Vacuum, Floor Washer or Carpet Cleaner: Which Machine Do You Need?

Who it's for: every home, on every floor. Dry vacuuming is the everyday routine, and it's the safe choice on unsealed or water-sensitive wood. Some hardwood makers warn against wet mops on their floors.

Typical messes: dust, crumbs, pet hair, sand and grit tracked in at the front door, dust bunnies under the bed and the couch.

Machine types:

• Cordless stick vacuums for quick daily pickups, stairs and the car; many convert to a handheld.
• Corded upright vacuums for carpet-heavy homes, with no battery to run down.
• Robot vacuums that run on a schedule; with a self-emptying dock, you empty the dust bin far less often. Measure the clearance under your furniture first (question 3 below).

Who it's for: homes with sealed hard floors such as tile, vinyl and sealed hardwood, especially kitchens, front entrances and mudrooms, and homes with kids or pets. For laminate, check that its maker allows damp cleaning. Not for carpet, and not for unsealed or water-sensitive wood.

Typical messes: sticky juice and pop spills, dried-on food under the table, muddy paw prints, salt residue and slush tracked in from outside in winter, grime that a vacuum can't lift.

Machine types:

• Wet dry vacuums (hard floor cleaners) that vacuum and wash in one pass, with a clean water tank and a separate dirty water tank.
• Robot vacuum and mop combos that keep sealed floors fresh between deeper cleans.
• Steam mops that clean sealed floors with steam from plain water. Check your flooring's care instructions before you use one on wood.

Who it's for: homes with wall-to-wall carpet, area rugs, carpeted stairs or a fabric couch, and anyone with pets or small kids. It's also the path for car seats and floor mats.

Typical messes: pet accidents (urine, vomit), spills that soaked into the fibres, lingering odours, dingy traffic lanes on carpet, salt stains on car floor mats.

Machine types:

• Portable carpet and upholstery cleaners (spot cleaners) with a hose and a hand tool for the couch, stairs, rugs, pet beds and car interiors.
• Upright carpet cleaners (full-size deep cleaners) for whole rooms and high-traffic areas.

Both spray water and formula into the fibres, then pull the dirty water back into a separate tank. Check the care instructions for your carpet or fabric first, and try a hidden spot before you clean the whole piece.

Slide a tape measure under the furniture and note the gap from the floor to the lowest point of the frame, in centimetres or inches. Measure in a few spots, since a centre rail or crossbar can sit lower than the front edge.

Then compare that gap with the robot's full height, laser turret included. On the Canadian manufacturer spec sheets we reviewed, robots with a laser turret on top stand 93.5 to 104 mm (about 3¾ to 4 in.) tall, and slim models with the laser built into the body 79.8 to 82 mm (about 3¼ in.). Basic robots without laser mapping can be slimmer still: one maker says its model passes under a gap of 73 mm (2.87 in.). Some models lower a retractable turret to slip under furniture.

In our robot guides, each height stays exactly as the manufacturer lists it, in millimetres, so every model is compared on the same figure. You can enter your clearance in centimetres or in inches: we convert it to millimetres before comparing.

They look alike, with two tanks, a brush and a trigger, but they do different jobs.

• Different surfaces. A carpet cleaner is built for fibres: carpet, rugs and upholstery. A hard-floor washer is built for sealed surfaces; Tineco, for example, says its Floor One washers are for non-carpeted floors such as vinyl, tile and sealed wood, and answers “No” when asked whether they can clean carpet.
• Different depth. A carpet cleaner pushes water and formula deep into the fibres and pulls it back out. A floor washer spreads a thin layer of water and solution with a spinning brush roll and picks the dirty water straight back up from the surface.
• Different specs that matter. For a carpet cleaner: suction through the hose, the hand tools, tank size and how wet the fibres stay. For a floor washer: the brush roll, the self-cleaning cycle, edge cleaning, weight and battery runtime.
• Little real overlap. Some floor washers can go over area rugs, but BISSELL's word for that is “refresh,” not deep clean.

So each machine is ranked only against its own kind, in its own guide. A single score across both would reward the wrong strengths.