How well does the Numatic Charles clean carpet and hard floor?

Given that ultra-long 10m power cable, range of cleaning accessories and 1Kw motor, Charles promises a lot when it comes to cleaning versatility. We put him to the ultimate test and tackled a range of different floors, wet spills, dry vacuuming, and even cleared out the dusty work van.

We sprinkled a generous amount of talc and carpet refresher powder mix over aged parquet flooring, close to a hard edge. One slow pass over the area with the combination floor-head in hard-floor mode gave a reasonable result, although the brushes do tend to push this sort of dust around. A couple more passes cleared the area, but there were several patches of the white powder left close to the skirting edge.

Carpet test: Dirty carpet (left) vs Clean carpet (right) – move slider to compare

Over smooth laminate flooring, the head simply glides across the surface with the excellent suction pulling in dust, grit and animal hair tumbleweed. It’s a lot lighter on the arm on hard floors than carpet, and the results were generally excellent. We did see a few pet hairs become wrapped around the bristles on the head, but that isn’t uncommon.

Charles was also taken on an adventure outside, used to clean a builder’s van that possibly last saw a vacuum cleaner just before it left the factory 10 years ago. Using the crevice tool, heavyweight debris was pulled in with ease, including small stones, clumps of mud, sweet wrappers and the unfathomable bits of muck that vehicles seem to accumulate. The upholstery tool did a great job on the car seats, and the excellent dusting brush worked well around the dashboard and instrument cluster.

We also gave the office a clean, using the brush and upholstery tools on the chairs. We used the extension tube to reach the light fitting hassle-free, leaving few complaints about the cleaner’s versatility and cleaning capabilities around the office, home or garage.

How well does the Numatic Charles clean wet spills?

The real star of the show is Charles’ wet vacuuming ability. Switching from wet to dry modes is hassle-free: simply remove the dust bag, add the wet filter, and attach Numatics MultiFlo wet pick-up nozzle to the tube.  A large glass of water was poured onto the laminate kitchen flooring and Charles slurped this up quicker than Richard drinking his first cup of coffee on a Monday morning.

Wet floor test: Dirty floor (left) vs Clean floor (right) – move slider to compare

A couple of passes over the area gave us 100% pick-up, leaving the floor almost dry within seconds. We tackled a range of wet-only spills and a mix of wet plus debris to replicate spilt cereal and milk, and Charles didn’t miss a beat. It has the power to drain up to 9l of water with ease, and we have nothing but praise for the wet cleaning performance on offer here.

How well does the Numatic Charles cope with pet hair?

Our red rug hosts an assortment of dog fluff, crumbs and just general home mess. Using Charles’ main floor-head in carpet mode, a few passes over the area did a good job in the main. There was some stick-down, but it wasn’t overly onerous. The rug certainly looked generally clean, although there were a few dog hairs left within the fibres of the carpet.

Carpet test: Dirty carpet (left) vs Clean carpet (right) – move slider to compare

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