Bissell Little Green Machine (from a skeptic)

[PerroneFord]

Alright, so I know this unit is popular with detailers. I've read about it on here and at other forums. After getting my butt kicked on a detail last week, I realized I needed to step up my interior game in a BIG way if I was going to call myself a detailer. So I decided to make 2 significant purchases. The first was a decent wet/dry vac. The second was one of these Little Green Machines. After much going back and forth, I settled on the ProHeat model with the turbo brush.

First let me say that this is NOT a professional tool. They don't market it as one, and if you are doing this for a living, you NEED to buy a professional tool. Ok, enough said.

I am a born skeptic. And though I've seen the photos of what people have done with this little machine, I still remained a bit skeptical. So I brought it home and decided to do a little test. My home carpet has not been cleaned in a long time. And the front door area takes a heavy beating. I don't allow shoes past that point so the rest of the carpet isn't as bad.

I decided to try several products and extract them off with the new machine. All products were things I've seen here. They were Folex, Oxyclean granules in water, Purple Power 100% strength, and Goop. I tried all three on my dirty carpet. Of these, I had previously used the Folex before and had been pretty happy with my results in most cases.

All three did a nice job on the carpet to be sure, but I would have to rate my results in the following order.

1. Goop
2. Purple Power 100%
3. Folex
4. Oxyclean

Now let me qualify that. The Oxyclean was not effective for pre-treating like the others. However it was the only one that got brushing the first time through. The others were agitated by hand only.

I was absolutely stunned at how well the Goop worked. No odor at all, just darn effective. The Purple Power is an engine degreaser. I sort of expected it to do well at removing what is essentially traffic lane grime. The Folex did it's normal very good job. I don't think it excels in this kind of thing though. If these were protein based stains and not grease/grime stains, it probably would have fared better. The Oxyclean did fine too, and would be the choice for cleaning a larger area. Used in conjuction with the others, it works remarkably well, and that is JUST what I did. I used the Oxyclean mixture on top of the others after initial results were in, and then played with the machine.

So, how did the machine do?

The instructions say NOT to use boiling water. I know from reading here that hot water works best. So I boiled some water, mixed it with some hot tap water, and put that in the machine. No chemicals. I thought the turbo-brush would be kinda gimmicky, but it really worked quite well. Just sprayed hot water onto the spots while running the brush.

I changed to the extraction nozzle (if you can call it that) and started pulling the dirt and water out. The suction on the machine isn't terrific. For uphostery it's probably more than sufficient. But it was pulling water and dirt up and you could see it working. Very nice! Once that process was complete, I attached the same nozzle to my Rigid Wet/Dry vac with a 2.5" to 1.25" reducer. I went over the area again, and it really did a nice job pulling out a lot more of the water.

The carpet looked very nice after this process. Easily as nice as the carpet out of the traffic lane. The tools were effective. Even running with just water in the machine, I felt it was quite effective.

So, $100 spent on the LGM, $3 on Goop, $5 on Folex, $8 on Oxyclean. I now feel like I can get any carpets or uphostery clean enough for my purposes. I'll dedicate an electric kettle for detailing and use that to get hot water.

Final analysis:

LGM is worth the $100 for a weekend hobbyist or home user. If you haven't tried Goop for mats and carpets in the car, you ARE missing something. It's cheap, non-toxic, biodegradble, and darn effective ($7 for a 4.5 pound tub at Harbor Freight). Using the Shop-Vac to extract after going over the area with the LGM seems to fix its only significant flaw, which is weak suction.

I'm happy, and I think my clients will be also.

Thanks for reading.

[240SX]

You mean Goop, as in the hand cleaner? That seems kind of odd.

[PerroneFord]

Originally Posted by 240SX

You mean Goop, as in the hand cleaner? That seems kind of odd.

Most people know Goop as a hand cleaner, but I think it was originally designed for laundry. It works amazingly well. I was skeptical of alll this stuff, but interested enough to try it. If you can get some, try it. It's dirt cheap.

[Mr. Clean]

I'm all for finding products that work for different purposes than their intended market. What are the ingredients in the Goop that cause it to be seemingly effective? Are there any negative effects to the textile?

With the number of relatively inexpensive traffic lane cleaners available, and their ease of use (dilute / pump up sprayer) I don't see much of a need to search out alternative products. JMO.

I know there are a good number of people who have used the BLG machine to good effect. But your own experience with the amount of moisture it leaves behind is something that kept me from buying one. $60-$100 is a considerable sum for a machine that sprays product (or water), and only marginally extracts that product. For volume work, an extractor is all but mandatory, but I manage to get away with a couple of pump-up sprayers and a wet/dry vac.

[MrCLRider]

PerroneFord, how long have you been using the reducer for your shopvac and placing the "extraction" head on your shop vac?? I thought I was the only one to think of rigging something like that up. For that very purpose I feel I do not have a need to buy a LGCM, I just use spray bottles for my water and solutions..works great. I'm just glad to see that someone else decided to think outside the box with the reducer for the shopvac!!

[PerroneFord]

As I see it, there are a number of pieces to the carpet/upholstery cleaning puzzle

1. Vacuuming to get up as much dirt as possible. This may include dry brushing as well

2. Spot Pre-treatment. This can come in the form of sprays (Folex, TLC, APC), or a product like Goop, or something similar that is meant to dwell on the spot.

3. Agitation. This is where you use the scrub-brush either with water, with something like the Oxiclean, etc.

4. Removal. This is where the dirt is pulled from the carpet.

For *my* purposes, the LGM is especially helpful at steps 3 and 4. The little turbo brush feature allows me to go from automated brushing to extraction quickly. And yes, I can do exactly the same thing with the Shop-Vac. Either way works. However, the ability to put 180F water on the spot during step 4 is exactly why I wanted the machine. I just don't have a way to do that otherwise. Yes, real extractors can spray 210F water at 100-200psi. They can even do that with chemicals. This makes them superior to the LGM. Their suction is greather than either the LGM or the Shop-Vac. They also cost 5-10 times as much as the cost of my shop-vac and LGM combined.

Not all stains or fabrics will require this kind of regiment. In fact, I am about to go do my own car with just the LGM and some hot water. No pre-spotting, no chemicals. Just hot water and the LGM.

Clearly, if you have a way to do effective rinsing of the chemicals and other products you've put down, then the LGM is not going to help you much. Using the Shop-vac with the heads from the LGM provides more effective suction and agitation. If I could find a way to spray near boiling water on the spots then the LGM would be totally unnecessary. There may be a business opportunity there for someone to retrofit a hot sprayer onto a shop-vac. But until that happens, I am quite pleased with doing it this way.

In regards to how long I've been using the reducer, I just got it, and the new shop-vac this week. Seemed a simple idea though. I wanted to re-use all the attachments from my old 1.25" Shop-vac. This just happened to work out for the LGM.

As far as the Goop product, I can't see it having any negative effect on the textiles. The reason I like it over the sprays is that it's a LOT easier to control, it's clingy so it won't just run down if I have to use it on a vertical surface, it has no odor, and it's dirt cheap. On bad carpet, I can go through a bottle of Folex. The Goop costs half as much, seems to work as well, and stretches further. Not that I am taking Folex out of the rotation. Sometimes a spray is EXACTLY the right thing.

I'll see how this goes. Maybe I'm crazy at the LGM is a poor investment and the Goop is worthless. But for right now, they seem to be working very well.

[Mr. Clean]

Originally Posted by PerroneFord

...the ability to put 180F water on the spot during step 4 is exactly why I wanted the machine. ....

You've actually measured the water from the LGM to be this hot?

[PerroneFord]

Originally Posted by Mr. Clean

You've actually measured the water from the LGM to be this hot?

The manual indicates the heater will raise the temperature of the water to a max of 180F. I am putting in near boiling water. I estimate 200F or so. So initially, the machine is giving me water near 200F or so, and if the manual is true to it's word, the water should cool down to no more than 180F. Even at 150F, that's more than I could deliver in a spray bottle over the course of cleaning upholstery or carpet.

I just came in from doing my seats in my car. No shop-vac. I did a dry-vacuum of the seats to take off any surface dirt with the unit. Them used the smaller of the heads with just the bristles. Seemed to work quite nicely, and I could see the dirty water going into the tank. I went over the seats without applying any water for a couple quick passes. Ten minutes later, I sat in the seats. They were not bone dry, but not "wet". I could not feel the moisture through my t-shirt. To me, that's good enough. If you were just doing an interior detail the car would be ready for a customer after drying for an hour or so. So I'd do the seats first, then move on to carpet, or whatever else had to be done. By the time the detail was done, the seats would be good to go.

Chances are, you'd have the Shop-Vac handy anyway, so if there was a rush to get dryer seats, the tool is right there. I just need to figure out if I am going to use Folex or other cleaners in the machine or not. I know if I don't, there won't be any clogging issues.