Steam cleaning

[Gyn_Paul]

Has anyone experience of using a steam cleaner on bathroom tiles (for example) ?

Lidl have one on offer next week for 89E and we have inherited horrible, grimy tiles which we will eventually replace but - pro tem - it would be nice to clean them up a bit. Any good?

Also does it have any effect on the horrid glaze-like soap scale you get on the plastic shower tray which usually has to be scrubbed off with Jif and a green Scotch pan-scrubber-thingy (thus taking the surface off the plastic and making the job worse in 6 month's time!)

So is it a 'must-have' or a waste of money?

p

[Nick Trollope]

Frankly, unless you apply pressure as well, then they aren't any better than a scrubbing brush & hot water (worse, probably). We have an expensive (then) Earlex steam cleaner that we have tried on just about everything, with only middling results. The cleaning pads on the things are never big enough to absorb the crud, so you end up scrubbing anyway. Our is consigned to wallpaper-stripping duties, now.

 

[Val_2]

I have a domestic steam cleaner too but it dosn't remove much,you get more water than anything else. I have found that a tub of Pierre d'Argent cleaner and a good stiff toothbrush with a bit of elbow grease does a great job of cleaning up grouting etc.

[Will]

Our steam cleaner has a selection of nozzles, including one that gives a jet of steam at very high pressure and is excellent for removing the sort of bathroom crud and limescale encrustations around taps that you describe. It works well on dirty tile grout too. It also has several brushes that fit on the nozzles, including a wire brush for obstinate dirt. The ordinary cleaning head, used with a cloth, is pretty good on tiled floors and walls for normal cleaning. It is made by Dometic, as far as I know it is only available in France, and did cost a fair bit more than the Lidl one. Although Lidl stuff is excellent value, you do get what you pay for, so I rather doubt that the Lidl cleaner will have a similar level of performance.

[Liz]

I am a big fan of steam cleaners.  I used to have an Earlex one with several heads and I have used the flat wallpaper stripper head for cleaning tiles using a sponge to mop up and a tooth brush for the grout (you can't do without a bit of elbow grease!).  It eventually sprung a leak and I now have one similar from Brico Depot (currently about 23€) but it only has the wall paper head and I still use the other heads from the old machine.  I sometimes use it to clean the oven and it is great for defrosting the freezer fast.  Wouldn't be without it but unless the Lidl machine has a lot of other features 89€ sounds expensive to me.

Liz