Customer Reviews

Bissell ProHeat Upright Deep Cleaner, 25A3

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

I upgraded from an older Bissell Little Green Machine to this unit based primarily on my experience with Bissell products. The PROheat has a number of nice features that ultimately sold me on it and after using it for a few months now I'm fairly pleased with it. I particularly like that you can choose to either have the heat on or off. I've heard some people say that using the heat can break down your carpets more quickly and cause the stain to get worse as it picks up new dirt that is tracked in. I don't know if that's not the case, but since my old Bissell unit lacked heat but did a fine job, I pretty much use this minus the heat. Even with the heat off I'm stunned at how good a job this unit does. It's even cleaned stains that I gave up as a lost cause. Most astonishingly, I usually vacuum first before using the steamer and then vacuum again once it's dry. I've discovered I actually vacuum up MORE dirt after steam cleaning than I did before. Clearly this machine is knocking loose built up dirt which means cleaner and nicer appearing carpets than ever before. I also liked the wand attachment from my old Little Green machine, especially for upholstered pieces and hard to reach spots and this thankfully has that.

But there are some drawbacks and limitations. At least initially you will pick up a LOT of carpet fibers when you use the machine, which means FREQUENT cleaning of the rotating brushes and especially the multiple filters on the unit. In some instances I wound up using tweezers to get out fibers from the particularly small filter on the underside of the water tank. The one on top is easier to clean out, but particles trap almost everywhere on this machine. The water tank holds a pitifully small amount of water and/or cleaning solution which means frequent refills, and it slows down the whole cleaning process. The self contained tank is easy to empty, but if you think that will eliminate odors from dirty water guess again, it doesn't. The tank does seem to leak or the seals don't hold tight and so dirty water does collect in the well that the tank sits in, which ads to the nasty smells as well as adding yet another think you have to clean up. Another particularly annoying habit is the dirty water seeping out the front of the machine by the cleaning rollers when you turn off and store the machine. This is really disgusting and trust me, don't store it on carpet or even leave it sitting there for very long as it WILL leak! When in use loose fibers tend to gather on the underside of the machine around the brush rollers so you manually have to gather it up by hand, which slows down the cleaning process. Once you've cleaned your carpet a few times that problem (hopefully) should minimize, although it has yet to happen for me. As a result there's a considerable amount of maintenance you have to do to ensure your machine is operating under optimum conditions. Even so, it's hard to argue with the results. I would probably buy this same unit again, but would also read up on other models just in case they operate more easily. Perhaps I was used to the utter simplicity of the Little Green Machine and sometimes I wish I was still using it, sad to say.

I just purchased a Bissell ProHeat today and am definitly pleased with my purchase. The carpet which was in rather poor shape has seen a clear improvement and IMHO a professional couldn't have done a better job. The cleaner itself was simple to assemble, straight-forward to load with cleaning solution (I like the combo-tank idea!), and very easy to use.

One drawback was the limited size of the tank for holding cleaning solution, I found myself refilling it 4 times to do 3 rooms and a lazy-boy chair. Of course re-filling was at least easy to do and to be expected when buying the low-end model. Further, as with it seems all of these contraptions, the hand-held attachment would spray at far to wide an angle but thats not a unique problem to this one cleaner.

Overall, for the price, if you have a small house or apartment and are on a limited budget or just like to pinch a penny or two, I would surely recommend this Bissell.

I have been looking at carpet cleaners for a few months. Based on reviews, I wasn't too sure I could find a good product at a decent price, since I didn't want to break the bank. I found this item at Target, and based on my experience with Bissell vacuums, decided to give it a chance. It assembled pretty easily, and seems pretty solid. It did a very nice job on lifting dirt from an alabaster carpet and darker entry carpet, neither of which had been cleaned in nearly two years. I found the upholstery tool to work very well on higher traffic areas that didn't respond well to the pushing the machine over it. Overall, I am quite happy with this item.

We bought this product through a retail store because it was cheaper than Amazon, but the product itself is FANTASTIC. We had had our carpet professionally cleaned, and the guy told us some of the stains would never come up. The Bissell PROheat got rid of those stains. Enough said.

So far I have only used this once. My husband was going to rent a steamcleaner so we could save some money by doing it ourselves. After he found out how much it was to rent one and he knew it was around $120-$200 to hire someone to clean all our rugs he decided this was our best option. I have to say it was a really good choice. We hadn't had our rugs cleaned for a really long time so I actually cleaned our whole house with this cleaner. It did take me all day and my arm was sore from pushing around this heavy duty machine. It was well worth it though. I did cringe at all the dirt it pulled out of the carpet. We don't even wear our shoes inside the house and there was plenty of dirt and dust! Very happy with this so far. It will end up saving us from hiring someone else $150 every 6 months to clean the rugs. I also plan on buying the hard floor attachement so I can clean the rest of my floors with it. I hope it works just as well.

As with some of the other favorable reviews, I loved my Bissell in the beginning. But, now I agree with the unfavorable reviews of awful and leacky. My opinion soon changed as soon as the warranty was up. The belt continued to slip, and I couldn't even get one room cleaned. I spent hours on the phone with Bissell Customer Service, taking the cleaner apart fixing the belt, checking other parts, etc. And just recently, the motor pulley broke. Bissell referred me to the only Bissell repair shop in my area (20 miles away...pretty bad for the second largest city in Maryland not to have anything closer). When I called them, they said it would cost approximately $80 to repair...not worth it since the cleaner was only around $150. So, for $150, expect to get maybe a year's worth of good service from the cleaner (if you're lucky).

When my old Hoover SteamVac with Power Surge broke down, I really hesitated before buying the Bissell ProHeat. But when my local Target store only had the Bissell in stock, I figured what the heck - if I test it out and it doesn't work well (as some of the reviews said) I will just clean it up, repack and return to Target.
Well, the Bissell outperforms the Hoover in every way! Here are the comparisons:
1. tank size - yes, Hoover is bigger but the Bissell is a much better design. The Hoover waste water tank is very hard to empty and clean without spilling at least some. The Bissell has a special pour spout.
2. Heat - Bissell heats the water and this makes a big difference in terms of loosening and picking up dirt. Huge.
3. Bissell upholstery tool works much better.
4. Bissell is easy to disassemble and clean. The suction end comes off easily for rinsing; the waste tank and lid are super easy to clean as well.

There were some complaints about the machine jamming up or not sucking. Here is what I did:
1. I took my time and rinsed the guck out of the tank each time before refilling.
2. When the suction seemed to lessen, I stopped machine and cleaned out the hair and fuzz under the brush component. Worked fine after doing this.
3. At one point, the water did not seem to be getting suctioned up at all. I called Bissell and they walked me through to the issue: there is a red valve in the tank that will stop the airflow if the tank is too full. How does this occur? By overfilling in the first place. So don't top off the tank - or if you see that the red valve has come up (you can hear it stop the suction) then empty some water out of the tank.

Overall, the design is really great - I love the one tank for both clean and dirty water, the fact that the water gets nice and hot, the ease in cleaning the machine. In cleaning my living room, bedroom and hallways, I probably refilled tank about 8 times. Not too bad. Took an afternoon to do it and except for pulling the carpet fuzz out of the brush area, it was a clean and easy operation.

Where do I begin? I've had this for a year and a half and the sprayer has already broken. This means I basically can only use the hand tools and the suction feature. Not fun to clean your entire carpet on your hands and knees! Also, it creates as many spots as it cleans--it leaks dirty water. Disgusting! You constantly have to start and stop to empty the water, fill it back up and fill up the cleaner. I hate it.

We have two Ridgebacks and they shed. The cleaner cleaned my carpet so good the majority of the carper looked brand new and FELT brand new. I was amazed. I had trouble getting the screws in (female) but eventually figured it out. The 'bladder' as they call it has to be emptied to refill with clean water depending on just how much water you need to use to get the carpet clean. It keeps dirty and clean water seperate and OMG was that water dirty, it was black. I felt embarrassed when I realized JUST how dirty this carpet had become in 7 months. Drawback, had to clean the dog hair out from around the brush, not on the brush but behind and around it. But, this thing picked up 7 months worth of dog hair that was imbedded in the carpet! I was shocked! I also was doing my place section by section, one day one section because I work 10 hour days. So, yesterday after cutting my hand at work and getting stitched up and only able to use one hand, I did the last section today with ONE HAND. My place is all done now. Only other draw back is that the little screen on the bottom of the bladder can get clogged and I accidently pulled the whole thing apart, but I was able to put it back together without any help.

I originally bought one of the more expensive Bissel carpet cleaners but found it difficult to clean the non-removable nozzle.

The Bissel model 25A3 has a removable nozzle that makes cleaning the nozzle (e.g pet hair) much easier than the more expensive Bissel models.

The tank/bladder seems a little smaller than more expensive models but that seems to be a minor issue given the ease of removing/emptying/installing the tank/bladder.

Very good price point.

I've also used the carpet cleaner for cleaning residual water and debris from a hot tub using the hose upholstery tool attachment. The ability to vacuum residual water makes a carpet cleaner a much more versatile tool than just cleaning carpet (IMHO, much better than using a shop-vac for wet debris pickup).