Janiner: Congrats on the new floormate and I agree w Lazygarden's observations. I don't know which one I have, it just says Spin and Scrub on the front. We have had it for about 2 years and I love it, given what it is for and how well it does the difficult task of cleaning tile. We have 1550 square feet of tile (the whole house, including the bedrooms), no pets or kids, and I hate housecleaning, so do as little as possible. But the tile is light, so I still have to do it every 6 weeks or so. The worst is always the kitchen, especially under our restaurant-style thick rubber mat in front of the cooking area. It has lots of holes for things to drop through and can be quite a mess. When we bought the floormate, the sales staff were clear in stating that it was for flooring, but not specifically for grout and that the brushes would only reach the grout if is was very high -close to the height of the tile itself. Our grout is darkish, so it is not much of an issue. Here is a tip for you on a way to pre-clean any really dirty stubborn spots: Go to Sears and pick up a Scumbuster by Black and Decker. This little battery operated hand-held device has rotating scrubbers (and several attachments) that will clean any tile or grout, no matter how bad it is. I love it. For floors, it is still hands and knees (or sit on a low stool or chair, which is what I do). I also use it in the shower, though there is not much to do there, since we don't use bar soap. Back to the floormate, my normal process is to use the stick vac to clean up crumbs and heavier dirt, then the swiffer for dust and to get under things, and then the Scumbuster (only if needed, which is not too often) and lastly the Floormate. While I know the floormate will do dry vac work, I have not found it to be very good at that unless you have a wide open area and not much dirt to get up. I still love this useful device, but am dreaming of the day when we can hire a housecleaning service. We can afford it, but hubby "does not want strangers in the house...." Lynne

I am actually considering the haan myself which is how I stumbled on this posting. I currently own the shark steam mop and still use it but my husband broke the handle. So when I was looking at prices on getting a new one I stumbled on several other steam mops and thought the haan looked promising. Since I can't help you with a review on the Haan I thought I'd give you a detailed review of the shark steam mop instead. Pros 1)reusable pads Though it is frustrating to have to wash them in coin laundry I loved that I didn't have to buy pads all the time like swiffer mops or similar products that I considered but never used. I had to buy the extra pads just because I don't do laundry often enough to only have the 2 that the mop comes with. 2)no chemicals I have a one and a half year old and a two and a half year old so it's not just about the environment but more about knowing that my kids aren't touching a chemical soaked floor. It also didn't leave the sticky feeling that a mop and bucket or hands and knees chemical cleaning would leave. 3)No longer dread mopping I had an aversion to mopping before buying the shark steam mop. I hated having a dirty floor but it took so long to get it clean with a mop and I'd still have to scrub on my hands and knees. Than I bought this mop and my husband would find me mopping during the kids nap and ask "why don't you just wait until after they are in bed for the night?" and my response for the first time ever was "Because I WANT to mop!" 4) feels clean Now for some people it may take a couple cleanings to get a true clean feeling because of a buildup of chemicals on the floors. For me I still felt so much better about my floors the first time and it felt squeaky clean compared even to when we first moved into our apartment. The next few times I used it, it got to feeling cleaner each time. I walk across other people's floors and my socks are filthy but at home my socks stay clean if I keep it mopped. I really want to get my mom one because her floors turn my socks grey so quick but unfortunately she would take it as an insult even if I could afford to buy her one. LOL 5)lightweight There is nothing heavy about this mop but of course that is because of the chinsey materials used for the construction so it's not a great pro because I'd rather lug something heavy around if it meant it wouldn't break. Cons 1)Flimsy handle I read reviews before I bought the shark and decided to buy it despite claims that it had a flimsy handle that broke when you pushed on it too hard. I had simply figured that because I knew about that I could just be careful and make sure if I felt it flex I would ease up on it. Problem was I didn't tell my husband about that. So one day I came home to a half cleaned kitchen floor and my beloved steam mop with the handle broke in half! He said he was just cleaning and while scrubbing a spot on the floor with it the handle broke. I have used it since only because I refuse to go back to a mop and bucket and it's still easier to use it on my hands and knees than to scrub the floor with a sponge and chemicals. 2)small water tank I only have one small kitchen floor to do and a small square in my entryway to use this on regularly. On occasion I use it on my bathroom floor. I can do one floor with the tank if the floor is not really dirty. But most often my floor is very dirty with all kinds of stuff stuck on it even if I just did it the day before(my kids are really messy) so I have to refill it at least once. 3)no scrubbing aid If you have seen the infomercials for the steam mop you would think based on those that a couple passes of the mop would clean anything off your floor. This is not true by any stretch of the imagination. I have to grab closer to the base of the handle as well as the top(due to the flimsy quality)and scrub like you would have to with a sponge. Don't get me wrong it's a lot easier than a regular mop and hands and knees scrubbing but just don't expect miracles. 4)Price Sure this mop does not cost hundreds of dollars but that doesn't make it cheap. Especially since they used such flimsy materials to make the mop. 5)dripping When you remove the dirty pad from the mop after emptying the tank of any last little bit of water left over, water still tends to drip out the bottom so I usually try to have a clean one ready to put on right after so it doesn't drip on the floor of my closet when I store it between cleanings. 6)requires pumping to release steam This didn't really bother me that much but you have to pump a lot to steam extra dirty, sticky, gunky spots. This may be more for the pro side because you can control the amount of steam but I kind of like the idea of constant steaming without needing to pump the handle like crazy... didn't know they made stuff like that until I started looking into the haan today. 7)makes other things look dirty Now this may sound silly but once i cleaned my floor with this mop I wished they made something like it for my walls! All the pen, crayon, fingerprints and various things I have scrubbed off my walls I really wished I had some sort of steam mop to help with that job! LOL 8)need to clean in corners and along edges of floor This mop does not clean well right up to the baseboards. You will need to take the pad and wipe down the area right against the baseboards and in the corners. You can still use cleaning wipes or something for this job if you wish but going for the whole no chemicals green approach you could use an extra pad and pump the steam mop facing the baseboards so the mess is steamed then wipe with the extra pad. So yeah it's annoying but I haven't heard of one that actually does this job for you. Now I know there are more cons than pros but altogether I really loved my steam mop until the handle broke. I'm not saying there isn't anything better. I'm just saying steam mopping is the best and the shark is a pretty good option that works well in comparison to regular mopping. I do not have any other steam mop experience to compare it with which is why I am researching this stuff myself right now. So yes the steam mop is a great idea. The shark steam mop was great introduction to steam mopping. Now that it is broken and I am faced with buying another one I'm definitely prepared to do some researching to find a better one. Oh yeah and I didn't have this mop for very long and would have returned it but I lost the receipt and just decided to keep using the broken one until I could get a new one. Hope all this helps and I'll book mark this so I can send you a link to any comparisons I find between the haan and shark steam mops.

I bought this when I was tired of trying to figure out the best grout for my shower and let a Daltile salesman sell me this product. It was supposed to be close to waterproof, but once you buy it you find out it is not. I have done many tile jobs in houses I have lived in, so grouting is hardly new to me. It is one of the easier parts of tiling and my wife and I can grout and clean tile quickly. After reading all the horrible reviews after I bought it (check all the Flexcolor CQ colors for more reviews), I thought about returning it. But I convinced myself some people never have good experiences and some never read instructions. I read and reread all the instructions and looked at lots of videos. I applied in small (3 sq. ft.) areas and wiped down excess immediately and kept at it. It was too no avail—the tile looks dull and the haze is thick. A white scrubbing pad (the mildly abrasive ones that disappear as you use them) with an abrasive tool and a microfiber cloth will get a lot of it off the next day. Not sure whether I have to get tile haze remover from Mapei for this (I promise myself never to buy Mapei products again). I only did about 15 sq. ft. so far. I will apply Grout Release today to the rest of the almost 200 sq,. ft. of tile I have. They recommend that for bumpy tile, but even with subway tile the haze is very bad. Applying the grout is very, very time consuming on a wall. It is highly sanded and does not adhere to itself well when wet, so pieces of it constantly fall off the float. It is important to add and tape visqueen or other covering to floors and any other surface you don't want grout on because removing it is very hard. It does not easily get it into spaces between tiles, though because it is sanded it works on wide and narrow spacing. The previous owner did this shower and did a bad job—including walls not square or plumb, so tile spacing was very difficult. That is one advantage of this grout—it works from 1/16 to 1/2". It claims to be color consistent and does not stain though it doesn't matter much on subway tile. It took me an hour to do the small amount with constant cleaning. Probably a very, very small amount on the float is all that works unless you are doing a floor. Having to constantly go to the bucket for small amount slows you down even more. This product has been on the market for quite a while. Some love it and some hate it. The reviews on the internet show both contractors and homeowners have the same reactions of love and hate. There is hardly any in between. Maybe after doing this for 5 or 10 jobs, you can master it, but for contractors that means expensive calls backs and for homeowners that means aggravation, extra work and maybe more money. A good product for a masochist, someone with a variety of tile spacing because of poor initial construction and maybe to avoid color issues. For the rest of us, almost anything else has to be better.

Hey, I finally pulled my Haan steam mop out of the box and took it for a trial run. It's pretty good. It did a good job of cleaning the bathroom floor and I tried it on the wood floors, too. I was surprised that there is no way to adjust the amount of steam for different types of floors. I'd rather have less for wood and more for tile. It also doesn't get down into the grout, dammit. You do have to vacuum or sweep the floor thoroughly first, of course. I think it will be handy and sure beats lugging the sponge mop and bucket around. I am please that it is so light.