Gadget Mop (Flash Power Mop)

Member Name: suz1584

Product:	Flash Power Mop
Date:	01/11/09 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick and Easy to use

Disadvantages: Really expensive

Since moving into our new house back in July I've found it difficult to keep the laminate floor downstairs clean and feel like I'm forever brushing and mopping it. I was complaining to my partner and a few days later he returned from the shop with the Flash Power Mop.

Ok so at first I wasn't sure how I'd fid this, I thought he had just bought another silly gadget like he always did.

What is it?

The power mop is basically a glorified mop. It has pads which you have to attach to the mop to clean the floor and then you can bin them once you have used them.

The other thing that makes this mop different is you attach a bottle of flash spray that has been designed just for the power mop. It means with a touch of a button you can spray the floor and then mop it up to clean your floor.

Price

James (my partner) bought the Power Mop from Morrisons a couple of months ago and at the time it was on offer. He bought it for £7.99 which claimed to be half price.

I have since looked and noticed that they are selling for £16.99. The pads cost about £2.99 for 6 pads and the flash bottle refills cost about £4.80. Prices do vary from shop to shop and I do try to stock up when they're on offer.


How I got on

Well setting it up I was quite excited about how easy this would be to clean my floors and assumed it would take me minutes to clean all the floors downstairs. The Power Mop claims to pick up dust and dirt from the floor meaning less vacuuming also.

Included in our set up pack was one pad to attach to the mop and also a bottle off the flash floor cleaner so you can get started without having to spend loads of money on all the other bits at the same time. Luckily James had bought the other bits whilst they were half price as well.

So once I attached the pad and put the bottle of spray in place which actually took me a while as the instructions weren't that straight forward and I put the pad on upside down and also didn't click the bottle in properly. I was beginning to wonder if this mop was actually worth the hassle?

Finally I got to work with the mop. The first thing I noticed about the mop is has a handle at the top for easier grip. At the handle there is a white button which is to spray the flash whenever you need to. I pressed the button and noticed that the spray did distribute very evenly and managed to wet quite a large area of the floor.

Pushing the mop across the wet floor it felt really easy to clean and thought that I would be done really quickly. I was wrong though once I actually got to dirty bits on the floor like spilt sauce in the kitchen I found that no amount of mopping would shift the sauce. Luckily flash have thought of this and they have added a scrubber onto the edge of the mop. All you have to do is turn the plastic mop head onto it's side and there you go nice and clean.

So far so good. So the mopping was done in a quick 20 minutes for the whole of the downstairs and I was able to get on with wedding stuff. I looked at the pad we had put on and noticed that it was really dirty so it definitely needed binned by the end even though I thought my floor was reasonably clean. It just shows how dirty the floors can gets so quickly.

Bad points

Ok there were some bad points with this mop. I found that it didn't pick up hairs like it states it will and the advert showed so I was a bit disappointed. I have 6 cats so you can understand that I do need something that will pick up all their hairs but I suppose no other mop picks up hairs either.

The scrubber at the side to clean stuck on dirt (like my sauce on the kitchen floor) does take a lot of effort to use by having to put the mop head on it's side. Unfortunately this part of the mop can't be replaced so you have to wash it after every use. This make this mop needing washed as much as any other mop which defeats the purpose of this mop being quick and easy to get out and put away after use.

The pads take a bit of getting used to. At first I found it quite fiddly putting the pads on the mop head but once you get used to it, it becomes a lot easier and quicker.

Overall Opinion

To be honest at full price I wouldn't buy this mop as I really don't think it's worth it. It is handy if there's spillages to just pull it out and clean them up without having to get a bucket of water.

The price of the refills of flash spray and the pads also bumps the price of this mop up quite a bit and on the box it does state that the pads each will do 2 - 3 rooms so you do really need to bin them often.

I always expect products like this to be a lot better than they actually are and then get disappointed that they don't do as well as what they advertisements state but I should learn from this by now.

Now I am used to it I find it handy to have and love the fact that there is spray at the touch of a button. It has helped me out on several occasions and it does do a good job so I won't be getting rid of mine anytime soon but I wouldn't advise you to go out and buy it unless it's on offer and you're willing to pay for all the pads and refill flash bottles.

Summary: Stick to mop and bucket