Steam mops are the latest gadgets that claim to make cleaning your floor a cinch. Chris Olsen shows you how they perform in independent testing.
The Shark is just one of a growing number of steam mops on the market. It's described as the latest innovation in household cleaning and claims to make short work of big messes.
Consumer Reports put The Shark and nine other steam mops, including ones from Bissell and Oreck, through tough tests.
"The first thing we did is we went into the lab and got the floor dirty, very dirty," Bill Taylor of Consumer Reports said.
Testers used ketchup, syrup, mustard, and other stuff to create a scientific mess.
Since you can't always get to spills right away, the mess was left overnight to really set in.
So how did the mops do? Well, some weren't very good, taking a long time to steam away soils.
Others don't soak up much, and left gooey gunk to be pushed around the floor. Yuck!
And once the steam mop is finished cleaning, you still have to deal with a mess.
"All these mops use removable pads that you need to wash. And you might want wash them separately from your clothes," Taylor said as he examined a grime-soaked pad
When all the tests were done, Consumer Reports did find a good cleaner it named a best buy. It's the $130 Eureka Enviro steamer. It steams for a full 20 minutes on a tank of water and has a long cord so you can clean larger areas.
However, Consumer Reports says a $15 mop and some hot water will do just as good a job, and cost you a lot less.
As for The Shark, Consumer Reports found it did a good job, but not as good as the less-expensive eureka or even the squeeze mop and pail.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen
