Hoover Floormate Deluxe

Moving into a house with an entire main floor of hardwood flooring was something I looked forward to when we purchased this house.  The only piece of carpeting you’ll find is a throw rug in my living room, used to keep my feet warm when I’m sitting by the fire blogging but more realistically works as a comfy place to rest for the dog.

I love my hardwood, but one thing I don’t love is that moment when the sun shines a certain way through the windows, at the perfect angle, and I’m presented with how dirty my flooring actually is!  With carpet, you can see the bits of lint, foot traffic, and whatever else ends up there.  With hard flooring, a sweep of the floor takes care of the surface dust but the dirt, the grime, that gets left behind until…well, until the sun shines through your window a certain angle and you’re surprised and slightly embarrassed by what you see.

When given the opportunity to try the Hoover Floormate Deluxe in preparation of the holidays, I was absolutely in!  Until now, I had been relying on a steam-mop for my once a week (OK maybe once every two weeks if I’m honest) floor cleaning.  The dirt on the result of the disposable pads told me my floors needed to be cleaned, but I wondered if there was a more thorough way to clean, and now I’ve found it.

On a quiet weekday at home, with no kids around to make a mess behind me while I cleaned, I set to trying out the Hoover Floormate Deluxe (first, I used a vacuum to get rid of any dustbunnies and crumbs.) The instruction booklet included made it super-easy to figure out how to use it for the first time.  I filled one of the reservoirs with water up to the fill line and added the appropriate measured amount of cleaner to the water.  I like the dual tanks, giving you the ability to pour out dirty water without having to mess with the clean water and solution waiting for next time (less waste this way).

There’s two modes – wash and dry – giving you the ability to dry right after you go over a spot to wash (I did it in rows) ensuring your floors don’t have any residual moisture sitting there later.  The Hoover Floormate SpinScrub Technology gently washes and scrubs hard floors from all angles with counter-rotating brushes and the machine itself is light all things considered (about 14 lbs) making it easy to zip around my entire main floor in no time.  I paid special attention to areas with heavy traffic (like the back door where the dog goes in and out) and used the Clean Boost control to apply extra water/detergent in that area, but otherwise just did a general clean on the entire area.

At the end of my cleaning spree, I was surprised by how little water I used, and also surprised by how dirty the water I did use was – gross!  Emptying out the dirty water tank was quick and easy, and I left the remaining water in the other tank for next time.

Look for the Hoover Floormate Deluxe at stores like Canadian Tire ($199.99), Best Buy ($149.99 on sale until Dec 4th), and Sears ($149.99 on sale until Dec 3rd) this holiday season!