BISSELL® Big Green® PET PRO Carpet Cleaner, 3288

The most important adjetive for this machine is, AMAZING! First, Id like to recommend anyone researching this or any product... Read reviews. The good and the bad! Then, look for the trends in those reviews and from there, determine for YOU what is important versus what is not important. A handful of bad reviews that involve complaining about things that have nothing to do with the product specifically (i.e. packaging, delivery, etc) or a small percentage of reviews that have minor breaks or other minor problems versus the hundreds or better yet, thousands of great reviews on the same product, those bad reviews may need to be taken lightly. Unless, of course, those things are important to you. Do consider this. It doesnt matter how a product is made (assembly line or hand made), there will ALWAYS be faults. No matter the company or how good the product is overall. Obviously, the fewer problems the better but if you are seeing hundreds or thousands of good reviews to a few dozen or so negative, then that would be a reasonable percentage of errors with any good to great product. I know some people will have multiple bad experiences with the same product where others have no issues. There are a multitude of reasons that could happen but look for the overall, not just that one review. That said, I recommend and do this myself, but when looking for trends, if the bad reviews are all because something breaks but maybe its a different piece each time, then there may be an obvious trend. I would possibly take that into consideration. It may not make my decision for me, but the trend of what users say about the product is what Im looking for and its paid off for me quite well. Bottom line of what Im trying to say is, dont just look at one or two reviews and dont just look at the good or the bad, but rather review as best as you are comfortable with on both ends of the spectrum and decide what trends you find and how those trends impact your decisions. For me, reading actual buyers/users reviews are better in almost all circumstances then any lab testing or any company that does product reviewing. With that, I have started my research with company reviews, but in the end, WERE the end user! It is our perspective and experience that matters most. Id rather gain real world end user perspective then read an article that may or may not be paid for to make a statement one way or the other. On to my review. I have to say this first. When I was researching and reading reviews, my first thought, when I decided I was gonna make this purchase, was I hope my money doesnt go to waste, but if I get even one great cleaning, that is better than I could pay any over priced professional with a oversized vaccum in their van, that doesnt even lift out the dirt but just wets the floor and kinda cleans. Then ITS WORTH IT. I mean not to offended any professional out there but simple soaping the floor and suctioning it up isnt cleaning. Thats multiple experiences and eventually, history doesnt lie. Now, I did follow the recommendation of at least one reviewer in this review group that doubled up on the solution, and it worked. Im not recommending that for you. Just telling you my experience and what worked for me. Now I know you saw the pictures and probably felt ill just looking at that floor. Obviously, we thought so too. Its disgusting and thus we purchased the Big Green Machine. We can compare this unit to the many other ways weve tried to keep carpet clean in companies paid and products purchased and nothing else has come close to this. We have SEVERAL pets to which I wont mention how many but I will say I dont have enough fingers to count them all. We love our fur babies and other pets. We also like having a clean floor and clean house. The floor is the biggest battle in our household. Nothing is more off putting then walking into someones house and it wreaks of animal urine. But when its your own home and everytime you come home it smells. YUCK! Multiply that smell by 5 and and that is what anyone else coming into your home smells. Weve been there. We were just there. We didnt want to host anything because of the floors. But now, I can very happily and more than confidently say that weve found our cure. This machine is just straight up, Amazing. Ive never had a professional even come close to cleaning carpets as well as this BIG Green does. If I could find a professional to do this it would almost absolutely cost more than this machine, but I can get multiple uses out of this, as long as well cared for. You can see it for yourself in my posted pics. That dirty floor there is several months of pet stains because the moment we moved into this house my first dog discovered the location of the previous tenants dogs place within less than 5 minutes being in this home. We even waited outside with our dogs before going in to this house for the first time, while they all did their business and still she started this disgusting trend. So lets chalk it up to this. More than a handful of household free roaming pets and 11, thats right, ELEVEN months of this. So heres what we did. Machine arrived as quoted at time of purchase. That very next available day off, Saturday, I carefully went through the included manual and honestly, this machine looks like it could or should be difficult, but it truly isnt. Very easy to unpack, assemble, dis-assemble, and re-assemble again. Thats important as you will have to empty this unit and refill with clean solution every one gallon. VERY easy to push/pull. Dont leave solution in tank or in machine. Keep all parts clean and dry when in storage. Thats how Ive best kept any product that uses liquids with electrical devices. Never store liquids in the machine or attachments when not in use. Unfortunately sometimes that means tossing any leftover portions unless you wish to find another way to store the liquid. Diluted solution is not recommended to be put back in with concentrate as number one, it likely wont fit, and number two, youll ruin the concentration level of the original solvent. Next, I went to work on the floor. Now, I do have to say many people and these products suggest to pretreat. I did NOT pretreat. I wanted to see how this product (with double amount solution) would actually hold up. I started with a small space (4 x 4 landing) and immediately could see the difference. Then when I started the first trip down the hallway, my wife suggested to take before and after photos. Thats what you find above. My process with doing this was to make a forward pass (I divided the hallway into 3 sections. Moving side to side the up. Closest, middle, furthest). While moving forward, I moved the machine steady at about 1 inch a second or slower. I know that seems slow but look at it. It works well. Then on the backwards pass/pull, I moved at the same pace where the carpet was heavily soiled, but where it wasnt pet stained I went about 3 inches per second. This may sound slow but consider that you have to let the solution get into the carpet and let the machine do its job. No product can do that if you rush through it. And dont force it. Let it do it job. You just steer it and place solution accordingly. On the forward pass, I held the trigger to spray the entire distance, then on the backwards pull I only held the trigger where stains resided. The suction is at the very front of the unit and collects everything on the backwards pull. Where heavy solution was applied, another slow pass, without pulling the trigger, will gather up about 95% of the moisture. That said I did make 2-3 passes forward and back with applying solution where the stains were prominent. Which was a strong majority of the hallway. The first pass really did the job better then great but considering the nature of the stains, I wanted to be more than thorough. This hallway measures about 4 wide by 23 long and took about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. But, boy was it worth the time, money, and effort. The bedroom is my young daughters who struggles still with door knobs and thus her room is open for her, by which the pets in the house took full advantage. Still not good but they did keep most of there spotting to the hall way. Her room was just as, if not more important than the hallway to get cleaned for her benefit and sanitary health. Once I was done with the cleaning process, I emptied the dirty and clean water tanks and rinsed thoroughly. Then I put about 1/2 gallon of plain water (No solution) in the fresh water tank and ran that over the clean floor by spraying the water just as if I were cleaning the floor. I didnt use the full half gallon. I ran enough water through until I felt the solution was pretty well cleaned out. Probably a total of 1-2 minutes of total trigger squeeze. This was to allow fresh water to run through the machine to clear out the solvents in the lines that carry the solution from the clean tank to the sprayer nozzle. I cant confirm this was or was not long enough. Just going on experience to avoid damage of the unit while in storage. Once that was all done. The carpet was completely dry by the time we went to bed. So probably 4 hours or less. Its been 2 days since I did this and spots have NOT magically returned. This is a major win. I will try to update this post after a total 1 week has passed to see if it still holds. If so, Id call this an absolute winner, where other products have completed the job or professionals have left and within two days spots have returned. That has not yet occurred in this case. Also, to resolve the pet issue, we placed a very solid metal baby gate to block the dogs from going back upstairs without us, during the day, until its all our bed time. We work from home, so the dogs hang with us throughout the day. They sleep. We work. They have always and continue to go out at least 8 or more times daily or whenever they sit at the door and whine. Love em, but now we can live easier without never disappearing pet stains. Weve been renting in this house for almost a year and in our previous home we sold, we had hard floor, for a reason, and will do the same when we buy again in the next 6 months or less. Clean floor + landlord = No loss. Happy research hunting and good luck with your floors.

Worth the price. Best carpet cleaner I’ve ever owned. Comparatively speaking, it is a bit pricy, but worth every penny. Could not possibly recommend more.

Sure, it’s loud, it’s bulky, it’s annoying to have to stop and empty the bucket of nasty water/refill the clean water, it’s kind of a pain in the butt to get up and down the stairs. And yet, this carpet cleaner works SO much better than the cheap ones you can buy at Target/Walmart! I got tired of renting Rug Doctors and getting charged way too much because I kept it two or three hours past my return time and decided it was much more economical to buy my own (and less of a hassle). I initially planned on getting the rug doctor but decided to do a little research and ended up buying this one because it was about $100 cheaper and as far as I could tell they were really similar in function and results. I ended up being much happier with the Bissell when comparing both brands. Bissell vs. Rug Doctor: 1. The Bissell fits under the outer rim of my pool table (standard 9’ table), which the rug doctor did not. Believe it or not, this makes a huge difference in a room with a pool table! 2. The Bissell is easier to deal with the water containers - both the clean and the dirty buckets. 3. The attachment is easier to attach to the Bissell than the RD (granted, neither machine makes this task hard). 4. As loud as the Bissell is, it still seems a lot quieter than the RD. The rug doctor did a weird rumble when releasing the solution that made the entire room feel like it was vibrating - It felt like a loud bass on the first floor when the RD was being used upstairs! 5. Bissell will clean going both forward and backward. RD will not. This seems like a no-brainer, tbh. 6. This last one is a bit subjective, but it seems to me that the Bissell simply does a better job overall and gets the carpet cleaner than the RD. 7. Bissell feels lighter (I don’t remember the actual weight of either machine). Honestly the only advantage I can think of for the rug doctor would be a slightly larger water/waste tanks, meaning you have to refill and dump the tanks less often. However, I somehow seem to get more area cleaned with the Bissell amount of water than I did with RD. At the very least, I would say they are near even as far as area coverage per tank water refill. In conclusion, both products are far superior to the other options (non-commercial) on the market, but this one is the best of the two. TLDR: The Bissell is cheaper and (imo) works better in many ways than it’s main Rival, Rug Doctor. I highly recommend this product. *Pro Tip: DON’T pour your dirty waste water out into your bathtub! Especially if you live with pets. If you do dump it in the tub, you’ll be digging out the clumps of mystery hair gunk that stopped up your drain with a coat hanger shortly afterwards.* Your welcome. :)

I have previously owned a Bissell but it wasnt a deep cleaner. After reading the reviews and Amazon running this on a lightning deal, I purchased it. After vacuuming all the carpets, I started this machine up. I have used a Rug Doctor and thought that it did a fair job. This machine BLOWS a Rug Doctor out of the water. It came already assembled, all I had to do was remove all of the packing material and lift the handle. My first impression: 1. While heavy, it maneuvers very easily. Much easier than the Rug Doctor. I attribute this to the fact that the handle pivots forward and back like a vacuum cleaner does rather than being stationary. 2. I liked that you didnt have to fill a bucket or other tank to fill the clean reservoir. The clean tank comes out of the machine to be filled. 3. This thing SUCKS! I mean that in a good way. When using the RD (rug doctor) the carpet always stayed wet for hours. With this machine, even with spraying in a forward motion and then again when pulling backwards (so 2 applications of solution with only one removal), on a second pass to remove the water, there was very little left in the carpet. 4. I LOVE that I can see the water that has been pulled out of the carpet. It lets me know just how much water is being put down and how much is being pulled back out. 5. The machine does tell you when you are out of solution and its easy to see the level by looking at the tank. Its similar to knowing how much milk is left in the carton thru a frosted surface. 6. Dumping the waste water is fairly easy. The only downside is that once you remove the top portion (where you see the water being sucked into the waste tank) there is nothing really to hold onto when dumping the tank since the handle is on the top part. 7. Even after thoroughly vacuuming the carpet, this machine found hair that my commercial vacuum did not get out of the carpet. 8. We do have a cat and dog. The dog is very stubborn and if anything hits the floor, she either will try to eat it or cover it up by peeing on it. There was a single spot that after treating with an enzyme solution and cleaning with the RD, there was still an odor. After a single pass with this machine, the odor was gone and there was no longer a strange feeling to that part of the carpet. 9. When using the RD, I felt that I had to go over the carpet several times, keeping in mind that all of our carpet is under 3 years old. With this machine, I could tell with my bare feet that there was a definite difference to how the carpet felt after just one pass. 10. The carpet was dry within 3 hours even in the areas that I had made a forward and backwards pass. Our carpet has a pretty deep pile as well. About 3/4 of an inch in length to give you an idea of what type it was used on. 11. The only problem that I had was operator error. When I filled the tank the second time, I did not get them lined up exactly right and it would put water down but nothing was being pulled back up. I unhooked the latch, reseated the top tank and viola! Back in business. So far I have not found any downsides to this machine but I will check back in after the next time I use it.

I’d previously owned a Hoover carpet cleaner. The handle lock broke in the first couple months and it would spill nasty water whenever it was in use. It also just did a piss poor job. When I bought it, the reviews were positive. So, I was really skeptical when it came time to replace that crappy Hoover. From the very first seconds of use, I knew that this Bissell was money well spent. My carpets and rugs haven’t been this clean since they were new. I have two pre-teen kids and a black lab that make for some pretty gross messes at times. Now, muddy paws? no problem? Spilled juice? No problem! Kids didn’t let the dog outside in time? No problem. The only downsides are that I wish the spray button was a switch, and that the unit is pretty heavy. So pushing and pulling this thing around while having to keep your thumb on the button makes for a hand cramping experience after a few hours. But, the results are clearly worth it. This thing pulls out all the dirt and dog hair from the carpet. I went three passes with my Dyson before running the carpet cleaner and the Bissell pulled masses of hair up from deep in the pile. The pile beaters on this thing are impressive and make my vacuum’s look worthless. About that dog hair. No matter how much I ran into, the Bissell didn’t clog up and quit like my outgoing Hoover. Great unit, built stoutly, worth every penny.

This. Thing. Rocks. What more can I say? You arent going to get any better than this at home short of going onto carpet cleaning specialty sites and buying an 800-5k machine. The suction is great and rooms are dry within 2 hours. This thing is so strong (and the rolling brush is such a good design) that it actually pulled up embedded fur from a pet that hadnt lived in the house for 2 years. (backstory: we have had a black-haired dog for 6 months and have lived in the house for 2 years (no dog prior to Gilbert). I vacuum multiple times a week. The previous renters had had a white dog over 2 years ago.) Mind you, I thoroughly cleaned the carpet when we moved into the house with a rug doctor. And yet, two years later I was pulling up white fur. Vacuuming regularly with a shark and a dyson for two years did not pick this stuff up. I think it works. :) I was appalled and pleased in equal measure when I used it. It was so GROSS to see all that stuff.... brown/charcoal water full of fur, dust, dirt, sand, grass...you name it. By the same token, so pleased to know that was all out of my carpet. Further grossed out by the fact that it was almost as dirty the second time around....and yet further pleased. You get the idea. Having rented a rug doctor three different times to do multiple rooms each time, I am quite familiar with them. I have to say that I love using this Bissell SO MUCH MORE. Pros when compared to the rug doctor: 1.) It is more comfortable to use (handle pivots at the bottom in stead of the top). 2.) I cannot overstate how awesome it is to be able to go forward and backward. The RD only drags backward. It is more comfortable, MORE EFFICIENT, and more intuitive to move both directions. If you dont believe me, try dragging your vacuum backwards, and then locking the head up, tilting it off the floor to go back to the top of the stroke and then doing a whole room that way. 3.) REMOVABLE TANKS. REMOVABLE TANKS. REMOVABLE TANKS. Good luck if you finish and have leftover solution in the RD. Good luck. Also, makes it super easy to transport and clean. 4.) Did I mention being able to move FORWARD & backwards? 5.) Spinning brush head actually pulls things up out of the carpet fibers instead of juts agitating them. Just like your vacuum. While the agitating bar might be a unique feature of the RD, Im not so sure that its working in RDs favor. About the only reason I could recommend that type of brush would be that it is probably more gentle on carpets. The black clumps that people complain about with this machine are real and they largely consist of carpet fibers and pet hair that were pulled up with other debris mixed in. If you vacuum adequately, these clumps are few and the machine sucks most of them up anyway. 6.) Flow indicator: that little spinning thing is super helpful to show you when youre out of solution and it works just like its supposed to. 7.) THIS MACHINE IS MEANT TO BE SERVICEABLE! THAT MEANS YOU CAN BUY REPLACEMENT PARTS IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG. This is a HUGE bonus. If something breaks, you dont have to scrap your whole machine. Professional through and through. And those parts are easily attainable right on Bissells own website. Try that with your Waldemort special. Wont happen. Other pros include the fact that it folds down and is easily store-able, has a hose attachment which does work well and is amply long, uses less solution than many other cleaners (youd be surprised how little water is actually necessary to still clean well), the tanks are large enough to do a whole room. Long story short- Im in love with this machine and so happy that I purchased it. Also, 5 year warranty. Epic. Update a year later: I have now used this multiple times in two different houses and have used it to clean my cars upholstery as well as couches. Excellent every time. The hose is plenty long for doing your car (if you move it around to each door) and couches. Every time I clean our carpets, they stand up much more and are noticeably revived. This rolling brush perks up your carpet much more than a normal vacuum (Dyson or Kirby). Still as happy with it as the day I bought it!

We (wife & I) have owned this Big Green for a few weeks now, and I have used it three times. We owned Hoovers top of the line carpet cleaner for three years prior to this purchase. Here is a quick comparison of the Hoover to the Big Green: > The Hoover is less expen$ive. (You DO get what you pay for, though!) > The Hoover is lighter, making it easier for my wife to use. Its only good point. > Big Green picks up dirty water LOTS better than the Hoover. in a word, Big Green Sucks (in a GOOD way)! It was tedious to try and pick up all (er, most) of the water laid down for cleaning with the Hoover. This resulted in days of drying time. Not good. > The hoover has an independent cleaning solution tank (for a total of three tanks), which means you can lay down as much cleaner as you would like, and then use the clear, hot water to rinse. Big Green only has two tanks, the clean water tank (which you add cleaner to), and the dirty water tank which is where all the dirty water gets sucked into. > Big Green is much faster. Because the Hoover does not suck nearly as well as Big Green, you must go excruciatingly (painfully... agonizingly... I could go on...) slow with the Hoover to recover most of the dirty water. I can clean carpets in 1/4 the time with Big Green, compared to the Hoover, simply because it has better scrubbing action, and suction! > The reason we ended up buying a Big Green after only three years of Hoover ownership, was the roller brush drive belt was worn and about to break. I tried to buy the drive belt from Hoover, but they are out of stock. A Hoover Customer Service person told me I could not back-order the belt, and I should just try back in a month (unacceptable!). The local Hoover dealer told me the belt is no longer made (out of production), and suggested I file a warranty claim, and in his experience Hoover would simply replace the unit with a (similar) brand new one. So, lets sum up the Hoover problems: 1) Doesnt work too well in the first place (slow, and poor suction); 2) Cant order a simple replacement part; 3) Hoover lied to me about the availability / discontinued status of the drive belt. 4) We didnt feel good about contributing a perfectly functional carpet cleaner to the land-fill because of Hoovers big-corporation attitude towards streamlined profitability at the consumers expense (They dont stock parts). We donated the Hoover to Good Will. What I like about Big Green: It does a better job cleaning carpets. It is much faster at cleaning carpets. It leaves the carpet much drier, resulting in less than a day needed for the carpet to dry (typically dries in 12 hours). My tips for Big Green Users: 1) Carpet cleaning is a patience thing, and cannot be rushed. If your head is in rush mode, drop carpet cleaning and go do something else, until your head is in the game. 2) Go slow and steady. Avoid sloshing the dirty water in the dirty water tank. Bissels dirty water tank is a two-piece design, which does not seal as well as it should. If you jerk the machine around, while trying to go fast, or get around obstacles, it WILL leak out dirty water, leaving dirty water spots! Slow and steady wins the race. 3) I have been using Bissels Pet Pro Oxy Urine Eliminator formula. and it gives great results. With time, I will try other formulas, and report back. We have an older cat and white carpets (need I say more?), which is why we are big fans of any oxy type of cleaning formulas. 4) Bissell recommends two caps of formula added to a tank of hot water. I now use between a 1/2 - 1 cap of cleaner. It works just as well with less cleaner formula. I have found that too much formula leaves the carpet stiff. And... Too much cleaner left in the carpet makes it attract dirt faster. < Straight from the Hoover instruction manual. 5) I use hot tap water in the clean water tank (per Bissells instructions). We keep our hot water at 140°, at the tap. I have not experienced any problems (with Big Greens flow indicator) using 140° water. 5) I overlap my cleaning passes by 1/2 width. 6) Bissells instructions say to hold the spray trigger and go out and back (one wet pass), then release the trigger, and go out and back (one dry pass). I make one wet pass, and then two dry (vacuum only) passes. 7) Bissell instructs you to continue to make passes until the solution being pulled up appears clean. I cant tell the cleanliness of the water as it comes up, but I keep making passes (in the same area) until the carpet looks clean. 8) I now add a rinse pass. after completely cleaning the carpet, I now add clear hot water (NO cleaning solution added) to the clean water tank, and I make a rinse pass over the entire carpet The rinse pass has no (well... minimal) overlap, and I do one wet pass, followed by only one vacuum pass. The rinse goes pretty quick. If you think you did a good job cleaning the carpet with cleaning solution, wait until you see how dirty the water is from the rinse pass! Dirt never rests... Summary: Yes, Big Green is pricey, and heavy, and it has its little quirks (the dirty water tank can leak, IF you are not careful). So far, it cleans carpets better than the several carpet cleaners we have owned and rented. Would I buy it again? Yes. In a New York minute. Time is valuable to me. Even though it has its little idiosyncrasies, it is the fastest, best carpet cleaner I have ever used. Yes, you really do get what you pay for. Recommended!

I was total blown away about how well this shampooer cleans. We are in our early 80s and I was a little worried if I bit off more then I could chew. But then if so Id just call one of the grand kids for help but it was easy to run and did a great job I would recommend this shampooer to anyone

This is a well made machine with no bells and whistles. There is no rinse option, the Bissell stair attachment apparently does not fit the Big Green, but it comes with an upholstery attachment . The brush is a simple vacuum cleaner type brush. A nuisance is that you cant see the fluid level in the solution reservoir so there is no warning when you run out of solution. And it goes through a lot more solution than my previous uprights, the greater suction leaves it about equally as dry/wet, but it appears to do a better job cleaning, possibly getting deeper. . The machine is built like its intended to be a rental and Im convinced it will hold up; Im tired of my fairly expensive uprights busting apart if just banged against a stair. I dont know if the absence of a rinse option is a significant disadvantage, but my prior machines have had an auto-rinse feature.

We had set in pet stains from our puppies that were awful! I was embarrassed to have anyone come to the house. We had the carpet professionally cleaned, but that didnt help much at all. As a last resort before buying all new carpet, I decided to order the Bissell Big Green Pet Pro Carpet Cleaner. The reviews were good, so I thought it was worth a try. It was amazing! It met all of my expectations & then some! Two people who had seen my carpet before & after, couldnt believe the results! They both said That is quite the machine! I would buy this carpet cleaner again with no hesitation! It is excellent & easy to use!!