Best laminate floor cleaner: Make light work of cleaning your laminate flooring
Get your laminate floors spick, span and sparkling with the best laminate floor cleaners you can buy
The best laminate floor cleaners are a serious upgrade from a mop and bucket. Instead of washing your floors with increasingly dirty water and waiting an age for them to dry, laminate floor cleaners lift up dirt and debris with minimal water, leaving your floor fresh and sanitised. Some of the best laminate floor cleaners will even vacuum, wash and dry your floor all at once, making them ideal for busy people in busy homes.
If you want to know more about how to choose the best laminate floor cleaner, our buying guide below has additional information you might find useful. If you already know what you’re looking for, read on for our pick of the best laminate floor cleaners available now.
The best laminate floor cleaners at a glance:
- Best for speedy cleaning: Vax ONEPWR Glide | £187
- Best affordable cleaner: Kärcher SC2 Easyfix | £126
- Best for pet owners: Bissell 2224E Crosswave | £252
- Best all-rounder: Kärcher FC5 | £270
How to choose the best laminate floor cleaner for you
What are the benefits of a laminate floor cleaner?
The main benefit of a laminate floor cleaner is, quite simply, how much cleaner they’ll make your floors. Instead of pushing the dirt around like a mop and bucket would, most laminate floor cleaners have separate tanks for fresh and dirty water. This means the water cleaning your floor is always fresh, while the dirty water is collected back up into the machine along with the debris and grime.
Laminate floor cleaners can also be used with a number of antibacterial cleaning solutions, ensuring your floor is left not just clean, but disinfected and mostly free from harmful bacteria.
Almost all laminate floor cleaners can be used on other types of flooring too – from sealed tiles to wood flooring and even sometimes carpets and rugs – making them perfect for cleaning all over the house.
What’s the difference between a laminate floor cleaner and a steam cleaner?
Both laminate floor cleaners and steam cleaners are great for getting laminate floors looking their best, but they work in different ways. A laminate floor cleaner will hoover up dirt and debris, wash the floors with fresh water and then suck up the dirty water into a separate tank, leaving the floors almost entirely dry.
Steam cleaners, on the other hand, use water that’s been super-heated into steam to blast away dirt, grime and bacteria. They don’t tend to leave your floors quite as dry as a dedicated laminate floor machine, but are still less wasteful and more hygienic than a mop and bucket.
READ NEXT: Choose from our favourite steam cleaners
How much should I spend on a laminate floor cleaner?
The more powerful and larger capacity laminate floor cleaners come in at over £300, but you can snap up a good model for around £100. We think that somewhere in the middle is best for most households due to their capacity and feature though, and have included several of our favourite models in the £200 to £250 range below.
READ NEXT: Check out the finest corded, cordless, bagged and bagless vacuums
The best laminate floor cleaners you can buy in 2023
1. Vax ONEPWR Glide: Best laminate floor cleaner for speedy cleaning
Price when reviewed: £187 | Check price at Amazon
If you don’t have a lot of spare time, get ready for this nifty laminate floor cleaner to become your new best friend. It simultaneously vacuums, washes and dries your floor in almost no time, leaving the floor dry enough to walk on after only a couple of minutes.
The vacuum function is no slouch, picking up large chunks of food such as pasta and cereal, as well as finer dust and debris. The twin-tank system then washes your floors with the antibacterial cleaning solution from one tank, with the dirty water getting picked up in another, so you’re only ever washing the floor with clean water.
The cordless ONEPWR can be used on any sealed hard floor, making it a valuable and worthwhile addition to your cleaning equipment roster. It can run for up to 30 minutes on a single charge and has a mid-sized 0.6l tank capacity – ideal for small and medium households. We especially love its headlights: the LEDs mounted on the front help you see dust easily, so you can ensure your laminate floors are spotless.
Key specs – Capacity: 0.6l; Runtime: 30 mins; Charge time: 3 hours; Weight: 4.9kg (without battery); Dimensions: 290 x 250 x 1,110mm (WDH)
2. Kärcher EWM 2 Electric Wipe Mop: Best lightweight laminate floor cleaner
Price when reviewed: £139 | Check price at Amazon
Weighing just 2.4kg, the cordless EWM 2 from Kärcher is an impressively lightweight and easy-to-use laminate floor cleaner that doesn’t compromise on functionality. The slim roller brush design makes it easy to manoeuvre around furniture, and it’s also simple to store in its docking station. Better still, once you’re done cleaning, the rollers can just be popped into the washing machine.
It only uses fresh clean water to wash the floor, with the dirty water picked up in a separate tank, and while it cleans well with water alone, you can also add a laminate floor-cleaning solution for added freshness and antibacterial properties.
It will give you 20 minutes of cleaning on one charge, which isn’t a huge amount of time but should be enough to give a couple of average-sized rooms a good once-over. At under £200, it also squares up favourably to a few other comparable models in terms of affordability and functionality.
Key specs – Capacity: 0.36l; Runtime: 20 mins; Charge time: 4 hours; Weight: 2.4kg; Dimensions: 305 x 226 x 1,220mm (WDH)
3. Kärcher SC2 Easyfix: Best affordable laminate floor cleaner
Price when reviewed: £126 | Check price at Amazon
Steam cleaners are all the rage at the moment, and it’s easy to understand the hype. These powerful machines can deliver an incredible clean all over the home, killing off most bacteria with water alone. Instead of using harsh cleaning chemicals, they turn the water into super-heated pressurised steam that can be used to deep-clean your home, with no scrubbing required.
The SC2 EasyFix steam cleaner from Kärcher boasts a decent 1-litre water tank and a hugely helpful 5m cable, which makes it easy and quick to use. While it’s perfect for laminate floors, it can also be deployed all over the home on carpets, sealed tiles and hardwood floors, and even hobs or upholstery using the handheld nozzle.
Key specs – Capacity: 1l; Runtime: N/A (corded); Charge time: N/A; Weight: 2.9kg; Dimensions: 255 x 380 x 260mm (WDH)
4. Bissell 2224E Crosswave Pet Floor Cleaner: Best laminate floor cleaner for pet owners
Price when reviewed: £252 | Check price at Amazon
If you share your home with furry family members, you’ll know how endless the cleaning can feel, with pet hair seemingly springing up almost overnight. This floor cleaner, designed specifically for homes with pets, is ideal for keeping laminate floors in tip-top condition, but it can also be used on carpets. The 0.8-litre tank, coupled with the fact that this is a corded model, lets you keep going for as long as you need to get the floors sparkling again.
The thicker brush roll makes it particularly good at picking up fur, as well as all the usual dust and dirt a busy floor gathers. A clever strainer in the wastewater tank separates liquid and solids too, meaning that when you come to empty it, you can easily put any pet hair and large debris directly into the bin instead of clogging up the sink. This model has its own liquid pet cleaning solution which deodorises as it cleans, but you can use any cleaning solution designed for hard floor machines.
It does have quite a hefty price tag, and there are certainly cheaper models that would suit smaller homes or lighter use. But in busy, bustling homes filled with children and animals, this laminate floor cleaner will soon become invaluable.
Key specs – Capacity: 0.8l; Runtime: N/A (corded); Charge time: N/A; Weight: 4.9kg; Dimensions: 300 x 230 x 1,168mm (WDH)
5. Bissell 2582E Crosswave: Best heavy-duty cordless laminate floor cleaner
Price when reviewed: £281 | Check price at Amazon
Going cordless often means you sacrifice a bit of oomph for more manoeuvrability and less time trying to find an accessible plug socket. However, this laminate floor cleaner from Bissell is an exception, delivering top-notch cleaning power without a power cable. Its 0.8-litre water tank and 30-minute runtime mean it’s powerful enough to clean a couple of medium-sized rooms in one charge. Better still, it vacuums, washes and dries all at once.
It’s perfect for cleaning sealed laminate floors, but it can also be used on any sealed tile or wood floors, as well as on carpets and most rugs. It has separate tanks for clean and dirty water and a useful strainer that separates off hair and larger dirt for easier clean-up.
Key specs – Capacity: 0.8l; Runtime: 30 minutes; Charge time: 4 hours; Weight: 4.9kg; Dimensions: 330 x 350 x 1,180mm (WDH)
6. Kärcher FC5: Best all-rounder laminate floor cleaner
Price when reviewed: £206 | Check price at Amazon
If you’re looking for a budget laminate floor cleaner that’s a little less pricey than the top-of-the-range models, but still need something reliable and suited to heavy use, the FC5 from Kärcher is the perfect match. Like its more expensive counterparts, this model vacuums, washes and dries at the same time, with two rotating microfibre rollers that get right up to the edge of your wall and can easily navigate around furniture. The rollers themselves can be chucked in the washing machine once you’re done, and should last a while before needing to be replaced.
As it’s corded, it can run until the 0.5-litre tank needs to be refilled, making it a great choice for larger homes. The 7m cable is a bonus too, saving you from the agony of moving from outlet to outlet as you clean. It can only be used on hard floors such as laminate, tile, stone, sealed wood and PVC, but remains a great piece of kit at an attractive price.
Key specs – Capacity: 0.4l; Runtime: N/A (corded); Charge time: N/A; Weight: 4.6kg; Dimensions: 320 x 270 x 1,220mm (WDH)
