Introduction
I've been using the mini green machine by Bissell and it worked well for a few years. But recently, it had a tremendous rattling sound which was so loud, I thought it was going to explode. And with a dog that has a penchant for urping, I needed a new hand steam cleaner. On a trip to Wal-Mart, we picked up the Dirt Devil SE2800 Spot Scrubber. The result have been satisfactory, but not as good as the mini green machine.
Features
The Dirt Devil SE2800 Spot Scrubber is a corded all-inclusive steam cleaner. Since it doesn't heat up the water, it relies on your tap water being hot. The water reservoir is in the top and the collection reservoir is on the bottom. This works well as it gives a decent balance without being too heavy. Of note is that the clean water reservoir is quite small. This shouldn't be a problem since the cleaner is only for spot jobs.
On the bottom is a rotating brush that spins when the clean is in scrubbing mode. It doesn't spin very fast and slows down quite a bit when a fair amount of pressure is applied to the cleaner. It works decently, but is not the strongest part of the machine.
The front sprayer is a manual sprayer, which makes your thumb tired after using it after a while. You have to wait a second for the pump to refill to get the most liquid to spray. Again, not a huge selling point, but it does the job.
Performance
The Dirt Devil SE2800 Spot Scrubber does the job. I tried it on several different carpet areas as well as some upholstery. The biggest complaint I have is that the suction is seemingly low. I stuck my fingers across the slits and there was barely any suction. nevertheless, after using it, there was water in the intake reservoir and it was quite dirty. The spots I washed dried perfectly and spot free in a few hours. So while the suction may not seem like much, it apparently did the trick. The following nastiness was picked up perfectly:
Dog mess
Dog vomit
Chocolate
Crayon
random food from a 5-year old
The other drawback is that for some reason there is a switch that allows you to go from scrub to vacuum. When in scrub mode, the brush rotates. When in vacuum mode, the rotator stops. The problem I had with it was that when in scrub mode the vacuum still kept going. I was hoping to be able to spray down the soap, switch to scrub and have the beater go to town. But since the vacuum suction remained in that mode, it sucked up all the soap before the brush had a chance to really grind it in.
Conclusion
For the money, the cleaner works. It doesn't have a lot of suction and the rotating brush spins a little too slow to be that effective. The sprayer is manual so you might be better off with a spray bottle. However, since this thing only cost $30, I can't complain as it's still better than a roll of paper towels. The spots I wanted came out. What else can I ask for?
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 30