Bissell ProHeat Essential PET Carpet Cleaning System Review

Every April, I start my spring cleaning with the hopes of getting it done in a timely manner. I purge, declutter, organize, and wash, wash, and wash. Some things I get right to, and others I seem to put off. I admit it’s been too long since I’ve cleaned my carpets. I was using my mom’s older carpet shampooer, but it’s so complicated and time consuming to use. It doesn’t absorb all the water from the rug, plus it’s awkwardly big and bulky, so that being said, I use all these excuses to neglect the maintenance of my carpets. But, with a new Bissell carpet cleaner and the welcomed nicer weather, it’s now become the propitious moment to tackle this chore.

Bissell Proheat Carpet CleanerI received the Bissell ProHeat Essential PET carpet cleaner, and I must say, it’s quite attractive. I love that it’s an upright model and considerably lightweight. It requires minimal assembling, you just need the use of a Phillips screwdriver.

With any average family, the carpet can get used, abused, and dirty rather quickly. But, with pets included in the scenario, the dirt compounds. They track in mud, grass, bugs, debris, and who knows what kinds of microorganisms into the home. It’s not like we can tell them to take off their shoes, or wipe their feet. And if you’re a cat owner, what about those nasty hairball stains? So not cool!! As a result, our carpets can get overwhelmingly and embarrassingly unhygienic, stinky, and grubby, like my carpet I blush to say.

The Bissell ProHeat Essential PET carpet cleaner has an abundance of attributes, and I’ll share some of them throughout my post. First, I like how mobile it is, you can move it around just like a vacuum, so any and every room can be deep cleaned.

This white beauty is designed to clean the roughest, toughest, and grossest stains any pet owner could possibly have. Aside from carpets, it cleans hardwood floors and upholstery. It comes with two attachments, the pet brush and the spot remover, which can be used on furniture and/or on tough stains.

It offers us the exclusive Heatwave Technology which means it helps keep the water at a steady warm temperature throughout the cleaning process. I’ve never heard of this before, nor have I seen this feature on any other carpet cleaner. It’s true, when I was discarding the dirty water, it was still warm. This is a big plus!

It has one row of cleaning bristles that work fearlessly to deep clean your carpet. I did notice that some of their other carpet cleaners have two rows of dirt lifting brush rolls, which would mean double the cleaning power, but this single row seemed to work well on its own. I really like the little side brushes, they get dirt and debris along the edges nicely.

The tank is awesome. It has a patented 2-in-1 tank system, there’s a bladder for the clean sudsy water and the empty tank space acts as a reservoir for the dirty water. It’s easy to pick up and remove the tank with its convenient carry handle. You take it off the machine, empty and refill. It’s a breeze. Bissell has their own cleaners specific for Pet Stains & Odor, which is what I used. Their cleaning formulas come with Scotchgard Protector, which provides a protective force field around the carpet fibers so they are less resistant to stains. Their formulas clean beautifully and leave a really nice fresh scent.

I was never so happy to clean my carpets, and anxious to see what kind of job it would do. I have so many stains that they’ve pretty much blended into one big yucky carpet. After filling my tank, I made sure the tools dial was set on the ‘floor cleaning’ setting before proceeding. The red power button is at the base of the machine, all you do is step on it to switch it on. There’s also a grey button next to the red button, that allows the handle to recline. To clean, you press the spray trigger and slowly move forward and backward once, it deep cleans both directions, now release the trigger and then slowly move over this area to absorb the dirty water and assist in drying. I cringed at the color of the water, although I was not surprised.

stains on rug

The front of our couch is a high traffic area, everyone loves to be in this space, kids and pets alike. There’s a lot of ground in dirt and oodles of pet stains that I have tried to spot remove several times. Bissell recommends you pre-soak the tough heavily soiled stains about 5 minutes before shampooing the rug, just make sure you don’t over soak the area. I used the spot remover brush to get the really bad spots and it was so awesome to watch the stain vanish with the dirty water.

clean rug

The Bissell ProHeat did a fabulous job at deep cleaning and removing all the stains perfectly with just one cleaning. I was anticipating having to repeat the process, so I was really thrilled with the results. The rug felt almost dry, but we left it alone for about 8 hrs or so. Our whole carpet is squeaky clean, it almost looks new.

dirty water after shampooing carpet

This is the dirty water from just one area of our living room. Wow, this is eye-opening! I did clean my carpet last spring, but clearly, the machine I used was inadequate. The Bissell outdid itself and removed so much debris from my carpet that previous cleanses missed, and here’s the proof. The area’s that had less traffic were being purged of unbelievably dirty water, it’s almost black. The carpet is brighter and the room smells so much fresher!

I adopt abandoned and abused cats, so I have lots of cat furniture and towers in my living room. Some of them are older and have never been seriously cleaned. I thought I would use the attachments and clean all the towers for my pet’s health and comfort too.

shampoo pet towers

I cleaned one of the towers and was so astonished at how much dirt came off just the top. This is the dirty water from just the top surface. This inspired me to do all of the towers and now they too look so nice and clean. I was impressed with the hose length. One of the towers is over 6 feet tall and I was able to reach the highest perch with ease. It didn’t take very long to deep clean each pet tower and I now have peace of mind.

Clean up was simple as well. When I turned the Bissell over, the brush roller was loaded with cat hair, even though I thoroughly vacuumed before shampooing. I followed the instructions on page 12 of the user manual on how to remove the brush roller to give it a super clean. The directions were very clear and easy to follow. We had to remove a few screws and one belt and then I was able to dislodge all the clumped hair and fibers. I’ve never been able to do this on previous carpet cleaners and I really like this feature. I want to put my machine away completely clean and raring to go the next time around.

My next impulse is to get out and shampoo the carpets in our vehicles, which will be done on the next warm weekend. I cannot crow enough at how easy this machine is to use. It’s easy to manipulate into any spot and corner, high or low, and it does a meticulous job at removing embedded and ground it dirt. My family spends a lot of time on the floor being kids, playing, and goofing around. Their wellness is important to me and having uber clean carpets will only enhance their well being. I would definitely recommend this carpet cleaner.

Disclaimer: I received a product for review only. The opinions and views expressed here are my own, yours may differ.