Vax 1-1-142472 Compact Power Plus Carpet Cleaner, White/Red
Tackle everyday stains
The AQUASPIN brushbar easily tackles pet messes and tough stains, leaving your carpets clean, dry and smelling fresh.
Aquaspin brushbar
Performance brushbar that has antimicrobial bristles
which reduce and protect from growth of bacteria and
fungi.
Lightweight
VAX’s lightest carpet washer weighing only 5.5kg, this carpet washer is easy to carry and manoeuvre around the house.
Perfect for small spaces
Narrow floor head allows you to get into tight spaces around the home.
Heat blast technology
VAX’s range of Carpet Washers have Heat Blast technology, whereby heated air is directed onto your carpet to assist drying.
Antimicrobial brushbar
Embedded with an antimicrobial treatment that helps to prevent the growth of bacteria.
Store easily
Compact design for easy storage.
Plus, extra solutions
Comes with VAX Platinum Professional Solution, PLUS a Pre-treatment and Post-treatment solution for a thorough clean.
Shop the Vax Carpet Cleaner range
 Compact Power Plus |  Compact Power |  Dual Power Pet Advance |  Rapid Power Revive |  Rapid Power Plus |  Platinum Powermax |  Platinum Smartwash | |
| Brush System | Aquaspin Brushbar | Aquaspin Brushbar | Dual Brushbar | 5x SpinScrub Brushes | 5x SpinScrub Brushes | XL Brushbar + 7x SpinScrub | Advanced Flexforce Brushbars |
| Antibacterial Cleaning | — | — | — | — | — | Removes up to 93% of bacteria* | Kills over 99% of bacteria* |
| Motion Sense Technology | — | — | — | — | — | — | Yes |
| Outcleans UK’s leading rental | — | — | — | — | — | Yes | Yes |
| Above Floor Cleaning | — | — | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Quick Dry | — | — | — | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automix Technology | — | — | — | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Antimicrobial Brushbar | Yes | Yes | — | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cleaning Reach | 6.7m | 6.7m | — | 10.5m | 10.5m | 13.5m | 11.5m |
| Tools Included | — | — | Wash Tool | 2in1 Antimicrobial & Crevice | 2in1 Antimicrobial + SpinScrub | 2in1 Antimicrobial + SpinScrub | 2in1 Antimicrobial + SpinScrub |
| Solution Included | 250ml Platinum Professional | 250ml Platinum Professional | 250ml Platinum Professional | 250ml Platinum Professional | 250ml Platinum Professional | 250ml Platinum Professional | 2x 250ml Platinum Antibac |
| Pre/Post Treatment Solution | 250 ml Pre and Post Treatment | — | 250ml Pre-treatment | — | 250 ml Pre and Post Treatment | 2x 250ml Pre-treatment | 250ml Pre-treatment |
| Weight: | 5.7 kg |
| Dimensions: | 33 x 25 x 106 cm; 5.7 Kilograms |
| Brand: | Vax |
| Model: | 1 |
| Colour: | White/Red |
| Colour: | White/Red |
Love this easy to use carpet shampooer. Brought carpets up really well and compared to my old vax it is so much easier to use. Love the 2 containers for clean and dirty water. It is amazing how much dirt the machine lifter. Highly recommend this as an easy to use machine for an everyone.
I can’t believe how brilliant this carpet cleaner is. I had a rug doctor cleaner which I paid nearly 300 for 2 year ago and hated every minute of using it. It was so heavy and cumbersome that a I decided to sell it and find a lighter cleaner. After a lot of looking at different cleaners I came across the vax compact. Majority of reviews were very good which did help me in my choice. Judging on the price I was a little dubious. I thought at 79.99 it wouldn’t be very good. HOW WRONG WAS I. Its marvelous. Its so light, it’s just like getting the vacuum out, very very easy to use and to clean at end of use, left my carpets dryer than the rug doctor did and much cleaner than rug doctor. How anyone can give this cleaner a bad review is beyond my comprehension. Its brilliant, I don’t dread cleaning my carpets now. Thankyou Vax from one very happy customer.
Works well but strong beaters are a bit savage with wool carpets
I love it . It’s light to use . It’s easy when you empty the dirty water and it’s fitted back in place in a jiffy . I wondered if everyone used the same Carpet solution. I noticed it’s quite expensive. I am very happy with it and would definitely recommend it.
Great machine, if I have to find a con would be the fact the the clean water tank is a bit small and you need to fill it many times. I would recommend i
This is a decent small carpet washer, good for rugs and smaller areas of carpet. It’s easy to fill and easy to empty and it certainly picks up plenty of dirt. Larger areas will mean refilling the clean water tank several times and one wash might not be enough. It’s not too heavy but it is very loud.
Got this product due to having 2 cats and one of them leaving parcels (#lovely). This is easy to assemble and comes with everything (cleaning solutions included). My carpet has come up so clean and the house smells amazing. Would highly recommend
This Vax carpet cleaner is very good for cleaning small rooms or for spot cleaning. It is efficient and useful for doing areas in your room that have heavy traffic or perhaps a small room but I don’t think it is suitable for a large room as the water storage is small and you would have to change it frequently. However, It does work well and does not leave the carpet soaking wet. I would recommend.
It is brilliant easy 2 use and clean
Brilliant in carpets and also settee and chairs
Easy to put together, clear instructions and wow, it had done wonders to the filthy carpet in my rented house! Only downside is (as far as I can see) is that the brush head isn’t easily removable to clean unless I’m missing something simple, gotta pick out the fluff n hair manually. I vacuumed the are thoroughly twice before so was really surprised to see how much hair/cat fur ended up coming out. Very pleased, definitely recommend.
Does what says fantastic little machine light to use suction power really good carpets took no time to dry and came up beautifully. O obviously for a big home would have to top up a number of times but still got 2 medium.rooms done on 1 tank
I’ve used it twice now, we have a dog and grandchildren so the mud tracks through! It’s so easy to use and I just pop the heating on high after and it’s dry by the evening! It’s so easy and effective. Brillia
My carpets look like new only took a couple of hours to dry properly I went shopping came back and they were dry great product well done vax!
The cleaner waz easy to use and did a very good job.
It’s easy to use and cleans really well. I had a much bigger, more expensive one but this one is perfect. After 20 minutes the carpets were virtually dry. Best value for money ever.
Does a brilliant job and compact not as heavy as others, easy to use.
It’s my perfect choice of machine,easy to use as it is more compact than the big heavy cleaner’s.
Works so well, removed a coffee stain that had been there for a while along with energy drink stains. When I’d finished the carpets they all had that new carpet smell. So easy to empty and refill
I was pretty sceptical when I was looking for a carpet cleaner but wow, this is very impressive! I got a puppy who like all has little accidents and I was getting fairly concerned about my carpets in our new home but after just one use, the carpets look and smell amazing!!
Ignore the reviews saying it’s too loud, it’s the same as a vacuum.
Really happy with this carpet cleaner. Lightweight, easy to use and did a great job on my oatmeal coloured hall carpet. So glad I purchased.
I am really happy with this carpet cleaner, it makes my house smell and feel lovely and clean. Decent price and would definitely recommend.
Works really well in my opinion and has very good build quality, the only issue is cleaning around the brushes…..not easy and it tends to look dirty because of the clear plastic!
I think this is a great little carpet cleaner. Purchased because I have a puppy. It was so easy for me to put together and so lightweight which is a great help. It’s great on soiled areas and cleans really good. I don’t usually write reviews but had to say I’m happy with a purchase at last.
This is A fantastic light weight but powerfull carpet cleaner use recommended cleaning solution and your carpets will come up like new well mine did
Great suction, the rolling brushes made the carpet like new again. Easy to use, and clean ( could be an easier way to clean the brushes though) carpet was dry within half h
Lovely little cleaner and the dirt it got out was amazing. You have to fill the water tank up a lot as it’s not very big but worth it to see the results.
Amazing. Easy to use and did a fantastic job of my carpets. Better than professional clean previously used. Easy to use and clean after. Carpets looked like new and not soaking wet when finished.
Did our lounge carpet ! Cleaned the heavy traffic areas great , brought the pile up ! Light and easy to use . Dry within 24 hours .
Easy to use and does the job! Great for regular cleans after children bring mud/food/crafts in everywhere.
There was no solution in my box 🙁 so I had to use the old one I found in the cupboard. So far only used it in box room. I must say the water was disgusting. Overall good review but let’s see how it performs on larger areas.
Easy to use and works well but found it was very thirsty with the shampoo.
For under 100gbp, it is a bargain, came with Vax solution for pre-cleaning-post.
It cleans well, does a nice job. Feels like I should have called a professional to do the first deep cleaning and then use this machine from time to time as it does not cover a large surface and have to remove the water tank quite a few times (rinse.. etc)
Not sure if the handle makes it leak or is randomly spreading out the water though.
Water tank could be bigger. Product is very easy to assemble.
The brush bar is a bit of a hassle to remove and clean but nothing to difficult, look at the user manual. The only real annoying thing is the plastic part upfront not removable. Have to use a thin plastic rod to clean it. Take a bit of time and patience. Item is out of order until 2 weeks it seems. Quite happy to have purchased it Friday.
I like this machine. Does the job as well as a more expensive heavy one. The water tank wants replacing more often, but that’s to be expected with it being light to handle.
So impressed was not expecting this product to be so good, having two boys who like to drag in all the mess imaginable my carpets have became lifeless and dull with a few hard stains that no matter how hard I scrub I can never get up, one use of this and my carpets look brand new again and feel and smell so fresh! It includes some solutions is so easy to use/lightweight and definitely worth the money!!!!!
So very impressed with this vax cleaner .Took minutes to assemble and so very easy and lightweight to use .My living room carpet came up really clean, the waste water was so dirty .The carpet felt just damp after using , there were no saturated areas .Hopefully will be dry by tomorrow .So impressed , amazing purchase
Great very easy to put together works very well would recommend.
Wife loves it, cleaned a lot of stains out so pretty happy with i
Really VERY good and powerfull carpet cleaner. Good price, good results. 5 star!
Very powerful little cleaner, love it, great value for money.
Light, very easy to assemble and use. Great for small homes. Would benefit some sort of attachment to be able to do stairs easier and edges. Long cable/lead, you need to be careful that you don’t run this over but for the price I don’t really have any complaints. Pre and post treatment and small bottle of solution included. Would recommend.
Really love this cleaner – only thing missing is an attachment to clean stairs. But otw this is brilliant to use. And great value.
As I have arthritis
I found this was great and very lightweight if you need one then buy this one.
Not used it yet but everything looks great and hopefully everything will do the job
Good value for money, works well and is easy to use, very happy with my purchase.
This vax cleaner is a handy addition to people wanting to keep on top of carpet cleaning or for the occasional immediate stain removal. It is not however a replacement for the rug doctor machines that do a bit more of an industrial job on your carpet. Rug doctors will do an amazing job of resetting the clock on your carpet, this vax cleaner is then a good way to top up your cleaning regularly.
It’s lightweight, compact and easy to use though. The cord is long and the water containers don’t hold too much which means two things:
1) you can move it around easily
2) you will be filling and emptying quite a bit
It does a decent job of sucking the water out of the carpet, at the end of cleaning the carpet is a touch damp and with decent ventilation and heating it should be dry in a day.
There are solutions to accompany the machine as well, shampoo and pre treatment for tricky stains.
Given you can rent the rug doctors for a not unreasonable sum I’d say if your carpet is really dirty then use one of them. If you have a new or newish carpet and you want to keep on top of it then this is going to be more cost effective, it will also help with any random stains along the way.
It arrives in several parts, these need to be assembled before use. This isn’t fiddly – although I do recommend reading the instruction book – and didn’t take up much time. Once assembled it can be left in that state. There’s no other parts to store (unlike a vacuum cleaner) other than the solutions. I do suggest for weight and possible leakage issues that you store it empty. It hasn’t leaked in the six weeks we’ve had it; but there’s always the possibility of a full tank getting knocked. The cleaner has a good length of mains cord. Very welcome since I didn’t want to have to use an extension cable with water about.
In Use
The cleaner comes with three trial sized bottles of Vax Before and after treatments and the shampoo itself. You will need to get more fluids before tackling a job of any size as these are only small. We treated the carpet with the before spray to put this through it’s paces. To make up the supply bottle, fill the container with warm water to the mark and then add a small amount of shampoo as indicated. It’s not a huge amount, so to be honest, we’re not going to be shopping around for third party solutions. having said that quite possibly you’ll need to refill it several times, and empty the receiver tank a few times in a typical cleaning session. Especially if you go over it again as we did. Actually we also went over with just water at the end to give the carpet some kind of rinse. That also got more dirt out.
You can see the result. This is after a week since the last clean, which produced almost black water. This time we vacuumed carefully before attempting a clean and it still produced the evil looking brew you can see in the picture. I’m impressed. If there’s one thing I didn’t like it was the way it doesn’t go right into the edges and corners. To be fair, it’s the compact model, and most upright vacuum cleaners don’t either. Vax do other, more expensive, cleaners to solve that problem in any case.
In short I’m sold. I think this is a great product; it will help keep the carpets fresh, clean up if a pet has an accident.(Or a child – but we don’t have any of them!). I’m looking forward to doing the bigger carpet later this year when we can move everything out. Great stuff.
Please click the helpful button if this review helped.
This is a really powerful,but compact carpet cleaner.
It is lightweight,but in most cases you will not be able to use it on stairs.
It comes with everything that you need to start cleaning.
There is 1 bottle of cleaning solution and 2 bottles of post treatment for carpets and upholstery.
It is really easy to put all part together and really easy to use.
It is also easy to empty the dirty water tank.
The carpet cleaner has a big brush on the front and as the cleaner rubs the carpet really hard ,the brush gets clogged with hairs really easy.
It is good to clean your carpet with vacuum cleaner first and then with this carpet cleaner.
This will give you better cleaning with less cleaning solution and will extend the life of the carpet cleaner.
The cleaner leaves the carpet damp so it is good to wait for a warm day before you start cleaning and it is good to leave a window opened to help the carpet dry out quicker.
If the carpet stays damp for long it might start smelling or even start building mould,so make sure you dry it out well.
Hopefully my review was Helpful for you.
This is a great carpet cleaner. When I saw this I was really excited for it to arrive as I’ve been after a home carpet cleaner for ages. It comes in a box in parts and you just need to assemble it. Really easy to put together and also comes with instructions.
It comes with extra bits such as professional solution, pre-treatment solution and post-treatment solution to help giving a good clean. It’s easy to use, fill the tank with warm water and add cleaning solution. Then slot back into the machine. Turn the machine on and away you go (instructions easy to follow). Has two separate tanks for clean and dirty water. The water tank isn’t that big so if you are doing a large room you may have to change the tank a few times.
It’s very compact, lightweight and doesn’t take up too much room in storage, plus it can all be taken apart. Not too heavy so you can easily carry it around the house to where needed.
Was really pleased with the results, carpet looked clean. You’ll be surprised at how much dirt the carpet gathers when it looks clean. It does take some time to dry but that’s normal and machine is decent for a home job. Pleased with the results!
This is what I’d call the understudy of the big Vax boys. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t any good. It’s great, works well and at a very affordable price. It was easy to put together. Light weight. Compact. Easy instructions to follow with a good starter kit to get you going. I’d say this is a special occasion cleaner. When you occasionally have a major spillage or if you live in a small flat/house and if you’re on a tight budget then it’s perfect for you too. The reason I say that is because you have to keep filling up the water chambers quite quickly and if you had massive rooms this could get quite tiresome to have to keep stop/starting. But at this price and size it’s an affordable luxury item that’s easy to store and use and lovely to have when you have an accident or need to get on top of high use areas.
* Unpacking and assembly is a doddle, you just have to insert the handle and put the clean water tank in place. One is left with a large cardboard box and some blocks of foam polystyrene packing material to dispose of.
* Operation is easy-peasy; remove, fill and refit the clean tank, press the on/off foot switch, and you’re running.
* The narrowness of the cleaning head makes the machine easy to manoeuvre, perhaps when getting behind the sofa for example, but makes cleaning a whole room a big job.
* The relatively small size of the tanks keeps the weight down, so also aiding manoeuvrability, but means cleaning a room will necessitate several refill/emptying operations.
* The supplied 250ml bottle of cleaning concentrate does not go far!
* The waste tank is very easily removed and emptied, this thing had sensible designers.
* The machine leaves carpets damp to the touch, not sopping wet, and they dry in a few hours.
* After drying the improvement is immediately obvious, very worthwhile.
Overall a good and easy to recommend machine. Many thanks to Vax and Amazon UK for letting us try it.
I received this a couple of weeks ago, but given that it’s no simple task moving furniture and initial preparation in reconstruction not to mention foot traffic, I’ve had to plan a suitable time to organise things. That being said, I used to own one a long time ago and was mightily impressed at the burgeoning tech when it first appeared and if anything, this item has massively improved (my ex wife thinks so too, cause she insisted on keeping the old one in the divorce!). Ahem…anyway, it used to cost a fortune to get a professional cleaner out to do the carpets afterwards and thank you VAX, because with this carpet cleaner you’ve come up trumps again, not only that but it’s half the weight and so easy to use it’s daft and frankly, it’s one of those household appliances that until you’ve got one, wonder what you did without it. It comes disassembled in the box and has (hooray), instructions that are actually visible to the unaided eye, simple to understand and writing underneath the little pictures to help you along. Put the manual handle into the mid handle bit, push into the top of the machine then add the fluid tank with a push and click movement (the drawing is coloured orange), remove the cap from the side of the clean water/solution tank and screw onto the top of the tank after filling with clean water and adding required amount of included solution and clicking back into place on the machine and that’s it! Plug into mains, release the handle for ease of movement and as you push it on a forward ‘stroke’, pull the handle trigger to release the cleaning solution and repeat the motion once more without adding solution (don’t pull trigger). DO NOT FORGET – vacuum the carpet with a separate vacuum cleaner THOROUGHLY first, the carpet/rug MUST be dust/debris free. After use empty the dirty water down the sink, and clean as per the enclosed instructions. Enough solution and pre and post treatment spray is included in the box and more can be ordered at your leisure from e.g. Amazon if available (There might be a run because this cleaner is so good). I added a touch of room spray (check there’s no bleachy type stuff in it) to the solution because as I say, I’ve used it before and it gives off a lovely scent after cleaning and the difference in colour, shading, and general lack of greyness you get with high traffic is phenomenal, my large central rug, laid on a wood floor, looked like new and I cannot emphasise that with use, the carpeting and it’s appearance, ease of use, cost effectiveness and compact storage (as opposed to the huge clunky initial issues a while back) is worth it’s weight (or lack of it) in gold. Superb bit of household tech I’m delighted to recommend and with the VAX name, one you can be sure of. Brilliant stuff!
Before I start I give the room a thorough vacuum, especially as I have pets. If you don’t vacuum the machine clogs with matted hair. You can choose to pre-treat the carpet if you have heavy soiling or staining, or just if you regularly clean, then just get on with it. You need to fill the clean tanks with tepid water and solution. Wash small areas at a time and then go over that small area once more with no washing, just pulling up the dirty water. I work backwards so that I am not walking on wet areas and pushing the water deeper into the carpet. Washing is just a matter of squeezing a lever as you run back and forth, releasing stops the solution and just vacuums up the water. I usually wash over quickly and then vacuum only at a much slower pace. In places where the pile is more matted together I sometimes re-wash it to loosen the matting.
My carpets are washed at least once per year and despite not wearing shoes in the house, the difference in high traffic areas is noticeable. The vax is very good at lifting the pile back up and thus you get a new look to the carpet. That being said, on our short and very tight weave pile carpet, the difference is not as noticeable, but I found this to be the same with my old Vax.
It is easy to use and takes no more effort than simple vacuuming (though there is more back and forth action). The smaller head is ideal for getting into tighter areas, though they tend not to be as dirty as main areas. The carpet is only slightly damp when finished (depending on how much time you invest in the final vacuum). In the warmer months or in a ventilated central heated room, the carpets are dry in just a few hours. You can walk on them after washing and the most you will get is damp feet/socks, but best left to dry if you can. I am not sure how this might affect scotch guarding if you have it. I would guess that it removes any protection, but yiou would need to check this before purchase/washing.
I gave my old Vax 5 stars and this one is much the same, just a bit smaller which is a plus or miinus depending on your storage, size of room and physical abilities (bigger machines can be better but heavy and hard to push around)
This Vax cleaner is quite a bit smaller than some of its cousins, it measures 33 x 25 x 106 cm and weighs just 5.7 kg. But is it up to the job in hand?
The Vax needs a small amount of assembly and by following the instruction booklet included this was very easy to do. Included in the box is a spray bottle of pre cleaner, the cleaning solution and a spray bottle of post cleaner
The Vax has two separate tanks, the top one is where you fill the water, as I used mine upstairs filling up from the bathroom sink I had to use a jug to fill it as the tank wouldn’t fit under the tap, you just fill up with warm tap water to the water fill line, then top up with the cleaning solution to the second fill line, put the water tank back on the Vax and you’re ready to go
I decided to clean my bedroom carpet, it hadn’t been cleaned in a while so I sprayed on the pre cleaning solution, leaving that to soak in for a while and then got on with the cleaning. You’ll need to thoroughly hoover your carpet first though, especially if you have any furry friends, to get as much of the pet hair up as possible
Once I’d done this it was just a case of cleaning the carpet, they suggest you press down on the button at the handle on the outward stroke of cleaning to squirt the solution and water onto your carpet, releasing it on the backward stroke to lift up the excess water
I’ve attached a photo of the before and after of cleaning my carpet and I must say I was pretty impressed with it’s performance, it has bought it pretty much back to new again and has left it feeling so much softer
The only small niggle is because the water tank is so small you do need to keep on refilling it, but that’s just a minor thing
The dirty water goes into the bottom tank and it’s really easy to lift that out to empty, there’s a small button on the side which you open to let the water out, unfortunately I didn’t find this out until I’d almost finished and wondered why it took so long to drain lol
The Vax is quite noisy to use, I decided to clean my bedroom carpet starting at about 8.30 am so that it had all day to dry, my daughter was not impressed at her rude awakening but needs must lol
After I’d finished I had the lovely job of cleaning the dog hair from the brush bar, as even though I’d hoovered beforehand, it managed to clean up hair that I hadn’t noticed
Please note that this is not a vacuum cleaner, nor can it clean stairs, it can only clean flat carpeted surfaces
The Vax is really lightweight and I was easily able to carry it upstairs, when not in use, the cable is wrapped away and the Vax does not take up much storage space, ideal if you don’t have a lot of room
Although it’s smaller than some models it is a really powerful cleaner and I was very impressed with how well it cleaned my carpet, it’s a pretty reasonable price too, 139.99 at the time of writing this review, so I’m more than happy to recommend
I hope you enjoyed my review and found it helpful, thank you for reading
As it says in the instructions, the best way to use this is to depress the trigger on the forward stroke release the trigger to suck up the water on the way back, and then go over with a second ‘dry’ stroke.
Our cats have a habit of vomiting in our bedroom, which is the only room in the house with carpet, as it happens. This cleaner effectively removed any of the lingering stains from previously attempts at handcleaning and a lot more besides (check out the attached pic of the dirty water tank…).
The cleaner is quite light and I found it easy to put together: all the pieces have a clear location and slot in securely. It comes with prewash, wash, and postwash bottles, which is handy. It’s hard to tell if the postwash will do anything to protect the carpet, but the other detergents did a good job of removing dirt without damaging the carpet.
In use, it goes through water quite quickly, which could be a problem if you want to clean multiple large rooms. One tank was enough to clean our medium size bedroom with a little bit left to spare. The carpet was quite damp afterwards, but it dried quickly and there was no lingering smell of detergent.
Emptying the dirty water is easy with the hole cut on the side of the tank. Unfortunately, although almost everything else is easily detachable, the rotary brush needs a screwdriver to extract. I know for a fact that I’ll need to give the brush a good clean after a few uses, so it’s a bit bemusing that it’s the hardest part to remove.
Overall, though, it’s an effective cleaner at a reasonable price. Ideal for flats.
The cleaner itself is very light and easy to manoeuvre and also very narrow compared to my old one which is very handy for moving around our house which has a lot of furniture and tables etc so it’s meant I haven’t had to move some of the heavier items, this just squeezes past and slides under things nicely.
This has 2 tanks, one for the clean water and solutions, you add the warm water and a small amount of the solution supplied and then the dirty water sucks out into its own tank which is easily emptied down the drain. I’m impressed this also comes with pre-treatment and post treatment sprays which is a fantastic bonus and makes you really feel you’re doing a semi-professional job!
To use, I spray the carpets with the pre-treatment spray and leave for a while then slowly push the carpet cleaner over spraying the solution over and moving in lines across my carpet. I was very surprised at how much dirt come up considering we don’t have shoes in the house and had previously hoovered to prepare the carpets! It took us around 3 tanks to do 2 rooms downstairs.
After drying overnight the carpets looked beautifully plump and fluffy again, like when we’ve had them professionally cleaned and lighter in colour, we didn’t have any specific stains, just a general darker colour all over so it was great to see the actual colour of our carpets!
Recommended, great value and does a phenomenal job, very lightweight to and easy to manoeuvre and store.
I was very happy about how easy it was to put together … being a man, I didn’t bother with instructions and it all went together, and was ready for action in 5 minutes.
It is well made, but at the same time, reasonable light. My wife said she would be happy to cart it upstairs as it weighs less than the vacuum cleaner, 5.7kg.
It is obviously designed for smaller spaces, but it will tackle larger rooms if you are patient, and it is always good to have something ready to go if you have the odd mishap.
The Vax Compact Power Plus is supplied with some cleaner and also some pre and post-treatment … enough to get you started.
As you would expect you have twin tanks, one for the clean water and carpet cleaner, the other for the waste. Even on what looked like fairly clean carpets, (no kids or pets) it was amazing how much dirt it did pull out.
OK, it is not going to be as good as hiring a pro cleaner, but to have ready if there is a need, I think it is well worth the asking price.
I did our hallways over the weekend as they tend to get the most footfall. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it sucked the water out once clean, but I did need to open the doors and stick a dehumidifier on to help the drying process.
I will tackle the living room/dining room in the Spring when I can get a little drying assistance from the weather.
I’m pretty happy with this Vax Compact Power Plus … it has exceeded my expectations.
To use its simply a case of taking the top bottle off (just pulls out) unscrew the cap and fill with warm water 40 degrees max, the bottle has a water fill line and a line to the cleaning solution. Then screw the lid back on and push back into the machine. Three simple controls two foot controls one to unclip the cleaner so the handle will drop down and a power one. finally on the handle and easy control which when pressed releases the water. The brush bar spins at all times and only stops when you press the power button. Its very important to give the carpet a good vacuum with a normal vac cleaner first to remove any hair etc.
To use simply press the hand lever in and push forward, then release the hand lever and pull back over the same area, you can then go back and forth over the same area with the lever not pressed to get as much of the water as possible out of the carpet (or re-spray if it needs additional cleaning) The solution is sprayed quickly so I found it better to push forward spraying more quickly otherwise you will use up all the solution too fast.
I first tested on my daughters room which I was surprised how much dirt the carpet had as was professionally cleaned 2 years a go and its a shoes off at the door house so didn’t expect as much dirt. The machine brush does spit out occasionally on the side wet fluff, it seems to be good at brushing the carpet pile and refreshing the carpet.
It was a small 3 x 3m room and I didn’t clean under the bed so not a huge area and went through one fill of solution, so if doing a larger area you may need to do a few refills and tank empties. As you can see from the photos it did a great job of getting the dirt out and the carpet was dry within 7 hours, on a warm sunny day with windows open probably dry much quicker.
Finally clean up, I’ve dropped a star purely down to one part of the clean up, but would still recommend. The two containers for the fresh water and dirty water tank un-clip easily and very easy to clean out, a small filter on the back under the lower tank pulls out for easy cleaning so this is all fine. You then pull off the clear plastic suction part on the front and rinse, again easy enough. The part that’s more of a pain is the brush bar – I did a pre vac so wasn’t any hair trapped around the brush bar but inside the brush bar casing was a lot of wet carpet fluff. You can reach a finger around this and remove a lot of it but if you want to get it all out then you need to remove a few screws, they are not all the same so remember the location (two longer ones on the front edge, 3 smaller ones and a flatter one for the metal guard – all Philips heads), the plastic side parts are removed and then you lift out the brush bar from the belt before having to put it all together again – so a bit more of a faff.
In reality if you clean a few rooms on the same day or weekend you can get the bulk of the wet fluff out with a finger between rooms and then a more thorough clean can be done at the end, and its likely the cleaner will then be stored for a few months or a year before the carpets are cleaned again so the screwed in brush bar isnt something that should put you off buying as you don’t need to remove it that often it could just have been designed better, hence the star drop from the rating given.
Overall I was very impressed with the cleaning ability and suction was good leaving carpets damp to touch not soaking wet. Its compact so easier to store, and light weight just over 5kg I believe so easy enough to move about, perfect for smaller rooms and as can be seen with the results cleans well.
Personally I would buy the carpet shampoo separately, for sure it is convenient to have everything included and ready to go but I find it really difficult to justify the 40 pounds difference in price to the machine alone and the 250ml bottles are pretty small. I also did not need neither the pre or post treatment sprays but just water and shampoo did the job for me even on old and stubborn areas. The carpet also dried very quickly, further confirming the efficiency and ease to use of the product .
Easy to use.
Water tanks were easy to remove and replace.
Cleans up messes like cat sick very quickly, and removes a lot of hidden dirt.
I was surprised at the amount of tiny pet hairs that it swept up off the carpet.
The cleaning fluid leaves a pleasant clean smell and the carpets look better than they have for a while.
The only down side of the cleaner is that to do a large area you have to fill the clean water tank a number of times.