Vax Rapide XL: I never knew my carpets were so dirty! (Vax Appliances Rapide XL V-027)

Member Name: liz_barratt

Product:	Vax Appliances Rapide XL V-027
Date:	25/08/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Does a fantastic job, easy to assemble and use

Disadvantages: Heavy to use, bulky to store, fiddly to clean

I have recently bought the Vax rapide carpet cleaner. I got it from Amazon for 150.00. I believe it is available for less than this, however I had some amazon vouchers, so got it from there. I have cleaned every carpet in the house, and didn't realise how dirty they were!

In the box it comes in several parts, however assembly is easy and pretty self explanatory, however the instructions which come with it are extremely good. Once assembled, it is easy to use. It has a separate tank for the soap solution and the water, and the soap can stay in the machine if not all used. I filled my soap bottle when I got it, and am about half way down it, despite having shampooed everything that stands still! The machine has the normal carpet shampooer bit, with rotating brush bars and a strong suction, so the carpet is almost dry when you have finished shampooing it. Once you have gone over the carpet once, you can then turn the soap off so only clean water comes out, allowing you to rinse the carpet. This is another advantage of the seperate soap bottle, as without it you would have to throw your clean water (with soap mixed in it) away and refill the bottle to rinse the carpet.

It came with a bottle of vax AAA soap, which I believe you can get from around 4.00, however I am still on my original bottle.

The upholstery tool is also very powerful, and allows you to clean the stairs and sofas etc. The hose and cable are long enough to do the entire stairs without unplugging it and moving it.

One of the main reasons for us getting this is I suffer from allergies (all kinds of pollen, animals and house dust) and it was getting to the point that no matter how much I heevered the carpets I was still getting sneezy, itchy and wheezy. Now I have done the entire house I am much better. I believe the Vax AAA soap has an anti allergy additive (infact that is apparently what AAA stands for) so that could be helping too. The water thast came out of my carpets was a dark grey sludge, Urghh! No wonder they were making me ill! And there are just 2 adults and no animals in our house.

The machine is quite noisy to use, however I don't feel this is excessive being as it has a pump for the solutions, a vacuum pump and the rotating bars. Noise s quite subjective though, and I haven't used any of its competitors, so I wouldn't know if it is excessive or just normal. It is more noisy than my dry vacuum cleaner, but it is doing more so I would expect that.

It's not all a bed of roses though. There are some down sides to this device:
It is quite a big and bulky device to store once it is all assembled, especially with the upholstery tool.

Because it is an all in one, upright style cleaner, you have to move all the water when shampooing the carpet, this makes it extremely heavy to use. The water bottles (Clean and dirty) are both easy to remove from the machine and seal when you do so, so it is not too difficult to get upstairs, as I take everything off it first, however when you use it, you really get a sweat up. Saves taking out gym membership though, and I have developped a whole new set of muscles since we got it! Seriously though, if you aren't fairly fit and strong then the orange bin style vax would probably be better for you.

You do need to give the carpet a thorough vacuum before using, and it does pull loads of extra gunge out of your carpet. This is good, however I find the dirty water bottle and bits that the dirty water goes through on the way to the dirty water bottle takes quite a lot of cleaning after use. Again, this is something I am prepared to live with for the clean carpets.

Overall a good machine, but you should certainly be aware of the weight with water, and the fact that you need to be quite fit in order to use it.

Summary: Does a fantastic job of cleaning the carpets, and building upper body strength!

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