BISSELL® Big Green® PET PRO Carpet Cleaner, 3288

I have previously owned a Bissell but it wasnt a deep cleaner. After reading the reviews and Amazon running this on a lightning deal, I purchased it. After vacuuming all the carpets, I started this machine up. I have used a Rug Doctor and thought that it did a fair job. This machine BLOWS a Rug Doctor out of the water. It came already assembled, all I had to do was remove all of the packing material and lift the handle. My first impression: 1. While heavy, it maneuvers very easily. Much easier than the Rug Doctor. I attribute this to the fact that the handle pivots forward and back like a vacuum cleaner does rather than being stationary. 2. I liked that you didnt have to fill a bucket or other tank to fill the clean reservoir. The clean tank comes out of the machine to be filled. 3. This thing SUCKS! I mean that in a good way. When using the RD (rug doctor) the carpet always stayed wet for hours. With this machine, even with spraying in a forward motion and then again when pulling backwards (so 2 applications of solution with only one removal), on a second pass to remove the water, there was very little left in the carpet. 4. I LOVE that I can see the water that has been pulled out of the carpet. It lets me know just how much water is being put down and how much is being pulled back out. 5. The machine does tell you when you are out of solution and its easy to see the level by looking at the tank. Its similar to knowing how much milk is left in the carton thru a frosted surface. 6. Dumping the waste water is fairly easy. The only downside is that once you remove the top portion (where you see the water being sucked into the waste tank) there is nothing really to hold onto when dumping the tank since the handle is on the top part. 7. Even after thoroughly vacuuming the carpet, this machine found hair that my commercial vacuum did not get out of the carpet. 8. We do have a cat and dog. The dog is very stubborn and if anything hits the floor, she either will try to eat it or cover it up by peeing on it. There was a single spot that after treating with an enzyme solution and cleaning with the RD, there was still an odor. After a single pass with this machine, the odor was gone and there was no longer a strange feeling to that part of the carpet. 9. When using the RD, I felt that I had to go over the carpet several times, keeping in mind that all of our carpet is under 3 years old. With this machine, I could tell with my bare feet that there was a definite difference to how the carpet felt after just one pass. 10. The carpet was dry within 3 hours even in the areas that I had made a forward and backwards pass. Our carpet has a pretty deep pile as well. About 3/4 of an inch in length to give you an idea of what type it was used on. 11. The only problem that I had was operator error. When I filled the tank the second time, I did not get them lined up exactly right and it would put water down but nothing was being pulled back up. I unhooked the latch, reseated the top tank and viola! Back in business. So far I have not found any downsides to this machine but I will check back in after the next time I use it.

I just got this last night and tried out a small high traffic area on my floor, we bought the house in June and was thinking about replacing the carpets. after just one pass, Im not sure if they look new but they look, feel and smell clean.!!!! good -This machine weights 50 lbs or so, you might think this is bad but it is very good, you dont have to push or pull up for the machine to clean or suck up the water, in short - no extra effort on your part. -it is very easy to push and pull, the large tires in the back really help with this - my wife is able to use it, and she has back issues - filling and emptying the water is very easy - floor is very dry even after 2 passes - attachment is easy to attach and use. - pulled up lot of hair out of the carpet, did leave strings on the floor but it sucked them up just fine - chocolate stain that was dried in for 3 months cam up in 2 passes could be better (nit picking here) - the trigger for the water is only on the right side of the handle I wish it was on both - some kind of laser grid to project on the floor, if carpets are dirty its easy if they are not so dirty you may have trouble seeing where you have cleaned already - wider clean path seems to only clean between the back wheels , the right side seem to clean closer to the edge then the left side - in a high traffic area where the padding has wore down, it will miss spots so you may have to go over this area at many different angles what to watch for make sure to follow the directions for cleaning, specially for your first time on your carpets to get them nice and clean pull in trigger and push, then still holding trigger pull back on the same path, then release trigger and push on the same path again, then pull on the same path. (that 4 pass on one path 2 with trigger and 2 without) When i read this i thought it would take forever, but it does no take that long and in heavy soiled area it does work much better, also the 2 passes with no trigger are the suction and drying passes they also do some cleaning too. I tried one pass of and it did not clean as well, for light areas or touch up one pass would be fine, the machine seems to do the most cleaning when you push with the trigger pulled. so if you just need to touch up i would say push with trigger in then push without the trigger to get the best results. if you need it to dry faster make an extra push or 2 with the dry pass Im very happy with this machine thus far and will update this if i find anything else out. the above is from only about one day of use. UPDATE: MAY2013 I have used this many times, in the high traffic areas its about 1 time every 3 weeks, then rest of the time is justs catch up before company comes over to knock out the pet dander in the house we have about 2500 sq feet of carpet and i can do all of it in about 1.5-2 hours, I have found if you just hold the trigger in a push down a path then pull back the same path, its still cleans 80% of what the above does, and you can get 100% if you just move slower. this floor is still very dry as long as you finish a path with a pull pass. It take 1.5-2 hours to dry and not get wet socks and 2.5-3.5 to dry where you feel with your hand its dry. IF you want an area to dry faster i just make one pass over the carpet to suck up more water (usually do this when it run out of clean water) if you put a fan on the damp area it will dry amazing fast. good luck and happy cleaning :P

The most important adjetive for this machine is, AMAZING! First, Id like to recommend anyone researching this or any product... Read reviews. The good and the bad! Then, look for the trends in those reviews and from there, determine for YOU what is important versus what is not important. A handful of bad reviews that involve complaining about things that have nothing to do with the product specifically (i.e. packaging, delivery, etc) or a small percentage of reviews that have minor breaks or other minor problems versus the hundreds or better yet, thousands of great reviews on the same product, those bad reviews may need to be taken lightly. Unless, of course, those things are important to you. Do consider this. It doesnt matter how a product is made (assembly line or hand made), there will ALWAYS be faults. No matter the company or how good the product is overall. Obviously, the fewer problems the better but if you are seeing hundreds or thousands of good reviews to a few dozen or so negative, then that would be a reasonable percentage of errors with any good to great product. I know some people will have multiple bad experiences with the same product where others have no issues. There are a multitude of reasons that could happen but look for the overall, not just that one review. That said, I recommend and do this myself, but when looking for trends, if the bad reviews are all because something breaks but maybe its a different piece each time, then there may be an obvious trend. I would possibly take that into consideration. It may not make my decision for me, but the trend of what users say about the product is what Im looking for and its paid off for me quite well. Bottom line of what Im trying to say is, dont just look at one or two reviews and dont just look at the good or the bad, but rather review as best as you are comfortable with on both ends of the spectrum and decide what trends you find and how those trends impact your decisions. For me, reading actual buyers/users reviews are better in almost all circumstances then any lab testing or any company that does product reviewing. With that, I have started my research with company reviews, but in the end, WERE the end user! It is our perspective and experience that matters most. Id rather gain real world end user perspective then read an article that may or may not be paid for to make a statement one way or the other. On to my review. I have to say this first. When I was researching and reading reviews, my first thought, when I decided I was gonna make this purchase, was I hope my money doesnt go to waste, but if I get even one great cleaning, that is better than I could pay any over priced professional with a oversized vaccum in their van, that doesnt even lift out the dirt but just wets the floor and kinda cleans. Then ITS WORTH IT. I mean not to offended any professional out there but simple soaping the floor and suctioning it up isnt cleaning. Thats multiple experiences and eventually, history doesnt lie. Now, I did follow the recommendation of at least one reviewer in this review group that doubled up on the solution, and it worked. Im not recommending that for you. Just telling you my experience and what worked for me. Now I know you saw the pictures and probably felt ill just looking at that floor. Obviously, we thought so too. Its disgusting and thus we purchased the Big Green Machine. We can compare this unit to the many other ways weve tried to keep carpet clean in companies paid and products purchased and nothing else has come close to this. We have SEVERAL pets to which I wont mention how many but I will say I dont have enough fingers to count them all. We love our fur babies and other pets. We also like having a clean floor and clean house. The floor is the biggest battle in our household. Nothing is more off putting then walking into someones house and it wreaks of animal urine. But when its your own home and everytime you come home it smells. YUCK! Multiply that smell by 5 and and that is what anyone else coming into your home smells. Weve been there. We were just there. We didnt want to host anything because of the floors. But now, I can very happily and more than confidently say that weve found our cure. This machine is just straight up, Amazing. Ive never had a professional even come close to cleaning carpets as well as this BIG Green does. If I could find a professional to do this it would almost absolutely cost more than this machine, but I can get multiple uses out of this, as long as well cared for. You can see it for yourself in my posted pics. That dirty floor there is several months of pet stains because the moment we moved into this house my first dog discovered the location of the previous tenants dogs place within less than 5 minutes being in this home. We even waited outside with our dogs before going in to this house for the first time, while they all did their business and still she started this disgusting trend. So lets chalk it up to this. More than a handful of household free roaming pets and 11, thats right, ELEVEN months of this. So heres what we did. Machine arrived as quoted at time of purchase. That very next available day off, Saturday, I carefully went through the included manual and honestly, this machine looks like it could or should be difficult, but it truly isnt. Very easy to unpack, assemble, dis-assemble, and re-assemble again. Thats important as you will have to empty this unit and refill with clean solution every one gallon. VERY easy to push/pull. Dont leave solution in tank or in machine. Keep all parts clean and dry when in storage. Thats how Ive best kept any product that uses liquids with electrical devices. Never store liquids in the machine or attachments when not in use. Unfortunately sometimes that means tossing any leftover portions unless you wish to find another way to store the liquid. Diluted solution is not recommended to be put back in with concentrate as number one, it likely wont fit, and number two, youll ruin the concentration level of the original solvent. Next, I went to work on the floor. Now, I do have to say many people and these products suggest to pretreat. I did NOT pretreat. I wanted to see how this product (with double amount solution) would actually hold up. I started with a small space (4 x 4 landing) and immediately could see the difference. Then when I started the first trip down the hallway, my wife suggested to take before and after photos. Thats what you find above. My process with doing this was to make a forward pass (I divided the hallway into 3 sections. Moving side to side the up. Closest, middle, furthest). While moving forward, I moved the machine steady at about 1 inch a second or slower. I know that seems slow but look at it. It works well. Then on the backwards pass/pull, I moved at the same pace where the carpet was heavily soiled, but where it wasnt pet stained I went about 3 inches per second. This may sound slow but consider that you have to let the solution get into the carpet and let the machine do its job. No product can do that if you rush through it. And dont force it. Let it do it job. You just steer it and place solution accordingly. On the forward pass, I held the trigger to spray the entire distance, then on the backwards pull I only held the trigger where stains resided. The suction is at the very front of the unit and collects everything on the backwards pull. Where heavy solution was applied, another slow pass, without pulling the trigger, will gather up about 95% of the moisture. That said I did make 2-3 passes forward and back with applying solution where the stains were prominent. Which was a strong majority of the hallway. The first pass really did the job better then great but considering the nature of the stains, I wanted to be more than thorough. This hallway measures about 4 wide by 23 long and took about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. But, boy was it worth the time, money, and effort. The bedroom is my young daughters who struggles still with door knobs and thus her room is open for her, by which the pets in the house took full advantage. Still not good but they did keep most of there spotting to the hall way. Her room was just as, if not more important than the hallway to get cleaned for her benefit and sanitary health. Once I was done with the cleaning process, I emptied the dirty and clean water tanks and rinsed thoroughly. Then I put about 1/2 gallon of plain water (No solution) in the fresh water tank and ran that over the clean floor by spraying the water just as if I were cleaning the floor. I didnt use the full half gallon. I ran enough water through until I felt the solution was pretty well cleaned out. Probably a total of 1-2 minutes of total trigger squeeze. This was to allow fresh water to run through the machine to clear out the solvents in the lines that carry the solution from the clean tank to the sprayer nozzle. I cant confirm this was or was not long enough. Just going on experience to avoid damage of the unit while in storage. Once that was all done. The carpet was completely dry by the time we went to bed. So probably 4 hours or less. Its been 2 days since I did this and spots have NOT magically returned. This is a major win. I will try to update this post after a total 1 week has passed to see if it still holds. If so, Id call this an absolute winner, where other products have completed the job or professionals have left and within two days spots have returned. That has not yet occurred in this case. Also, to resolve the pet issue, we placed a very solid metal baby gate to block the dogs from going back upstairs without us, during the day, until its all our bed time. We work from home, so the dogs hang with us throughout the day. They sleep. We work. They have always and continue to go out at least 8 or more times daily or whenever they sit at the door and whine. Love em, but now we can live easier without never disappearing pet stains. Weve been renting in this house for almost a year and in our previous home we sold, we had hard floor, for a reason, and will do the same when we buy again in the next 6 months or less. Clean floor + landlord = No loss. Happy research hunting and good luck with your floors.

This is my second Bissel carpet cleaner-had a smaller machine that heated water. This one uses hot tap water and blows warm air out bottom of machine. Don’t see this as impacting performance. My initial reaction is holy cow, this thing is easy to use and works exceptionally well-exceeds expectations. Easy to load/unload water in kitchen sink. Handle pivots for comfortable cleaning use and folds for compact storage. I had the carpet cleaned when I moved into this house 2-3 years ago. I have a golden retriever and viszla, so muddy paw prints are common. I just hit those with vacuum(Dyson animal ) and seemed like that was good, but I now believe that just blends the dirt into carpet or I don’t vacuum often enough. I went over each strip twice forward and back holding water button, then a final slow forward and back without water button. Then I moved over half machine width and repeated across room. It should need only a single pass in future if I don’t wait 2-3 years. It got all the stains out too by going back and forth a few times without pretreating. One was even a human puke stain from like a year ago. Haven’t tried the upholstery/stair wand, but that looks good. I finished a tank of water last night and emptied machine today. I poured out the hot chocolate looking water slowly and there was a thin layer of MUD on bottom of tank!! This thing really sucks in a good way.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. The carpets had seen better days of cleanliness. The old Hoover had died under warranty but they no longer make that model. So we had the purchase price in hand but no carpet cleaner. What to do? What to do? WHAT TO DO? Research and buy a different cleaner was the only recourse short of paying a service or renting - both so gauche and demeaning. As a self-made DIY amateur, the best bang for the buck based on good old Google searching and the fantastic fanatic reviews on amazing Amazon, led me to the BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner. The first drawback I experienced was sticker shock; I had never spent this much on a carpet cleaner before. The old favorite dead one was easily $100 less but alas it was no longer available to me - unrequited. Sticker shock be damned, on with the purchase after weeks of deliberation and ever-so-gentle prodding from my lovely wife. The order was placed. The dice was cast. Would it measure up to expectations? Would the detracting reviews be more correct? The mystery was afoot; only delivery and a test run would provide the answers. The BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner arrived. I could barely contain my excitement to unpack and test the beast. Unpacking and assembling for use was very simple. To my chagrin, in my zeal to start the test run, I failed to remove the two pieces of cardboard and the bottle of cleaning fluid stored in the recovery tank. The oversight became obvious on the run to the commode to empty the test collection. A bonehead move to be sure. How could I have completed a test run without using the provided fluid, you ask. Simple, I had other cleaning fluid on hand because I wasnt certain any came with the BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner. Despite the potential of being asked to surrender my MAN card, I admit I DO read instructions and manuals - just not all at once - and definitely not all (obviously) prior to operation. Sure enough, it was in there. So, here is the first bonus and positive point about the BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner - it comes with a small bottle of concentrated cleaning fluid - most likely enough for a once-over of several rooms. Other operational observations: The BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner delivers as described in most of the positive reviews. It does a good job cleaning the carpet. Dirty carpets will require more passes with it - the dirtier the more passes required - or perhaps more patience than I have in laying down a pre-treatment or applying the solution and waiting a bit before collecting. My carpets dried in good time; I didnt notice any excessive wet or damp spots. I measured the capacity of the dispensing and collection tanks on the BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner before use - perhaps a bit overly scientific or some might say anal. Then during use I observed that the collection level was just a little lower than what was dispensed. I am very happy with this. Multiple passes helped pick up water but only to a point. There is a small view port on top where you can observe the fluid collection; when it stops spotting youve picked up about as much as you can. On the negative side, it is a little loud. Im no audiologist but I dont think hearing protection is required. Your significant other will be able to sneak up on you while it is in operation. If you have a weak bladder or queasy bowels, appropriate adult protective garments may be in order. You can yodel, belt out opera, rock, or your favorite nursery rhymes whilst operating and probably not notice how bad or good you really are - but keep in mind that it isnt so loud as to drown out your voice so that others wont notice - they will - and they may comment. If you have thin skin keep this in mind. One must pay attention when seating the dispensing and collection tanks. Only once did I fail to do this. I almost immediately noticed the little observation port wasnt showing any incoming fluid. I stopped and checked - re-seated the tanks and went right back to work. The BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner is a tad cumbersome to move around but during operation I had no difficulties. During my initial marathon test run cleaning, my my back was negatively influenced - it started to ache. I attribute this to my extended test run time and my propensity to not take breaks. It is also cumbersome to carry up/down stairs for storage. I am an average male. Capet cleaning is my household duty; my wife has not had the opportunity to play with my toy yet. Overall, I LIKE it. Alas, I cannot love the BISSELL Big Green Deep Cleaning Machine Professional Grade Carpet Cleaner as my carpet cleaning heart love will always be with the no-longer-offered Hoover it replaced.

I used this product to shampoo my carpets which are a lower loft high traffic carpet made by Shaw with a pad with a waterproof barrier. I shampooed several smaller rooms, a large family room and set up stairs. I was very pleased with the ease of use of the product. It was easy to figure out. I like the separate clean water and dirty water tanks. It really did get the carpets clean and does have good suction to bring water back out of the carpet. It is rather heavy so maneuvering on a full flight of stairs was challenges. It is slightly wider that a standard stair width so if you dont have a landing mid way down it may be challenging to use this on stairs. The only other items I would change is the clarity of the viewing window that shows the water as its being sucked back into the machine. The plastic is more milky versus clear making it hard to see at times how much moisture and how clean the moisture is coming back into the machine. Overall I would recommend this product if you are looking for something that is better than your standard consumer grade carpet shampooer but not so burdensome as a shampooer you might rent from home store.

I have a great Bissell shampooer that is a pet model. Also have the little green machine. The bigger one I have works great but leaves too much water in carpets and rugs. So I bought this model thinking this was a better choice. I’ve used it two days now. It’s very heavy. It’s very hard to maneuver. It doesn’t get up against walls so need to use the little green machine after. It sucks up the water better but not by much. I’m not over saturating! It’s exhausting to use this! My other one is like vacuuming. This is like moving your fridge! Pluses: long cord, long hose. Fairly easy to assemble after filling with water and cleaner. Very easy to clean dirt chambers. I’ll keep it but probably pay someone to use it next time. Think twice! I’m not frail. I have the strength but wasting energy on moving sofas and chairs to expend way too much more on using the shampooer is a deal breaker for me.

Our carpet is 13 years old. It is a very high quality dense pile plush carpet. It’s light beige and had slowly become dirty enough that I was considering replacing it. We regularly vacuum and do not wear shoes in the house. At roughly 1500 sq feet of carpet, this was going to be quite expensive if replacing, so I decided to invest in this Bissell Big Green machine. Our Hoover Steamvac never seemed to get the carpet fully clean and it no longer could remove the traffic patterns no matter how hard I tried. I had about given up and the Bissell Big Green machine was our last hope. I’m happy to say that our carpet has been brought back to “almost” new. After shampooing with this new machine, if I asked someone about our carpet I’m sure they would think it’s new. This machine is amazing! I had to erase 13 years of use, and this is my procedure. Vacuum VERY well first. There is not need to make the machine pick up stuff that you could have gotten with the vacuum! Fill the tank with hot tap water and use the recommended Bissell PRO shampoo at the recommended dose. (two cups for a full tank) I pretreat the heavily soiled areas with the Bissell spray stain pretreatment and rub it into the carpet by hand. After 5 minutes of letting that soak, I pick a section of carpet roughly 6 feet wide by 10 feet long and do one forward pass and one backward pass over that whole section with the shampoo being dispensed. I do a row forward then back, then move over and do a row and so forth. I then go back over that area only sucking up the residual shampoo/water. without dispensing more shampoo. I then repeat with a second forward and reverse pass with shampoo and another pass to suck up the residual water. I then do a third and final forward and reverse pass with shampoo followed by sucking up the residual water. By this point the carpet has typically been fully cleaned. If not, I go over any areas as needed. Typically during the second to third pass is when you really see the magic happening. Typically, on the first pass with shampoo the machine will pickup and leave many dirty carpet balls in it’s wake. This is all the crud that the brushes are pulling out of the carpet. Im not sure why my vacuum cant get this stuff, but the Green Machine pulls up stuff that you didnt know existed in your carpet. In my case, these are NOT carpet fibers, but rather small hairs, dust, etc. and they are dark gray/black clumps. Normally I can suck these back up just by passing back over them with the machine. They end up in the dirty water bucket and get poured out when emptying the bucket. The machine works wonders and I’ve been able to completely remove traffic patterns. It takes some time, but be patient. This machine is head and shoulders above your typical home use carpet shampooer. I haven’t been more happy with a purchase in quite some time. This literally saved us thousands of dollars and our carpet looks practically BRAND NEW after 13 years of use. Attached are photos of some of our carpet just before using this machine, and about ½ way through cleaning this particular room. Even if this machine puked on me today, I’ve gotten my money’s worth. Couldn’t be happier. It’s about as loud as a vacuum cleaner. I haven’t tried any of the attachment, as I already have a hand held portable upholstery/stair cleaner. Highly recommnded.

I never leave reviews however this rug and upholstery cleaner deserves one..Last year I spent over 800.00 getting my carpets cleaned by a professional only to have the stains come back within a month. I bought this after reading the reviews and I am completely blown away...I shampooed my carpet over a month ago and it took all the stains out, .y carpet dried very quickly and the stains have not returned. I also have cats and one decided she was going to start peeing on my soft furniture...I used the upholstery brush with the urine cleaner that comes with it and the smell is completely gone...stop spending money on professionals and just get this ...you will not be sorry!