Throughout the life of your carpet, it will fall victim to spills, accidents, and heavy traffic footfall that vacuuming alone just won’t solve.
Photo from Bissel
Time for a super deep clean? Why not try the Bissell Proheat 2X Carpet Cleaner? This carpet cleaner comes with ten rows of brushes and a water heater. This cleaner will get your carpet back to top condition in no time at all.
But how do you use it properly? Correct use of this carpet cleaner is going to be super convenient and less expensive than hiring a carpet cleaning company. Keep reading to find out how to master the Bissell Proheat 2X to get your carpets spick and span.
Quick Guide
In a hurry? Don’t worry! Here is the quick version of this article.
- Prep your room – vacuum everything to prevent your Bissell Proheat from clogging and pretreat any stains on fabrics.
- Set up your Bissell Proheat – fill up the tank with water and your choice of Bissell cleaner. Switch your machine on and wait for 2 minutes.
- Get cleaning – choose the floor-cleaning setting and press the trigger while making a single pass on your floor. Release and go over the same strip several times.
- Refill the tank when you have used up the cleaning solution.
- Enjoy your clean carpet!
Detailed Guide
Photo from Bissel
For the best results with your Bissell Proheat, follow these instructions.
Prep Your Room
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail! This is certainly true when you are using a carpet cleaner.
You need to make sure that you thoroughly vacuum the area that you intend to clean. This includes carpet, upholstery, and hardwood floors. This is a really important step as a good vacuum will help prevent your Bissell cleaner from clogging.
You also need to pretreat any stains that you intend to get out. We recommend an enzyme-based cleaner for any protein-based stains – this includes any remnants of pet accidents. For a food stain, opt for an oxygen bleach product.
If you don’t want to get a specialized product, you can always try laundry detergent. Dilute a tablespoon in roughly a cup of water and sponge this solution onto any stains.
We do not recommend using a solvent for spot cleaning as this could damage the plastic on your Bissell Proheat.
Make sure that you let your pretreatment sit for an appropriate length of time. This will vary by brand but usually 20 minutes is enough for the product to penetrate the fabric’s fibers.
Prep Your Bissell Proheat
While your spot treatment does its thing, you need to set up your Bissell Proheat.
Take out the measuring cup from the water tank and fill it with cleaner. Make sure that the cleaner you choose is appropriate for the surface you are treating. When in doubt, refer back to the manufacturer’s instructions.
When choosing your cleaner, we recommend opting for a Bissell-made one. This is essential if you wish to keep your Bissell Proheat 2X’s warranty valid. Fortunately, Bissell makes a wide variety of cleaners that are suitable for all types of floors.
They even have dedicated cleaners for hardwood floors and for carpet or upholstery that comes with a built-in Scotchgard.
That said, you do not have to limit yourself to Bissell cleaners if you don’t want to, especially after the warranty has expired. Just about any carpet cleaner will work just fine, as long as it was designed to work in a carpet cleaning machine.
If you want something a little more gentle, you could try using some distilled vinegar instead of cleaner. The acidic vinegar will help break through grease and stains on hardwood floors or carpets.
If in doubt, be sure to test on an area that will not be seen. This goes for any cleaner you are unsure of!
Whatever cleaning solution you choose, you need to fill up the bladder in the tank and then top it up with hot water. Flip your machine on and wait for around 2 minutes until the contents of the tank can heat up to the correct temperature.
Clean The Floors
Now you can set your machine to the floor cleaning setting and get cleaning.
We recommend that you start at the wall that is furthest from the entrance to the room. It is easier to work systematically this way and you are less likely to forget to do a patch.
You may need an additional attachment for hardwood floors. This attachment fits onto the main nozzle and is available for purchase directly from Bissell.
Dispense Cleaning Solution
To dispense the cleaning solution, you need to pull the trigger that is on the handle. Make a single pass to evenly distribute the solution. You now need to release the solution trigger and move over the area several times. This will make sure that all of the solutions have been sucked out.
Repeat this step over the surface of the floor you are cleaning, being sure that you are not stepping onto the wet or freshly cleaned carpet. We recommend that you work in sections that are around 3 foot long to make things easier.
Bissell’s manual recommends going forward and backward with the trigger engaged. However, we have found that this dispenses too much cleaning solution and it is difficult to rinse out the area. It may be better for you to save Bissell’s recommendations for very soiled areas.
If you are cleaning a large area, you may find that you run out of cleaning solutions. If this happens, all you need to do is refill the tank with a cleaning solution and hot water.
Quick Tips
Bissell’s Proheat 2X is suitable for a variety of floor cleaning tasks. It is perfect for fabrics, including carpet, linoleum, vinyl, or tiled floors.
You can even use your Bissell cleaner on upholstery. Just be sure that it is marked with a ‘W,’ ‘SW’ or ‘WS’ on the label – if you have an ‘S’ or ‘X’ you should not use the machine as you will damage the fabric.
Final Thoughts
Using the Bissell Proheat 2X is super easy when you know how! Follow these instructions to get your carpet looking its best.
The only trouble that you may come into is refilling the water tank. You may find that even a small room requires more than one pit stop to refill.
This is because the Bissell Proheat dispenses the cleaning solution from the tank onto the floor and then sucks this backup and into the bladder that surrounds the water tank. This water is dirty and not reusable, hence why you may need to pause to refill.
