Find out how Consumer puts steam mops through their paces.
We test steam mops on a sheet of vinyl, staining it with red wine, tomato sauce, mud, mustard, coffee and soy sauce. Then we let the whole mess dry overnight, before mopping up any excess with a damp cloth.
The next day, we fire up our steam mops and get to work. Each mop’s performance is converted into a stain-removal score.
We also look at how much water is left on the floor after mopping. Steam mops should leave very little residual water: the models in our round-up with very good floor wetness scores (eight or above) left the vinyl almost completely dry after mopping.
Some steam mops come with various attachments, such as a jet nozzle or brush. We assess these by cleaning soap scum and discolouration from taps in our test bathroom. We give models with these accessories a hand-held mode score.
You’re out of luck if you’re keen on using steam mops to remove stubborn grout stains from your tiles. We tried this on a stained tile surface, and all the models were hopeless at tackling grout stains.
Our ease-of-use assessment looks at:
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