Battle of the hard-floor cleaners: which one cleans best?

Thankfully, hard-floor cleaners combine these tasks into one, vacuuming and mopping at the same time. This makes them a great cleaning option if you have a lot of tiled, concrete or wooden floors in your home.

What are hard-floor cleaners?

Hard-floor cleaners are cordless, battery-operated units that use a combination of water and rotating rollers to remove dirt from floors. They suck the dirty water into a collection tank whilst sweeping up dust and debris at the same time.

Hard-floor cleaners go head-to-head

We trialled two hard-floor models: Bissell’s CrossWave HF3 and Dyson’s WashG1. Which, if either, should you buy to ease the weekly clean?

Bissell CrossWave HF3 trial

The Bissell HF3, the cheaper of the two models tested, is a well-built, stylish and lightweight cleaner that's easy to carry and push. It effectively removes stains like coffee, soy sauce, jam and mud. While designed to be used with Bissell’s cleaning solution and warm water, we found it also performed well with cold water. Though, for heavily soiled floors, it’s best to pre-treat any stains and use the solution with warm water.

Coffee, soy sauce, jam and mud.

Bissell’s model has a smaller water tank than the Dyson model has, but using the lower of two flow rates, it still managed to clean my 25m² kitchen and dining room before needing a refill. Switching to the higher flow rate if you’ve got really grubby floors will reduce coverage.

The machine struggles a little at edges and corners due to the head design, and this is even more noticeable as the wet edge shows up more. You’ll need to clean these areas manually.

After each use, you should empty the dirty water tank and run the auto-clean cycle. The Bissell collects debris and water in one tank, and the supplied strainer catches larger dirt lumps as you’re disposing of the foul liquid. But it isn’t easy to remove the wet clumps of dirt from the strainer unless you let them dry out first.

Running the cleaning cycle is very easy, though – just refill the clean water tank, pop the unit back onto the charging stand and press the cleaning button on the handle. The roller gets rinsed for about a minute, and then the manual advises removal for air drying.

Unfortunately, you’ll likely notice, when removing the roller, that not all the debris makes its way into the dirty water tank, so you might need to give the head an extra clean.

Dyson WashG1 trial

Dyson’s radical-looking, first dedicated wet floor cleaner has a whiff of a student design project about it, but I do like its minimalist form. My kids likened it to an oversized soda stream.

It's a heavy cleaner, so carrying it up and down stairs can be hard work, but using it isn't harder than the Bissell. The build quality is mixed — the solid, simple beauty and fit of the handle and arm are somewhat let down by the cheap-feeling water tank and the awful hollow click sound when pulling the arm back to start cleaning.

The WashG1 has a small circular colour display on the end of the handle that indicates water flow levels and guides you through the self-cleaning steps with some fancy animations. (Impressive, but probably unnecessary as the process isn’t difficult.)

Dyson separates debris and dirty water during collection, unlike Bissell. Two counter-rotating rollers flick debris into the centre of the head, where another pair of roller brushes force the debris particles into a tray, while dirty water is separately suctioned into the dirty water tank.

The WashG1’s design is clever, but like the Bissell, disposing of the wet dirt is a hassle. The debris tray is tricky to remove, and the damp dirt will be sticky, forcing you to wash it down the sink instead of tossing it in the bin.

Yuck!

Cleaning performance is on a par with the Bissell, but the Dyson wins the corners and edges competition as its rollers are a lot closer to the edge on the right side of the head, allowing you to clean closer to your skirting boards. Dyson doesn’t suggest using warm water or any cleaning solutions, so it must be confident in the G1’s mechanical cleaning ability.

The WashG1 has nearly double the water tank capacity of the Bissell model, with large screw-on lids that makes refilling easier. This allows for more coverage before needing to empty or refill. After use, you run the auto-clean cycle, but this feature is no better than that of the Bissell. The dirty water tank is easier to empty, but removing wet debris from the tray is just as tricky. Plus, there are three more rollers to clean, which get tangled with debris and hair.

Tangled hair and dirt around the head rollers.

Should I buy a hard-floor cleaner? If so, which one?

Convenience is king, and these hard-floor cleaners are nothing if not convenient. They made it easier and faster to clean my floors, but the trade-off was the time, mess and faff involved in cleaning the units after every use.

Unlike a traditional mop, which gets dirtier as you clean, these hard-floor units continuously pump clean water onto the rollers, giving a consistently hygienic clean. The clear collection tanks show how much dirt has been suctioned, which can be satisfying, though you may not like having dirty water on display!

Tea anyone?

I probably wouldn’t buy one of these cleaners until there is a model that solves the clean-up problems. My robot vac does a pretty darn good job of mopping and vacuuming my floors at the same time anyway.

But, if you were tempted to go for a hard-floor cleaner, it’s probably not worth paying twice the amount for the Dyson. Sure, this Dyson model does get closer into the edges, but otherwise performance is similar.

There are also other manufacturers making hard-floor cleaners, so it would pay to do more research before you decide.