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- Great at removing stains
- Easy to use
- Wide variety of cleaning solutions available
- Not for large areas
- A little fiddly to clean
The Bissell SpotClean HydroSteam is a clever little carpet and upholstery cleaner that’s specifically designed to clean stains and spillages. Buy the 3689E model that I tested here, and you’ll also get a multi-surface tool that allows you to tackle more unusual surfaces such as bathroom tiles and car consoles.
Don’t mistake the Bissell for a full-blown carpet cleaner though – this machine is designed to focus on areas of your carpet or upholstery, as opposed to an entire carpet in your living room. But how efficient is it at removing stains and how simple is it to use? I ran the Bissell through testing to find out.
Bissell SpotClean HydroSteam 3689E review: What do you get for the money?
The Bissell cleaner isn’t massively complicated. Inside the box you’ll find the unit itself, with the hose and power cable attached, along with three detachable nozzles and a detachable self-cleaning hose tool. The power cable has a hook on the unit’s body for you to wind it round (sadly no automatic retraction), while the hose clicks into place around the base. There are also four wheels which you can just click into the base. The hose is 1.5m long with a 4.5m cord – both of these make it easy to use over a larger distance, with the wheels helping to make moving the unit far easier.
The nozzles are thankfully extremely easy to attach and detach from the hose. I found the largest 12cm brush attachment the most useful, due to its larger size, but the smaller 7cm brush is ideal for hard-to-reach areas, while the multi-surface tool came into its own in the shower (more on that later).
There are two tanks – a smaller one to fill with water and cleaning solution, along with a larger second tank to collect dirty water. The smaller tank has a small, hinged cap that lifts up to fill it, while the larger tank has a removable lid to allow you to get rid of the dirty water easily. Both tanks have handles to lift them out of the unit, and the smaller tank has helpful markings to show you where to fill up to with water and cleaning solution. You’ll also get a 235ml of cleaning solution to try the cleaner out with.
Bissell sells a wide range of cleaning solutions, so you can find the right one to go with your particular cleaning requirements. The important caveat is that you can only use Bissell’s own products in the cleaner, although this isn’t, in my mind, a dealbreaker.
What’s it like to use?
It was fairly easy to set up the Bissell, once I’d figured out which tank was which. I had to detach the water tank to see the markings on the side clearly but, once I’d done that, it was remarkably easy to fill it up with water followed by a cleaning solution. I chose to make up a mix described as enough to cover a “small area” – but it went much further than expected, and I still had a little left over at the end of my testing. You can fill the tank up with water directly from the tap, and once the solution’s been added, the tank simply clicks back into place.
I started testing with the 12cm tool, using an offcut of carpet that we’ve used as a doormat in the past. This tool (along with the 7cm tool) allows you to use the combined steam and wash setting, which I found did the most thorough cleaning job. The cleaner turns on once you select a cleaning mode and you need to wait 30 seconds for the steam to heat up. You’ll also need to press the trigger and point the nozzle into a bowl or sink until steam is produced, as you may get some initial dripping. As I was testing in my bedroom (which has the best light in the house), I primed the hose by pointing it out of a window.
Actually cleaning the stain is simple. Pressing the trigger underneath allows you to douse the stain with cleaning solution and water. Once the area has been covered, release the trigger and use the brushes to scrub the area. Finally, pull the nozzle towards you to suck out the dirty water and leave your carpets / upholstery stain free. You can see all the dirty water being sucked up through the nozzle attachments as they’re clear on the back, allowing you to keep going until the water is clearer. After using this attachment, I also tried the Multi Surface attachment on tiles and grouting – using the steam only mode to try to help shift marks and limescale buildup.
When you’ve finished you can remove the dirty water tank and pour the results away, before rinsing the tanks clean. There’s also a handy self-cleaning hose tool that uses the combined steam / wash mode to suction the hose clean for storing away. The whole unit is a compact 25×35.6x36cm, meaning it’s easy to store away in a cupboard.
How well does it clean?
I tested the Bissell on an old offcut of carpet that had been used as a doormat as well as a cat scratching post that had seen better days. I also tried out the cleaner on the grouting and tiles in our shower.
I was impressed by how little force was needed to clean spots on the carpet – you don’t need superhuman strength to rub the pre-wash spray in and the brush does a fantastic job of both scrubbing away dirt and then removing excess water. Right off the bat, the cleaner did an excellent job removing the ground-in mud on the carpet. To push the Bissell further, I created a more visible stain using tomato ketchup – tomato stains can be notoriously difficult to shift. But the HydroSteam did an excellent job again here: the steam efficiently opened up the fibres of the carpet for deeper cleaning. It only took one application of the cleaning solution to completely remove the ketchup stain. The Bissell also does a decent job of sucking up excess water, although it still took a good hour for the carpet to be completely dry.
Lastly, I tested the Bissell cleaner on the grouting and tiles in my shower. We live in an extremely hard water area, so limescale is constantly building up in the bathroom. I used the designated multi-surface tool and the steam only function (you can’t use the combined steam and wash with this nozzle attachment). Although I did see some improvement in the grout, I did have to apply quite a bit of scrubbing pressure to achieve this result and felt that just using a plain scrubbing brush and some cleaner would have achieved the same results.
What could be better?
In the main, I was impressed by the Bissell cleaner. It did a particularly good job on fabrics, and I think would be a particularly useful addition for cleaning carpets and upholstery. The fairly quick drying qualities also mean it could be a good option for cleaning marks out of your car. However, it wasn’t as effective on grout and tiling and if you’re only looking for a spot cleaner for those things, I’d say save your money.
The Bissell is quite heavy – even with empty tanks – and I also would have liked a longer hose as you end up having to bend down to get the brush attachments close enough to the floor. It’s also a little fiddly to clean, and be warned that the brushes take a while to dry out fully.
Should you buy the Bissell SpotClean HydroSteam 3689E?
The Bissell SpotClean is easily stored away and is nicely compact. It’s highly effective and ideal for dealing with small stains and marks on carpets and upholstery. Impressive results are easy to achieve with a minimum of effort, and the cleaner does a fantastic job of removing small stains, marks and ground in dirt.
It’s not the best choice though if you’re looking to clean a lot of carpet – in this instance I’d recommend one of the best carpet cleaners instead as it will allow you to cover a lot more ground.
But for those everyday stains and spillages, or indeed older ground in stains, the Bissell SpotClean HydroSteam makes light work of dealing with them.
