Vax SpinScrub Power Plus review: 24 paws vs one carpet cleaner

The deal

Let me get the money bit out of the way first, because it is the reason this review exists. The Vax SpinScrub Power Plus normally sells at £249.99. I caught it on a limited-time deal at 52% off and paid £121. That is an absolute steal, and if the deal is still running when you read this, it is a no-brainer.

But here is the honest headline: even if I had paid full price for this, I would still have been happy with the results. Keep that in mind as you read the rest.

24 paws and a musty lounge

Some context on what this machine was up against. We are a busy family: a dog, three cats, two kids, my wife and me. That's 24 paws, some human feet included in that count, constantly coming and going to football, gymnastics, netball, dog walks and hiking, all on top of normal life.

And before anyone pictures a house of horrors: we are not dirty people. The house is cleaned regularly, and we have a superb cleaner. No, we're not posh! We just have very busy personal and professional lives and that is a luxury we afford ourselves. About half of our house is hard floor, which gets steam mopped regularly, and the rest is carpeted with nice plush carpets.

It was the carpeted rooms where I had started to notice a musty smell that the regular cleaning wasn't shifting. There were also marks and stains appearing in various places, mostly from muddy paws.

Why not just hire a Rug Doctor?

Hiring a Rug Doctor and doing all the carpets through the house had been on my agenda for ages. It just never happened, because it is such a pain in the backside: going and hiring it, buying the solution, no doubt giving it a clean first because the previous user left it in a crappy state, and then dropping it back when you're done.

So when I saw this machine on a limited-time deal, the maths did itself. One hire-shop round trip costs a decent chunk of the deal price, and this one lives in my cupboard and comes out whenever the paws win.

What you get, on paper

The numbers behind the machine, from Vax, and they match what I found in practice:

Floorhead

5 rotating SpinScrub brushes, working the carpet fibres from all angles

Clean water tank

4.5L

Dirty water tank

3L

Dry time

As little as 1 hour, per Vax's HEATBLAST claim (hot air plus extraction)

Handheld kit

SpinScrub hand tool, upholstery tool and a 2.5m hose for stairs, sofas and car interiors

In the box

The cleaner, both hand tools, hose, 250ml of Vax Platinum Antibacterial Solution and an accessory bag

Guarantee

6 years

Two of those numbers matter more than they look. The extra-large tanks are why I could do most of a room per fill, and the 6-year guarantee is a serious statement for a machine at this price, longer than most appliances in the house.

The dry time is the one claim I'd temper with real-world experience. Ours took longer than an hour, I would say several hours, and I ventilated the rooms too, to stop any condensation build-up. In fairness, that is probably on me: if you did a single pass, an hour might well be about right, but I was a little trigger-happy with the solution and that will have led to the longer drying time. I don't mind at all, I was more than happy with the result, but plan your cleaning for a day when the rooms can sit empty for an afternoon rather than an hour.

Setup: two tanks and a click

It arrived yesterday and setup was genuinely easy. You put the dirty water reservoir in its place, fill the clean water reservoir with warm water, and stick some solution in the solution chamber. It comes with a 250ml bottle of Vax's Platinum Antibacterial Solution to get you started, though my plan is to buy bigger off-brand stuff in future, because you will go through it. Click the handle in place, plug it in, done.

I was "working from home", so I thought I would take a 15-minute break and give it a run around the lounge.

Using it, and the horror of the dirty water tank

Using it is simple, just like a hoover but a little more methodical. It is easier going in lines so you know where you have been. You hold the trigger on the handle going forward, which releases the solution, and let go on the drag backwards, where it sucks up the now-dirty water.

The lounge is the most used room in the house after the kitchen, which is hard floor, so I knew it needed doing. But I was still shocked at the colour of the dirty water coming back up into the reservoir. This is a room that gets cleaned regularly, and the tank filled with water the colour of a puddle on a bridleway.

I went over the lounge twice, a few patches three times, and I was amazed at how clean it came up. That prompted a very exciting Friday evening continuing my carpet cleaning through the rest of the house. The dirty water reservoir needed emptying a few times, and we really chewed through the solution, but my wife and I were most impressed with the results.

The morning-after test

The real test came the next day. When I opened the lounge door this morning, that musty smell was gone. Not masked, gone. Massive win, and big brownie points to me.

The stains and paw marks that had been slowly accumulating came up with it. The plush carpets look like they did years ago, and the difference between the rooms I had done and the ones I hadn't got to yet was embarrassing enough to keep me going through the whole house.

The honest weak spot: the handheld attachment

It comes with a proper handheld kit for the stairs and upholstery: the SpinScrub hand tool and an upholstery tool on a 2.5m hose. I have to say this didn't feel as good as the main unit. It has a spinning brush scrubber and a spray for the solution, but it didn't work quite as well on the stairs as the upright did on the open floors. I will probably have another go at it over the weekend to get the stairs up to scratch with the rest of the house.

It is the one part of the package that stops this being a five-star machine for me, and it is worth knowing about if stairs and sofas are your main battleground rather than big carpeted rooms.

We are also tackling the problem at source: Maple is now sporting a brand-new raincoat for the wet and muddy walks. She looks super cute in it, which is not the point of a raincoat, but it helps.

Verdict

Highly recommend. The Vax SpinScrub Power Plus turned a job I had been putting off for months into a slightly-too-enjoyable Friday evening, pulled a frankly alarming amount of dirt out of carpets in a regularly cleaned house, and killed a musty smell overnight. The handheld attachment needs more of a technique than the main unit, and you will get through solution faster than you expect, but those are the only caveats.

At the 52% deal price of £121 it is a steal. And I will say it again: even at the full £249.99, the results would have justified it. If your house has anything like our paw count, this earns its cupboard space.

Rating: 4.7 / 5

FAQ