- Weight: 6kg
- Water tank capacity: 1.5l
- Power cord length: 6m
- Guarantee: two years
- In the box: floor tool (pictured) with two microfibre pads, carpet glider, hand tool with various brushes. The window, textile and power nozzles are sold separately
Kärcher are famous for their pressure washers and have brought that Germanic expertise to this multi-function steam mop. It comes with a party bag of robust attachments, transforming it from mop to carpet steamer and steam ironer. A manual nozzle also cleans nooks, crannies and bathroom fittings.
In the box it looks a Ghostbuster’s pack. Once assembled (remarkably intuitively, when you eventually locate the English language pages of the thick instruction manual) it resembles a cylinder vacuum – think Henry the Hoover’s shape.
The microfibre cloth attaches to the mop head by velcro so that you can attach and detach it in seconds. The gargantuan water reservoir detaches easily from the body so that you can fill it directly from the kitchen sink (not a given – lots of steam mops require you to fill them with a fiddly jug).
That’s really the extent of your prep. There is a short wait for the machine to heat to sufficient temperature, but that’s the trade-off against a water capacity that allows you to clean room after room without stopping to refill.
Then you choose from five different intensities of steam; the biggest range in our test sample. ‘One’ is designed for dust and ‘five’ – also known as VapoHydro – mixes hot water in with the steam, leaving the floor fairly wet but reliably getting rid of stubborn encrustations. I’m embarrassed to say there are plenty of these on my kitchen floor. The Kärcher glides around behind me, turning corners easily and dealing with the most unpleasant matters in a just few, firm passes.
It gets under our floating kitchen island and a shallow dresser easily – although the latter requires me to get down on hands and knees. Once finished, I add the ‘carpet glider’ attachment to the mop (a sturdy plastic frame that raises it fractionally off the surface) and clean the carpet in the kids’ room. Next, the brushes and power nozzles make the bathroom sink and shower tray sparkle. All these jobs are easy, quick, and intensely (frankly, embarrassingly) satisfying.