Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm a bit torn on this product. There are things I really like and things that are a bit disappointing. I thought it might be easiest to list the plusses and the minuses separately... CONS: * In order to get our tile as clean as possible, it seems like I have to move the machine extremely slowly when both washing and wet vaccuming. I have a lot of ceramic tile in my home, so it is a big job. When I have the patience and time (which isn't often with two toddlers running around), the slow pace definitely gets my floors squeaky clean. Most days, however, I don't have that luxury. In fact, there are a lot of times when I resort back to my Swiffer mop just to get the mopping over with so I can get on to other tasks. * The little filter/screen in the dirty water tank seems to get clogged a bit sooner than I expected. When it's clogged, the wet vac function doesn't work as well. Once it's unclogged, though, it works great. * Unclogging the little filter/screen is an extremely disgusting job. I wish there were a less "hands on" way to get the junk off of it, since it can get pretty nasty at times. PROS: * It seems to clean our ceramic tile really well and gets a lot of the stuff the mop misses. With two little ones who like to lay and scoot around on the floor, having the tile as clean as possible is a good thing. * For me, it is a lot easier to push around than the mop. The cleaning solution smells pretty good too. * It is really good at sucking up junk along the baseboards and in corners. It seems to have strong suction and power, so I frequently use it to "sweep" instead of using the broom. It gets up a lot more dry dirt without flipping it all over the way a broom does. * It is very handy for cleaning up little spills and messes of both the wet and the dry variety. In fact, it was a marvelous help when our dishwasher overflowed and made for a very easy cleanup job. * It is really nice to be able to have the floors pretty well dry when I'm finished. Rather than waiting for a long time, I can just put furniture and rugs right back on the tile as soon as I finish mopping. Ultimately, I would recommend the product for those looking to get a very clean floor for a decent price. But if speed is the primary concern, then this probably not the ideal product since a good, deep cleaning takes a lot of time--especially for those with a lot of hard flooring. I tend to alternate between this appliance and my Swiffer mop, depending on how much time and energy I have. I would still like to find something that could clean as thoroughly, but do so in a lot less time. In the meantime, however, I'm content with this product--it does the job. ***UPDATE - June 2010*** O.K., we've had this appliance for a while now and we have noticed two things I feel I should add to my review: 1) After a while, the appliance doesn't suck up the water as well and sometimes doesn't suck it up at all. The other day, I had almost finished mopping a lot of tile before I realized the dirty water receptacle was completely empty--the machine wasn't sucking it up. We discovered that the undercarriage apparently needs to be manually cleaned out/off when this problem arises. The hair, dirt, etc tend to accumulate under there and compromise the "wet pickup" function. My husband puts the machine on it's side and uses a screwdriver to dig out the junk. it's rather unpleasant, so I'm glad he's willing to do it (I'm certainly not!). 2) Also, over the last year, the clean water/cleaning solution container has been leaking...A LOT. It always had a few minor drips come out the back when filling it, but now the leakage is almost a deluge. I have to hold my finger over the hole in the back and try to get it back into the machine quickly before the fluid is all over the floor. My husband thinks the rubber seal may have either broken or is weakening over time. I contacted Hoover customer service and they just told me to take it to our local "authorized dealer". We live in a semi-small town and the only authorized dealer here is of poor repute, so I didn't bother. Anyway, a couple of things to note if you decide to buy this machine. If I had to do it all over again, I think I would still buy the Hoover FloorMate as--despite the problems--it has been pretty good overall. And it still cleans my tile floors much better than our regular mop can manage to do. ***APRIL 2012*** Unfortunately, in September 2011 the machine stopped picking up any dirty water completely. My husband looked at it and discovered that a critical tube has worn out. Fortunately, we were able to order the part, as well as a new filter and valve seal. The site we used is Vac Parts Warehouse [[...]]. I've tried several times to put this URL in my review, but it keeps being replaced with three dots. I don't know why, but if it doesn't publish the web address again, just do a Google search for "Vac Parts Warehouse". The site lists all the parts of the machine, along with a schematic showing a picture of each part and where it goes. That helped us locate the parts we needed. It took my husband a couple of minutes to make the replacements and the machine has been working better than ever for several months now. No more leaking and it is picking up the dirty water just fine. ***AUGUST 2014*** Sadly, age apparently made the main hose (the one that sucks up dirt/water) brittle and it broke in half a month ago. Vac Parts Warehouse no longer carries the hose, as Hoover has discontinued this model. I went back to mopping the old fashioned way (eg, bucket & mop) but it was a nightmare and just pushed the dirt around the floor. My husband is very good at fixing stuff and found some tubing he was able to modify. In short, he was able to replace the original hose with a modified one and the mopper is working as well as before. I don't know for how long, though. So if anyone has found a better or more efficient way to mop a lot of tile, please leave a comment as I'm always on the lookout for something better. ***MARCH 2016*** Well, we finally had to retire our original machine as it wasn't working as effectively as before and we were sick of fixing it. So just imagine my joy when I stumbled across a new Hoover FloorMate SpinScrub being sold by the Hoover Outlet Store on Ebay and for a great price! The new one is very similar to the original, but is a different color and more lightweight (which makes it easier to use). It works great and we couldn't be happier. Yay!