Vileda Steam Mop review
It may lack fancy features but the Vileda Steam Mop is good at what it does
While a lot of steam cleaners now ship with a huge range of accessories, to try and turn them into all-encompassing models that can clean absolute everything, theVileda Steam Mop is refreshingly simple. This is just a standard steam mop, designed to help you get your hard floors clean, but its simplicity also means that it’s comparatively very cheap. If you only care about cleaning your hard floors the, this certainly seems like an interesting cleaner.
Design
The Vileda Steam Mop is rather simple, but its slim profile means it can be stored easily in a tall cupboard and can handily stand upright on its own. Many other steam mops, such as the Vax Steam Fresh Power Plus, require a wall bracket to stay upright. With very few buttons, the Vileda is a great choice for steam cleaning newbies, being incredibly easy to use. The 0.4-litre water tank means you’ll be cleaning for longer (16m 13s in my tests) and won’t be waiting long to use it, thanks to the surprisingly short 15-second heat-up time.
Power consumption is low, with just 0.231kWh recorded during a lengthy cleaning session in the kitchen. Weighing just 2.5Kg, the Vileda is one of the lightest steam mops I’ve used and could easily be moved around the house, although it isn’t quite as lightweight as the Karcher SC1.
The heating mechanism heats water on-demand, with the tank always storing cool water. So, if you open the tank when the mop’s on, you won’t get a jet of hot steam pouring out, causing damage. You should be a bit careful around the tank and heater, though, as the mop gets very warm after it’s been used for a while. It’s also a slight shame that you can’t control steam flow from a trigger, and even turning the mop off doesn’t stench the flow, as you have to wait for the Steam Mop to cool first.
Cleaning performance
Limited to just floor cleaning, the Vileda Steam mop excels at removing tough stains, gliding incredibly well across hard surfaces. There’s no trigger to pull or button to press to get the steamer going, just turn it on and steam pours out at a steady rate automatically.
Taking just a few swipes and a couple of minutes to clear tricky breakfast spillages from the kitchen floor, I barely needed to apply any pressure, as some steam cleaners need you to add that extra oomph. The mop cover itself is only loosely held on with velcro, so I found that it would slip on occasion and would be tricky to use. Thanks to a carpet glider, the Vileda can also be used on fabric surfaces, albeit with a little bit more friction, requiring a bit of extra force to overcome.
Although perfect for clearing liquid stains, more substantial dirt was unfortunately pushed and smeared around the floor, making more mess, which left me feeling as though I reached a stalemate in the floor cleaning war. The triangular cleaning head was very manoeuvrable and could reach stains in the corners, but would sometimes click into place when moving it around as if it was vertically stood up.
Steam power can be adjusted by a simple knob, although I felt like I needed the Vileda to be at max power when cleaning, as I found the steam output lower down the dial to be pretty poor at getting rid of some pretty typical stains. I’d recommend trying the lower settings only for more delicate floor surfaces.
Conclusion
A stripped down and back to basics steam cleaner, the Vileda Steam Mop is a great choice for anyone who simply needs to get a hard floor clean. For full steam control, the Karcher SC1 Steam Stick is a brilliant choice and has a more flexible design. You can also see my other top choices in my best steam cleaner guide. For those wanting something simple and easy to use, the Vileda Steam Mop is the steam cleaner for you. Don’t expect the Vileda Steam Mop to do everything, but what it does do (clean floors) it does very well.
