Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner Review

Introduction

While most floor cleaning appliances (vacuums and hard floor cleaners) are now cordless, there’s one area that’s largely stayed with plug-in models: carpet cleaners.

Due to the high-power suction required, cordless tools don’t last long enough, until now with the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner.

Thanks to its huge battery, it will run for up to 35 minutes on a single charge, making it a quick and convenient tool for when you need to do more than a spotwash.

Design and Features

• Compatible with ONEPWR batteries
• Auto doses detergent
• Three operating modes

A little smaller than many other carpet cleaners, such as the Vax Platinum Power Max Pet-Design, the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner is a relatively compact model. It even breaks down, with the handle removable for easy storage. I managed to put my review sample at the bottom of my understairs cupboard with no problem.

Its 260mm width means this cleaner is arguably better at handling smaller areas, such as homes with area rugs or just one or two carpeted areas. If you need something for whole-home cleaning, a plug-in model might make more sense.

Largely, the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner is much like other carpet cleaners, with a clean water tank that takes a combination of water and detergent, with the fill levels marked on the side. It takes just over 2-litres of combined water and detergent, so, again, is aimed at cleaning smaller areas.

Vax provides some starter detergent and pet stain and odour remover in the box, and there’s a choice of different detergents to buy when you run out.

There’s also a dirty water tank (a similar size) where the dirty water ends up after a clean. This has a float in it that stops water from being sucked up when the tank’s full, and it breaks apart easily for cleaning.

Dirt agitation is handled by the brush at the front of the carpet cleaner, which spins at high speed. This brush can be removed for cleaning and to cut away any hair that might get wrapped around it.

As with other carpet cleaners, you should thoroughly vacuum a room before you use the carpet cleaner.

Water is sucked up through the clear plastic section that sits on top of the floor head, and then the water flows up through the clear plastic section on top of the dirty tank. It’s a nice design, as I could see dirty water was being removed and could stop when no more water was being removed from the carpet.

As this is a ONEPWR product, the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner is compatible with any battery from the series. If, for example, you have the Vax HomePro Detect Pet-Design, you could use its battery to extend the runtime.

The main difference here is that the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner ships with the biggest battery in the line-up, a massive 8Ah model. That’s double the size of the 4Ah battery that most of the other appliances ship with. 

It’s important to have a battery this size, as allows the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner to use a high level of suction power without the worry of draining the battery too fast.

This carpet cleaner is easy to use and has three modes (although the manual actually makes it sound like four), selectable using the + and – controls on the main wand.

The manual says there’s a Wash mode and a Dry mode, but they’re actually one combined mode and are the default. In this mode, the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner dispenses detergent on a forward swipe and sucks it up on a backwards swipe.

I like this kind of system, as it takes the guesswork out of how much detergent to add. Instead, you just methodically move the vacuum forwards and backwards to start cleaning.

There’s also a Spot mode, which dispenses detergent on forwards and backwards swipes, while using the suction power. It’s a useful mode for deeper stains, but it will drain the battery faster, so use it sparingly.

Finally, there’s a Dry Only mode, where the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner will only use suction power. This is useful for more thoroughly drying a carpet at the end of clean.

You can keep an eye on the battery life by looking at the indicator on the carpet cleaner’s screen. It’s worth doing this to get an idea of when to stop: it’s no good running out of battery part-way through a clean and having a wet carpet to deal with.

At 6.1kg without the battery, the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner is light for a carpet cleaner. Its small body also makes it quite easy to push around, although it’s not as flexible as a cordless vacuum cleaner.

This model doesn’t have a plug-in hose for spot cleaning. If you need this feature, you’ll either need a plug-in model that has this or buy a separate spot cleaner, such as the Vax SpotWash Home Cordless, which uses the same ONEPWR batteries.

Performance

• Deep cleans most stains
• A little tricky to clean

To see how well the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner performed, I used it on a few test stains, starting with my dried on mud test. For this particular mess, I found that the stain was removed quite easily using the standard mode, with methodical strokes backwards and forwards. In fact, there was little difference in the stain removal time between this cleaner and a plug-in model.

I then tackled my red wine stain. Using the standard mode wasn’t quite enough (or at least the stain removal was quite slow), so I switched to spot cleaning mode and used that instead. This saturated the stain with cleaning solution, and the mess was easily removed.

I finished off by using the Dry Only mode to remove as much water as I could. When the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner was no longer removing water, I measured the relative humidity of the carpet at 36%. That’s a little higher than with a plug-in model, and shows that this cleaner doesn’t have quite as much suction power.

Taking the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner home, I used it on an area rug that covers most of my living room. This hadn’t been cleaned in a while, and the fibres were tired and compressed.

Standard mode worked quite well, but I found that I needed the Spot mode to really get the dirt out of it. This used up the solution at quite a rate, and I went through an entire tank cleaning that one rug. I then used Dry Only mode to suck up as much mess as I could.

At the end of cleaning, the rug at gone from being tired looking, to having its fibres refreshed and some spring put back into it. I found that my battery was down to one bar, so for deep cleaning you’re probably looking at tackling one room at a time, unless you’ve got an additional battery that you can use.

I cleaned in the morning and, by the early evening, my rug was dry enough to walk on.

At 78dB, the Vax ONEPWR Compact Cordless Carpet Cleaner is loud but slightly quieter than many plug-in carpet cleaners. I think this is down to the slightly lower suction power on offer.

Cleaning was mostly easy, but some clumps of my rug got sucked up and caught in the vents on the floor head. Most could be washed out under a tap, but I found it useful to have a pipe cleaner to hand for a thorough clean.

Should you buy it?

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