Bissell StainPro 10 Review

Excellent deep-cleaning and top-notch stain removal more than justify the Bissell StainPro 10’s premium price.

Key Specifications

• Review Price: £319.99
• 800W motor
• 10 rows of brushes
• Heated cleaning
• 5-litre clean-tank capacity
• 30cm cleaning path
• Easy-clean brush chamber
• On-board hose and tools

What is the Bissell StainPro 10?

At over £300, Bissell’s StainPro 10 is a premium carpet cleaning machine that offers plenty to justify its big ticket. Dual rotating brushes, easy-clean floorhead, plenty of suction and huge capacity tanks make this a cleaner for more sizeable homes.

It delivers on its deep-clean promise with outstanding cleaning results and solid vacuuming to leave carpets relatively dry. It’s a faff to put together and the unusual tank-in-tank design makes filling, emptying and estimating clean fluid levels tricky. Thankfully, these gripes are minor and don’t detract from its great all-round carpet cleaning performance.

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Bissell StainPro 10 – Design and features

Billed as a carpet and upholstery ‘deep cleaner’, Bissell’s StainPro 10 is a serious piece of kit. The form is a full-size carpet shampooer with an 800W motor and on-board stain tool. The main floorhead boasts twin brush bars with 10 rows of bristles and heated cleaning. It has one of the largest clean water tanks we’ve seen at just shy of 5 litres.

Down at the business end, Bissell’s long experience in carpet cleaning shines through. The two roller brushes are fitted to a floating carrier and have medium-stiff bristles that should agitate the carpet well. Small, fixed brushes at the sides help cleaning up to the skirting edge. The action is spray forward, clean/vacuum on the backstroke; and the cleaning path is nicely wide at just over 30cm.

Clearly, the Bissell doesn’t set out to be a svelte shampooer that you’d whip out for emergency spills. We’ve got Bissell’s SpotClean Pro for that. The StainPro 10 is quite a beast, weighting in at 11kg dry and a whopping 16kg fully loaded with clean water.

The motor and tanks are situated low down on the floorhead, rather than attached to the body of the cleaner. That makes the Bissell feel much lighter in the hand than you might expect. Its large back wheels allow it to roll well on carpet.

Out of the box, setup requires a screwdriver to secure the handle and another to secure the upper cable/hose carrier. Frustratingly, the screws are different sizes (Phillips No2 and Phillips No1, as you’re asking…) so you need two screwdrivers. The upper carrier also required some gentle persuasion with a heavy object to clip into place. Setup wasn’t exactly stress-free.

While nothing folds for storage, the StainPro 10 does keep its cable, hose and even its spot-cleaning tool on-board. No complaints with those parts either, since the cable is a whopping 9 metres long and there’s plenty of reach from the 2.5-metre hose.

The fluid container is unique in that both clean water and dirty water use the same tank. Inside the tank is a plastic bladder that you fill with clean water and fluid mix. As you use this solution the bladder collapses, allowing the rest of the space in the tank for dirty water. It’s a clever space-saving solution, but it does make seeing how much cleaning fluid you have left far trickier.

The tank itself isn’t the most obvious to fill – none of its ports are labelled – so you’ll need to resort to the manual.  That recommends two of the supplied 2.5fl oz (74ml) measuring cups of cleaning solution per tank. Since the bladder is flexible, there’s no obvious fill-up line; we just topped it up with warm water and left enough room for the solution.

Bissell StainPro 10 – Accessories

Bissell offers an epic range of carpet-cleaning fluids, and we’ve been a fan of the company’s cleaning chemicals for a long time. You get two 236ml sample bottles here, Professional and Deep Clean + Oxy. The professional is the standard detergent, while the latter adds active oxygen technology to help remove stains.

Both have a mild, perfumed smell and work exceptionally well. If your carpets aren’t filthy, you could easily get away with half the recommended concentration and still achieve great results.

The StainPro 10’s hose is permanently attached to the body. When not in use you wind it up tidily around its rear hanger; it rests in a dedicated clip. A standard brush/vacuum tool is supplied for spots and upholstery. There’s also a crevice tool but, frankly, we have no idea what it’s for. Still, if we find a use for it then we’ll update the review.

The hose is flexible, if not stretchy, and we had no problem getting a good way up our stairs. The connection to the cleaner is low, so there’s no danger of toppling the cleaner. It’s also transparent, so you can see the dirty liquid shooting up the tube. That novelty wears off when the hose looks filthy after a few uses.

The double tank does present a couple of challenges, however. As the dirty water level rises, its tricky to see the remaining level of clean solution in the bladder. Moreover, when you empty the waste any remaining clean solution tends to flow out at the same time. Neither are particularly onerous, but it does take little familiarity to judge how much fluid you need to start with.

There’s a single fluff filter behind the tank that will need a quick wipe over each time you refill the tank.

Bissell StainPro 10 – How does it clean?

The Bissell’s business-like size and tank capacity are backed up by an equally business-like operating noise. With the vacuum motor and the brushes running, it measures around 84dB . This is a lot noisier than most vacuum cleaners, but it certainly isn’t the loudest carpet cleaner we’ve tested.

Obviously, you need a relatively strong arm to manoeuvre the sheer mass of a fully loaded StainPro 10, yet its low centre of gravity is a real advantage. Weight in the hand is light and the low-down weight keeps the floorhead solidly in contact with the carpet.

The StainPro 10 heats and then puts down a good – but not excessive – amount of fluid across its cleaning width. The twin rollers work well and the strong vacuum picks up the bulk of the moisture in just one return sweep. Again, the tank weight being on the floorhead means the vacuum channel is pushed into the carpet pile, further improving water recovery.

Using the standard Professional cleaning solution, the result is outstanding carpet cleaning.

Our test rug was left very clean in a single back/forth pass, with even months-old stains shifted completely. Across our test carpets there was plenty of dirty water showing, in some cases pulled from areas that had already seen some cleaning test action with other models. We found best drying results were achieved with a couple of runs over an area after the wash, which left the carpet just lightly damp.

As is the case with all carpet shampooers, the twin brushes did pull up some loose carpet fibres. However, the floating brush bar design meant this was in no way excessive. We’d be happy to use the Bissell on our carpets every few months.

The red wine stain was something of a formality for the StainPro 10. Within a couple of passes the stain was significantly reduced, thanks in no small part to Bissell’s excellent cleaning solution. A couple more passes and there was the faintest pinky tinge remaining.

Stretching the cleaning out to a full minute, the stain was all but gone. Had we carried on for another pass or two, we suspect it would have been removed completely.

Switching to the hose and hand tool, the last remnants of the stain gave up easily. This left a patch that dried to a perfectly clean finish. The spray delivered plenty of fluid and the brush is just the right size and stiffness for you to agitate the carpet pile.

Our only gripe with the detail tool is that the suction along the front edge didn’t seem to pack the vacuuming punch of the main cleaner. We assume Bissell has done this to reduce the tool sticking down to upholstery, but we’d prefer the full 800W suction to leave a drier finish.

For the sake of completeness, we repeated the spilled wine test again using the Deep Clean + Oxy solution, and the results were even better. It was cleaned in half the number of passes, and once dried there was no sign of the stain without resorting to the detail tool. If you have really mucky, stained carpets, the Deep Clean + Oxy is our shampoo of choice.

Why buy the Bissell StainPro 10?

Bissell’s long-standing experience in carpet cleaning shines through in the design and performance of the StainPro 10. It delivers excellent results, thanks to the dual brush bar action and high-performance cleaning fluids, and the solid suction power leaves carpets just damp rather than wet.

Only the tank-within-a-tank design raised any issues, being difficult to judge remaining clean fluid when the dirty water level rises.

Add in a functional spot-stain tool with a good brush and reasonable suction, and the StainPro 10 is a great all-round package.