A great cleaner, and a good value

I just bought a new house, and along with it, a bunch of dirty carpet. Though it wasn't all that old, the carpet in the house was filthy. At first, I thought that perhaps I would need to replace it all, but decided to try to clean it first.

So, I was faced with another decision- Do I Hire someone to do it? Do I rent the equipment to do it myself? Or do I bite the bullet and just buy a machine so I can do it whenever it gets dirty? I decided that I would be better off just buying the machine.

This model is brand new- so there were not too many reviews available for it yet. So, I read up on prior models, and compared it to other brands. In the end, I settled on the 9500, Bissell's 'latest and greatest'.

This machine had a lot of features that less expensive models, and that other brands, did not have. For one thing, The cleaner has a built-in heater to heat the water, so you aren't using water that is only ad hot as what your tap water is. This really increases the cleaning power of the machine. It also has multiple rows of brushes, so it cleans more with fewer passes. The hand tool attachments are also nice, it comes with several sizes. The stair cleaner attachment was actually the selling point for me- unlike a lot of other cleaners, this one has a powered brush, so you don't have to scrub!

The machine is super easy to use. You put water in the clean water tank, cleaning fluid in the cleaning fluid tank, plug it in, and start cleaning! There are several settings on the machine, depending on how dirty the carpet that you are cleaning is. There is also a clean water rinse setting, that allows you to use plain water rather than water mixed with the cleaning fluid if you need to.

So- How does the cleaning power compare to a rental unit? They are pretty similar in their abilities to get carpet clean, although it may take longer to get the desired result with the Bissell than it would with one of the more powerful commercial machines. The biggest difference between this and a rental machine is the size of the water tank- You are going to have to stop far more often to refill this one than you will a rental unit, which is a bit of an inconvenience.


The cleaner has a hot air dryer that supposedly speeds up the dry time of the carpet, but it doesn't seem to be all that effective. There is also a pre-treater built in, called the 'clean shot', that squirts some cleaning solution directly on to a problem spot.

With a little pre treatment and a couple of passes, I was able to easily get the carpet clean to my satisfaction. I have about 1000 square feet of carpet, which I was able to get done within a day with ease. Had it been less dirty, It would have been FAR quicker to clean, as several areas needed multiple passes. I found that in an average sized room, about 12 x 15 or so, I needed to empty the tank 2-3 times.

The cleaner can also be used on hard floors- and since my entire first floor is sealed hardwood, it comes in handy there as well. Bissell makes a cleaning solution that is used for hard surfaces.

I also found another use for the machine- I used it to help me clean my walls when I was stripping wallpaper! I was having a LOT of trouble getting all the paste off, and found that by using the hand attachments I could remove the paste by supplying plenty of fresh, hot water to the wall, but didn't have to worry about there being too much water there, as the machine vacuumed it up as I went. No, you won't find that in the instruction manual, but it does work!

Bottom line- Should you get one? Well, as a pet owner with several dogs and large parrots, I often have messes on carpet to clean up, and having a machine in the house and ready to go comes in REALLY handy at times. You can own the machine for about what it costs to have your carpet cleaned by a pro twice. It will take about 10 rentals to pay for it versus a rental unit, but you have the convenience of not having to go to the store to get it- plus it'll always be on hand when you need it.