a higher quality than your typical stuff.I've seen a lot of reviews about how their brushes and such aren't made to snuff with the machine, and I have to say that after having used the same single nylon bristle brush all day, these people have got to be scrubbing way too hard with their stuff. Steam is meant to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, breaking down virtually anything with the moisture and extreme heat combo (not to mention it's naturally disinfecting as it does!). Once broken down, most of the stuff you'll be using this for should be able to be very gently scrubbed away with minimal effort. You don't have to use a lot of force to see results, the steam does the hard work for you.Granted, this isn't a miracle machine, you're still going to have to put in a very little amount of effort to get it to that 100% mark, but man if it doesn't make it so much easier. If you're on the fence but you have a project in mind you could use this for, I'm almost certain this will make that job easier.Ver másVer menos
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