BISSELL CrossWaves side DE 1
In my college years I did a stint of janitorial duties that included quite a bit of floor mopping so the “joys” of using the mop and bucket have scarred me for life….
Many different solutions have been created over the years to get rid of dirty floors.

One specialist purveyor of floor care products, BISSELL, has just brought out the CrossWave, which probably is one of the best arguments to ditch the mop and bucket altogether. And perhaps the vacuum cleaner too!

Just follow me in my dirty tracks….

A new verb has been created: to CrossWave.

So in addition to cross stitching and cross weaving, to CrossWave means you can simultaneously vacuum and wash hard floors with this new Bissell. And, because these hard floors typically have some rugs scattered all over the place, it would be very handy if indeed these rugs can be done at the same time as well. Not asking too much, am I?

To make it all happen let’s have a look at the design.

We’ve always been impressed by the design of all the BISSELL products we have reviewed over the last few years. They do have some clever engineers on staff whose cleverness has only been tempered by the practicality of having to use these devices in their own homes. As a result, the fancy engineering is also eminently useful.

 

BISSELL Box

When you pick up the box from Harvey Norman or a Domayne store after you have paid just shy of 400 bucks, the set-up for the CrossWave is very simple: literally a few clicks later you’ll be pouring some freshwater into the upper container together with a little bit of that magic potion (otherwise known as the BISSELL multi-surface cleaning solution) and you will be able to clean up to 55 square metres. That’s a couple of large rooms.

So How Does It Work?

Think of an upright vacuum cleaner with a turbo driven brush roll. Now place a freshwater container on top of the canister that will contain the dust and dirty water, squeeze the trigger to release the soapy mix across the brush roll and suck it up all in one go. That’s the essence of the machine.
I know what you’re thinking: it can’t be that simple, can it?

Well, yes it is and simple things usually work the best.
The reality is that it doesn’t take much improvement to beat the cleanliness results compared to spreading ever increasingly dirty water with a mop, even if you frequently change the water.
The two separate tanks, one for the clean water and one for the dirty, is already a massive improvement!

BISSELL CrossWave Action closeup 1

The press release claims that the dual action micro-fibre and nylon brush roll head of the CrossWave rotates at 3,500 RPM (we didn’t check that) and effectively deals with both liquid and solid messes –it can even clean up a broken egg, shell and all! Well, we didn’t check that either. In this household we are not known for throwing eggs on the floor…. Besides, I hadn’t had breakfast yet when the testing began!

What we did check was how a normal family would use this machine so we followed the simple instructions, using some fairly warm water and a shot of the cleaning agent and got to work in the kitchen and on our jarrah hardwood floors.

They say that two in one machines are generally not very good at either function and that might be true but if you keep in mind that the vacuum function works far better than what you can achieve with the mop and bucket, the CrossWave is doing very well in this department!
But it is the actual cleaning where the machine really shines. No streaks, no foaming and a very pleasing end result. Using warm water will generally dry the floors quickly.

For the area rugs you have to press the button with the rug symbol and the roller will dispense a bit more of the good stuff.
Two brush rolls included – a specialist wood floor roll and the one mentioned earlier which can handle both types of floors.

Fortunately, the CrossWave is not as noisy as the previous BISSELL that we reviewed: the Bolt Liftoff Ion 2. No Olympic gold for that Bolt for being the quietest vacuum around!
Cleanup is easy: all the bits that get dirty can easily be taken apart and rinsed.

Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages over the traditional method.

First up, a much better cleaning result.
Faster drying.
Will clean rugs as well.
No need for frequent refills of clean water in the bucket.
Very efficient water usage: essentially just 1 tablespoon per square metre!

Possible disadvantages:
Initial outlay of $400.
Cleaning up process might take a little bit longer but not much.
Slightly more noise than banging the bucket around.

Comparison with the BISSELL Vac & Steam

The BISSELL Vac & Steam (which we reviewed earlier) and BISSELL CrossWave tackle similar problems in a different way.
The Vac & Steam delivers powerful hard surface sanitisation through hot steam and also vacuums.
When you have UNsealed hard floors, or when you think your floor surface is sensitive, you may prefer not to steam them.
So if you have to choose between the two, the criterion should be that if you can mop it you can use the CrossWave for a better, faster clean with less effort and with nearly immediate drying!

Conclusion

The BISSELL CrossWave is one of those machines that we can heartily recommend for busy households. An elegant and cleverly engineered solution to have a spotlessly clean kitchen floor to enable you to pick up the sandwich that you dropped (buttered face down naturally!) and eat it straight away.

As a matter of speaking of course….

Rating: 9 out of 10.
Highly recommended!