Product Review: Hoover FloorMate 500
Ordinarily, complicated looking cleaning gizmos are not my forte. So when Carol brought home this floor cleaning contraption, I was sceptical to put it mildly. However I took it out of the box and looked through the manual. Designed for cleaning hard surfaces like wood, tile and vinyl flooring, the Floor Mate looks like an upright vacuum cleaner with a difference: There are two clear tanks built into it. The idea is you fill the top tank with warm water and a measure of their floor cleaning solution. The bottom tanks is what makes this thing great.
The Hoover Floormate(tm) SpinScrub 500can be used as a vacuum if the tanks are empty and dry. I don’t recommend it as its really at its best as a replacement for mops, buckets, Swishers, etc. Here’s how it works: You give the floor a thorough sweep or vacumn. You load the Floor Mate up with the water/cleaner solution and set a big knob to the side to Wash. A set of brushes in the front start spinning and as you push it around you squeeze a trigger to squirt some of the cleaning solution on the floor. Working a 4×4′ area at a time you dampen it, then run the spinning brushes over it. Now comes the cool part. You switch the big knob to Wet Pickup and the brushes stop spinning and it starts sucking up the dirty water on the floor. You go back over the area you just did and it really does suck up the water into that lower tank. You move to the next area, switch back to Wash and repeat the process.
This thing works really great on hardwood floors. As a matter of fact I wouldn’t use anything else. Water is extremely damaging to wood floors and this vacuuming of the water takes it right up, virtually eliminating the possibility of damage. The floors are dry minutes after cleaning, another plus.
When you’re done, you pull out the lower tank and empty into the sink, rinse the parts and put back into the Floor Mate. It only takes a few minutes. This is where the experimenter in me came out. I measured how much of the water was returned to the tank compared to what was emptied out of the top. This thing picked up 90% of the water and it was very dirty. This means that, unlike mopping, you’re not only picking up the excess water, you’re getting virtually all of the dirt. The result is very clean floors with a nice sheen.
It also comes with a special tile set of brushes and a different cleaner for tile. It worked well but I used the same brushes and solution for both and saw no difference.
A big thumbs up for this device- I actually enjoy doing floors now (don’t tell that to Carol!).
A tip: If you have hardened-on stains or spills spray them with some household cleaner and let then soak a bit while you’re getting the gizmo loaded. They’ll come right up as you clean. Be sure you never use ammonia-based cleaners like Windex on hardwoods- they can stain oak floors black in minutes.
The Hoover Floor Mate has a suggested retail price of $169.95 and is available here:
Hoover Floormate(tm) SpinScrub 500
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