Customer Reviews

Hoover H3030 FloorMate SpinScrub 500 Floor Cleaner

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(49)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

Nothing is going to get your floor as clean as good ol' handwashing on your hands and knees. But who is willing to do that anymore? This machine is a reasonable tradeoff between convenience and efficiency.

It really will scrub sealed floors clean. Don't expect to save much time over traditional mopping, though. You must slooooowly push and pull it several times over a spot to really get it clean. Stubborn or ground in stains may require a second or third wash. And it's impossible to fully clean edges or corners.

A couple items are worth mentioning. First, the dry vac mode is extremely weak. I could not get it to suck up a simple peppercorn or corn flake! Pre-sweeping with a broom or other bare floor vac is a must.

Secondly, Hoover recommends only using their special floor cleaner with the machine, which I find annoying, expensive and hard to find. I emailed them about this, and they said I could also use vinegar and water, which is too mild in my opinion. I felt daring and have used other floor cleaners in the machine without any problem. However, I would avoid using pine, orange, bleach, or ammonia based cleaners -- as the instructions specifically mention not to use "solvent" based cleansers.

So overall, a solid product. Just be realistic in your expectations of what it can do.

I have an earlier model of the FloorMate, which I've owned for about 3 years now. I have ceramic tile floors on the entire first floor of my house, so this cleaner has been a huge time saver for me. Tile floors are pretty indestructible, but they're not self cleaning. The FloorMate really makes quick work of an otherwise nasty and time-consuming job. And as another reviewer pointed out, you'll be amazed at the dirt the FloorMate will pick up from floors you thought were already clean. Another thing I really like is the fact that it sucks the water off the floor right away - my floors are always in use (busy household, lots of little feet), so I can't afford to wait half an hour for the floor to dry. With this feature they're dry in about 5 minutes.

So why only 4 stars? I knocked off a star because the machine doesn't do as stellar a job on the grout as I would like (that may be fixed with this newer model). It cleans grout well enough , but I still have to pre-treat sometimes. I also don't think the dry vacuum feature is as good as my regular vacuum cleaner - but it's still okay for a quick pickup. If you have pets (as I do), you'll probably want something like a Dyson anyway, just to deal with all the pet hair.

All in all, the FloorMate is a very good floor cleaner and I highly recommend it. I'm by no means a clean freak, mainly because I just don't enjoy housework (who does?). If you're like me and you want clean floors without a lot of work, you'll really like this cleaner.

Just bought it today and used it right away (floors needed scrubbing real bad). It assembles very quick. You really don't even need the instructions. I did have to look at the instructions to figure out which of the two brushes were for the lino/vinyl floor. I used it on my linoleum kitchen and laundry room floors. It took a few minutes to get used to. You can't use this thing like you would when you vacuum. You have to go slow and let the scrubbers do their work. Just let the machine rest on its own weight and it does the job. The water in my tank turned so black I couldn't believe it. You don't have to keep checking to see if the pickup tank is filled. The machine will change sound when the tank is full. And to think I've just been pushing that dirt around with a mop! Since I have a very large kitchen and laundry room (over 600 sq ft combined), I had to fill the cleaning tank several times and empty the pickup tank several times. A house with an average sized kitchen should get by with only filling and emptying the tanks once. It comes with two scrubbers, one for vinyl/lino and one for floors with grouting. This machine is not for hardwood floors because you are using water on the floors. I had no problems with the suction picking up the water. The machine only puts out water when you hit the trigger. It left the floor virtually dry as I used it. I could walk on it immediately. I read the reviews on the model 3000 and 3060 and the 3030 seems to have fixed those problems. Nothing on the market will get your lino/tiles clean as the day they were laid down. So, if that's what you're expecting, I think you'll be disappointed in any floor scrubber. My lino is about 14 years old. When I bought this house 3 years ago, I had a pro steam clean the floor and this scrubber does about the same job. Of course the floor is 3 years older now. Until I put down new floors, this machine will make life a lot easier. The folding handle is a good option to help you store it. No complaints. Can't give it a 5 star rating because I don't know how reliable it will be. Instead of dreading mopping the floors, now I'll happily use this machine. It cut my time well over in half and I didn't have to stress my back using a mop. Did I mention I'm a guy, 6'2" stay-at-home dad! Try finding a mop for me:-) Now my 8-month old can crawl on a clean floor and my 5 year old can keep up her food experiments with gravity. It even passed the wife test.

First of all, I'm a perfectionist, so I expect a LOT from a trusted name like Hoover. I have a very nice Hoover vacuum cleaner, which I've had for three years, and it is nothing short of PERFECTION in all areas. So, I figured this Hoover product would live up to it's claims. I purchased the Hoover H3030 FloorMate SpinScrub 500 NEW from a "new & used" source here at Amazon, and of course, had only the best experience with the purchase process.

Upon getting the machine, I opened it, inspected it thoroughly, and read the directions/instructions from front to back, even though I was super-anxious to just dive right in and use the thing. It seemed simple enough, and the instructions and "helpful tips & hints" were easy, clear and, indeed, helpful.

Now, a little history of my newly remodeled house, so you know what kind of conditions this new floor cleaner was going to be facing - I have THREE VERY LARGE DOGS, in an 1,800 square foot house, which has been newly re-floored with very expensive sealed pecan hardwood and marble tile. NO CARPET TO BE FOUND. The dogs all love to stick their entire faces in their water dish & slurp until they're full, then dribble their "face water" all over my kitchen tile and family room hardwood floors, which leaves water spots, and big doggie foot prints everywhere. Combined with the dirt the dogs track in, AND the sawdust and new-construction dust garnered by my boyfriend's DIY projects, you can guess how dirty the floors get & how quickly they get that way.

Now, for the actual REVIEW of this wonderful floor cleaner: I LOVE THIS THING!!! I have not had ANY problems with the DRY VAC setting on the cleaner - again, I'm a perfectionist and have a Hoover vacuum cleaner that would suck a golf ball through a 100-foot garden hose, and I WAS NOT disappointed by the dry vac suction on this floor cleaner. It sucked up ALL the dry dirt on my floors. I did empty the dirt cup of dry debris, as recommended, before beginning the wet-cleaning portion of my chores. The machine fills with solution & water EASILY, does NOT LEAK AT ALL, and both the dirt/dirty water collection cup and the clean water tank are easy to snap in and out without spilling or leakage. It also DOES NOT LEAK when left sitting with a FULL tank of cleaning solution & a full tank of dirty water overnight. It about killed me to leave it that way, being the clean freak that I am, but I wanted to experiment with this, since so many of the reviews I read said the machine leaked when left standing overnight with water in it. NOT SO, at least in my case.

Both the hard wood floor brush attachment AND the tile/grout brush attachment work GREAT. DO NOT interchange them one for the other - this is one of those times when the instructions should be followed TO THE LETTER. Both brush attachments have very specific uses and should be used as intended for best results. Both of the cleaning solutions (tile/grout) and (hard wood floor) smell great and work great.

The squeeze trigger to deposit clean water & solution on the floor was easy to squeeze, no problems there, but you just have to experiment with it a bit to get the right amount of water out of it for your particular need. The more water you put on the floor, the longer it will take to vacuum it up with the wet vac setting - but it is by NO MEANS as difficult or time-consuming as some of the reviews make it sound.

The wet vac function is INCREDIBLY GOOD. Yes, you do have to go over the floor a few times to get the water up, but hey, compare these two scenarios: Scenario #1: Dry vacuum your floors, then pole mop by hand with what amounts to basically dirty water after the first few passes of the mop, and then let them air dry while not be able to walk on them for who knows how long, and risk "cleaning yourself into a corner" and not being able to reach the sink or move until the floors or dry; or Scenario #2: stand in a continuous upright posture, pushing something no heavier than a light vacuum cleaner around, and get your floors shiny & perfectly clean in one step, while being able to walk FORWARD across clean, dry floors as you go? Hhhhmmmmm.

While cleaning the floors in the entire house, both tile and hard wood (again, 1,800 square feet), I had to only empty the dirty water tank and refill the clean water & cleaner tank TWICE each. That's it. It takes all of about 2 minutes to empty both tanks - super simple & quick. It took me just under an hour to completely clean the 1,800 square footage, including emptying dirty water and refilling the machine with clean water & solution. AND this thing got ALL the DOG HAIR AND DIRT IN ONE PASS!!!!!

All the plastic parts snap on and off easily & quickly - and everything on the machine seemed to be quite good quality (again, I'm a perfectionist, so I was expecting a LOT right off the bat). Also LOVE the rubber tires on this machine - no worries about scratching my new hardwood floors! Wonderful!

I am on a mission to either find out what other cleaners besides the prescribed Hoover products can be used in the machine, or to find a good, steady supplier of the two Hoover brand cleaners used with the machine. If I find something, I'll let you all know! Of course, I'll start with AMAZON.com!

PS - if you have pets, hopefully they are either afraid of the noise of a vacuum cleaner / cleaning machine and will stay away from you while you're cleaning, or you will have to put them in a room where they can't walk back & forth across your wet floors as you clean them - my dogs ended up being "sequestered" in my bedroom while I cleaned the floors, poor babies - they were "forced" to sleep on my king-sized sleep number bed for an hour. Boo hoo.

UPDATE::: Go to Hoover.com for cleaning solution for the H3030 FloorMate! It's the cheapest you can get anywhere and the shipping was super-fast!

The hoover picks up a surprising amount of dirt from the floor. A huge improvement over the mop and bucket routine or the swiffer jet.

It does take a long time to get the floors clean. I would have designed the machine with much harder brushes and an ability to brush harder at particular spots. Also this does not reach corners well. Reconfiguring the nozzle and the brush should increase the reach of the product.

Overall a deifnnite buy though is a bit overpriced.

I bought this machine after a bit of research. We have a large amount of tile floors in our home. I have been using the Swifter wetjet which works pretty good, but some how I did not feel like it was really cleaning my floors. Well, my first use of the product did not go very well, I was ready to junk the product and put in back in the box. I used the cleaner and my floors were soaking wet, I had to use a towel to dry up the floors. Needless to say I was not happy with all of this additional work.

Then I thought maybe its me, the designers of the product intended to make my life easier not harder. I plugged in the machine and tried it again. Well, I found out that firstly I was dumping too much water on the floor (trigger happy) and that all that was needed was one push of the trigger that released a small amount of water, which only appeared as a film of water on the floor. Very similar to amount of water on the floor ejected by the Swifter. The water film was so minimal due to the brushing action that you do not see much water. Once I got the hang of the product, I was totally impressed, really easy to use, cleaned up the floor quite well and dried quickly.

My down fall was that I did not really read the instructions, just breezed through it, which explains my intial experience. Once again overall good product if you want to clean your hardfloors and the proof is reflected in the dirty water.

I have had an H3000 for over a year, and I have been very happy with it. It scrubs reasonably, and leaves the floors nicely dry when done.
So, when the opportunity presented itself to get a newer model at a great price, I figured I'd give the old one to my sister, and keep the updated one.
Well, no matter what I do, the NEW SpinScrub 500 simply does not pick up water as well as the original H3000. It leaves streaks and a fair bit of liquid on the floor. The original gets things almost completely dry with no special effort, but this one is just not up to the job. The scrubbing part seems about the same, and they improved the wastewater tank so it's easier to clean, and I do like the fold down handle. However, none of that matters since it really doesn't work as well as the original.....

My advice: Get the H3000. It's a really great product. Avoid this one like the plague.

This is the greatest invention since sliced bread. I have a house full of animals and people so my floor can get pretty dirty in a very short time. That's where this little wonder works its miracles.

In the past I had to drag out the mop every time the dogs came in with mud on their feet. Now I pull out this easy to load and easy to clean machine. It's circular spinning brushes leave absolutely nothing behind. I have used it on both my kitchen and my sealed hardwood floors with spectacular results.

I recently saw a commercial on TV, which claimed that the floormate leaves the floor completely dry. No it doesn't. It leaves a tiny film of moisture on the floor that dries so fast you might miss it. The mop left far more moisture than this machine does.

This is a great machine, worth every penny. It works great, is easy to clean after you're finished, it's light and easily maneuverable, and makes life a whole lot easier when cleaning time comes. I love this machine and think you will love it too.

Ok, my husband and I recently got into a huge argument! He is starting a new company so, budget is really TIGHT! So, we let go of our cleaning lady (whom we had employed for 5 years and came once a week at $75 bucks a pop...I know I know) and I was determined to do the cleaning myself. That being said, I recalled I detested the mop and the swiffer did as the mop did, push dirt around the floor and inevitably, into my grout. EEEEW!

So, the other day (like 2) I cleaned the kitchen and MOPPED (yeah...gross) the kitchen floor. I mean really used bleach and everything! I let my daughter down to watch me in the kitchen and when I picked her up off the floor after 10 minutes, the top of her feet were....BLACK! EEEEW! I thought I got all that?

Desperate, I wanted to beg my husband (on my hands and knees) for him to reconsider my dilemma and hire our cleaning lady back (even though she broke all my CorningWare and broke some tiles on the counter and floor and is always putting my tank tops in my husbands and I wear a small him a large...and she always get my pots and pans all mixed up....), PLEASE! Immediately even! However, I considered the above mentioned "problems" and was still seriously considering begging him to reconsider and rehire her!

Being prideful, I decided to do some research online on the FloorMate by Hoover. I read and read and read, contacted Hoover and corresponded my concerns and read and read some more. I decided, what the heck, it's gotta be better than that "mop" thing. So, against many readers' suggestions, I ordered the FloorMate by Hoover H3030. I ordered this May 16, 2006 and received it on May 17, 2006 even though I checked off the 5-7 days delivery time (yeah...cheap again...new company..tight on budget?). I literally ripped it out of the box! I pulled out the instructions and followed it like a bible! I even used, as one user suggested, HOT water.

I had to empty my container twice and refill the solution twice. As you can see from the pictures I've provided (the after had slightly damp grout lines as they are not sealed), I am so shocked at how CLEAN the floor is! I mean it doesn't just LOOK clean it FEELS clean. Down to the grout! I have tile that is slightly textured and they are NOT sealed nor are the grout lines. The tile is taller than the grout by 2/16". This machine got in there and scrubbed out all the yuck! Oh, and sucked up all my shepherd/rottweiller mix dog's hair. My husband was all "wow" when he got home today. I told him that I was so happy to have this machine and even though I paid a bit for this machine, it is so totally worth it (still cheaper than my local store at $169.99 for the lower model even!)! I can't be happier.

I am amazed that others had such a hard time with this unit. I wonder if they read the instructions clearly cause, I would guard this machine with my life. You would have to pry it out of my death grip to take it from me!

So, if you are like me (slightly OCD) and are a clean freak, this machine might just be the "one"!

So...off I go to throw out the old, nasty, dirt spreading "mop" thing out! Yay!

So, thank you Hoover and just take a chance guys. Try it for yourself.

By the way, my daughter is 8 months old and picks things up and shoves it in her mouth. Now you know WHY I needed this machine!

I researched buying a floormate for almost 2 years... I saw both excellent and poor reviews and didn't know what to make of it all. Now, 36 weeks pregnant, and refusing to pull out the mop and bucket, I purchased this item from amazon (arrived in 2 days by the way, with standard shipping checked! Amazing!). I just finished washing my immense kitchen floor (with 13" offwhite tiles with 1/4" WHITE grout lines). I am IMPRESSED! I did have to refill/empty the tanks half way through but that took all of 1 minute. I was ashamed at the amount of dirt it picked up! Advice... take your time... since you don't have to put any muscle into like a regular mop, go slowly and give the scrubbers time to do their job. Use hot water, too. I never knew anyone that washed with a cold water mop, but the directions don't mention using any certain temp water. No leaks, easy to operate. What a relief! Now to see how it does on all the hardwood in my house.... but the kitchen tile was the REAL test as far as I am concerned.