Bissell 5200 Upright Wet/Dry Vacuum

I bought this unit as an intermediate solution for cleaning the floors in my house. I have a Dyson DC15 Animal for dry vacuuming and a Hoover Agility for serious, hard floor cleaning. I thought that this little baby would be good for the bathroom and what not. My Agility is big and bulky, huge tanks for the solution and for the collection and just a huge pain for a little job. This Bissell seems to be the perfect fit. About the size of my Swiffer but did both wet and dry cleaning. We have two dogs (one is a puppy) and a 5 year old child. There is no end to the small jobs that need to be done around here!

I unpacked the box today and found that I had to do very minimal assembly. Within about 5 minutes, we were up and running and getting ready for our first use. I filled the clean solution tank as directed and had the distinct feeling that I wasn't going to get very far on that small amount of cleaner. But otherwise, so far so good.

All assembled and filled, I started on my son's bedroom. Hard wood floors, here I come. The first thing that I noticed was that the crazy thing seemed to be too short for me to comfortably use. I am 5' 10" and would have been more comfortable if the handle had been a couple of inches longer. My son's floor was not dirty at all, so I thought that would be the best place to test run. Let me tell you, this thing is hard to push! I started out by vacuuming the whole floor and then flipped it over to do the wet cleaning. I felt like the unit was getting stuck to the floor. There was a really annoying, squeaking sound as it tried to suck up all the solution. The box said that the water would be pulled into the collection tank and that the floors would be virtually ready to walk on immediately. What a joke! Everywhere I sprayed the solution there were streaks. Eventually, they did dry but the floors were not ready to walk on for several minutes.

Next, on to my office. Again, hard wood floors and again the same reaction. Hard to push, too short, squeaking sound, streaks and the whole bit.

Now, to the bathroom. We have laminate flooring in the bathroom and the unit did a passable job in there. Better than the hard wood but not so much that I thought that I had spent my money wisely.

Our tile entry way went a little better. I had an assortment of messes to clean up on there, since we are still potty training the puppy. It got up the dirt, dust and pee from the dog but not the Play Doh from the kid. The dry side would not sweep it up and the wet side would not mop it up. I ended up having to pick it up by hand.

I moved into the dining room next, again with laminate flooring and noticed that the machine wouldn't suck up anything at all! I had gone through 3/4 of my cleaning solution but the collector wouldn't take any more. So, in the middle of cleaning the dining room floor, I had to unplug it and take it into the kitchen to clean it out. That was really a lot of fun! It took longer to clean out all the traps and filters and crevices than it did to clean the floors in the first place.

All cleaned out and reassembled (and cleaning solution filled back up), I came back to finish the dining room. Suction started up again, for what it was worth and I got through in there.

Finally, I did the kitchen. It did an OK job. About the same result as the rest of the house. The dry vacuum is almost completely worthless. Too big debris, won't pick up. Too small debris, won't pick up. Try to keep your dirt and soil somewhere in the middle and you might not be disappointed.

Again, I took the whole thing apart and cleaned it. I refilled the cleaning solution and stored it for next time. I will keep the unit and use it when I need a spot clean shine job done but won't use it for much else. Forewarned is forearmed!