Rug Doctor Portable Spot Cleaner Review

In this Rug Doctor portable carpet spot cleaner review, we’ll look at the pros and cons of this model. The Rug Doctor portable spot cleaner is the smaller sibling to the larger version often available for rent at the grocery store.

Pros of the Rug Doctor Portable Version

This spot remover has twice as much power relative to other stain and spot removing machines. You’ll get the job done faster with this model than its competitors.

The Rug Doctor model has wheels to allow you to roll it around behind you, instead of having to lug it around like a hand held vacuum cleaner. The wheels are even carpet friendly, so they won’t damage the carpet or leave ugly, dirty tracks on the floor you’re trying to clean.

The Rug Doctor stain remover has removable tanks that let you fill them up with spot remover in the sink and empty where you will, minimizing the risk of making a mess with the nasty chemicals or dirty water. However, you do have to be careful of the hole near the top side of the water tank or you’ll spill the dirty water onto the floor.

The portable carpet cleaner is a money saver if you have to clean up spilled food, spilled drinks and pet stains out of the floor more than six or seven times a year. At that point, the purchase price of the unit and cleaners starts to become cost effective compared to the ongoing rental price.

The Rug Doctor portable cleaner can be used to clean your car as well as your home. In fact, it will get out those nasty spilled juice stains for a fraction of the price of the cost of detailing the car several times a year.

Cons of the Rug Doctor Portable Version

These units are heavy, though they are lighter than the professional units in the rental section of the grocery store. This unit is not an option if you cannot lift it up stairs, pull it from room to room or reach down to empty and load the reservoirs. This portable spot cleaner is heavy at twenty pounds plus the weight of the liquid in the reservoir.

If you spot clean your floors only three or four times a year, it is cheaper to rent the unit when you need it. Conversely, this unit is not suitable if you have all the carpets in the house cleaned several times a year – trying to clean all the carpets yourself with this unit takes forever and more money in Rug Doctor soaps than it costs for someone to pull up in a steam cleaning truck and clean your house.

The motorized brush just vibrates, instead of actually doing a lot of heavy lifting like a vacuum head.

Click Here for User Reviews of the Portable Rug Doctor

Observations about the Rug Doctor Portable Spot Cleaner

A 32 ounce bottle of the Rug Doctor cleaner for the Rug Doctor portable spot remover machine is around $10. Only a small amount is required if you use it to spot clean by hand, since the solution is mixed with water. You mix the solution to add to the spot cleaner machine as well, so 32 ounces will last weeks if not months. One caveat for pet owners is that the pet formula is about $20 to $22; this formula is what you’ll want to remove cat pee and dog poop residue out of the carpet.

You should not pour a lot of the cleaner into the machine and then let it sit in the machine for months. You do have to rinse out the spot cleaning machine periodically, even if you don’t let soap solidify in the machine sitting in the closet for six months. This is done by putting hot water in the detergent reservoir, running the spray head and letting it empty into a sink until the reservoir is empty. Then you can refill the detergent reservoir and continue working.

Only add as much cleaner as you think you’ll need. More than that wastes money and can slosh out when you empty out the tank.

The second generation of stain cleaner soap is foamier than the soaps that came out before 2013. It smells more like a bath soap than a false “clean” scent or floral scent that caused problems for some with chemical sensitivity.

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