BISSELL® Big Green® PET PRO Carpet Cleaner, 3288

This carpet cleaner actually pulls pet hair and dirt out of the carpet, not just surface clean. I was shocked at how much hair and debris came up that my vacuum had been missing. It gets deep into the fibers, removes stains well, and leaves the carpet looking refreshed instead of flattened. Assembly was easy, it feels solid, and it dries faster than expected. If you have pets or high-traffic carpets, this is absolutely worth buying. It performs like a professional rental cleaner without the hassle. It is a little loud so be prepared for that.

First off, I am not a product shill. I paid full market price for this unit and don't want any free stuff. Not looking for likes or any other forms of validation. I only take time to write reviews for products that are excellent and deserve attention and horrible products that don't deliver. The middle ground can sort itself out. Because detailed product information is so readily available for this machine, I will skip the standard review of every single feature and go straight to why I would buy this over and over again. I write this for anyone with pets and a significant amount of carpet. We rescue dogs and have a larger than average single family home. Rescue dogs rarely come completely potty trained. Almost all of them will have accidents in a new environment. Dogs who were kept as outside dogs can be the most difficult to train. I say all that to say this - We have cleaned hundreds, maybe thousands, of accidents. We have also tried more than a dozen different machines of all brands over the three decades, following every new gimmick feature that promised to change my carpet cleaning experience forever. However, this particular one truly has. Here's why: 1) Adequate and equal tank capacity - Some engineer finally got the note that both tanks need to be the same size! A dirty water tank that is half the size of the clean water tank isn't really helpful. Nothing slows the process down, like having to change either of the clean or dirty water tanks. And when they don't hold the same amount, they will require changing at different times and that doubles the process time. Previous frustrations also include dirty water tanks that shut down with the smallest amount of soap foam. Both of these tanks are large enough to easily clean an average size room. 2) Cleans unvacuumed carpet - Who wants to have to vacuum each room before cleaning it? Obviously, our carpets have lots of traffic and dog hair. This machine powers through and sucks up everything without missing a beat. Just put a strainer over the drain if there's a lot of hair or other debris in the dirty tank. 3) Doesn't require multiple rounds to wash and rinse - With previous machines, they didn't seem to really have the power to get everything with one pass. If we used any shampoo or other product, there always seemed to be residual soapy look to the carpets. So, we would go over the whole room using various shampoos and other product first, and then have to go back over the whole room with a clean water rinse. Having to do each room twice is also not fun. With this machine, I filled it with the hottest water out of the the tap. Then, going against manufacturers guidelines, I add a capful of Lysol Laundry Sanitizer to the clean water tank (again, not a shill, just telling you what works for us). With a reasonable pace of making passes up and back with a half machine overlap for each pass, we can clean a large room in 20 minutes. New stains and odors come up with one pass. If there are old, set stains, those can be reactivated and require doing the room twice. Our key has been to deep clean the carpets at first, doing heavy use rooms twice. Now, that everything has a baseline level of clean, we clean dog accidents immediately and do a quarterly routine maintenance clean every 3 months. So it has been an A+ solution for us as "heavy users" with lots of area to clean. We previously only used our home carpet cleaner for accidents and left the whole house standard clean to professional vendors. Now, we do it all ourself. It's quick, pretty easy and paid for itself when we skipped the usual $1200 bill from professional carpet cleaners. One tip and note to manufacturer: The dirty water tank sits on top, and the opening on the back portion top of the tank drops down into a slot. There are plastic ridges to help guide the dirty water tank to its proper position. However, they are not rigid enough or aligned in a way that guarantees a perfect seal without fail. In the beginning, we cleaned a room, but the dirty water tank was empty. After poking around, we found he dirty water tank was slightly misaligned and could not create the vacuum suction to extract the water. Two things you can do to verify that your are extracting. First, there's a distinct change in the suction sound when you lower the handle and it engages the suction. Listen for that sound. Second, you can visibly verify that water is returning through the clear plastic channel on the top front of the dirty water tank.

After our classic Big Green broke (the best carpet cleaning machine ever made!) I tried the new Pet Pro model thinking it would have design improvements over the original. It turns out they made the new design a bit worse, so I’m returning it and getting the classic Big Green instead. Here is why. The biggest design change is the handle with the thumb switch in the middle instead of the finger switch on one side. While this makes it possible to trigger the cleaning solution spray with either hand, everyone in the family who tried the new machine found the thumb switch tiring to keep pressed. It feels like now your hand (thumb) is doing extra work instead of using a relaxed grip from natural motions with the classic finger grip. You may like the new ambidextrous handle/button if you have index finger arthritis or right hand disabilities, but we found the thumb button to be tiring and annoying. The dirty water top container is now a frosted white color instead of clear like in the older models, which makes it harder to see if the water is being sucked up. This is another bad design decision which was probably made for cosmetic reasons. While the curved front water channel is still clear, it was helpful to be able to see the water spraying around the top to get an idea of how much water is moving through the machine. Now this is white frosted, hiding some of this water activity. The new Pet dirty water container has side handles to make it easier to remove the top, but that’s not really necessary since it is so easy to remove the top anyway. The Pet version has a different cord wrap design because of the new handle which adds another protruding plastic onto the arm. I prefer the simplicity of the classic Big Green cord wrap which uses the handle to wrap. But this cord wrap change is minor, not a big deal to us. The new 2 in 1 Pet upholstery tool that comes extra with the Pet model is kind of gimmicky, I didn't think I would ever use it. The brush roller, noise level, cleaning and suction power, and everything else is identical in every way. Both look very nice as far as the green/grey and lime green/black color schemes. Overall the Pet model is NOT an improvement from the classic Big Green design. In a few minor ways it is actually worse, especially the thumb button ergonomics. I hope that Bissell does not consider the Pet model to be version 2.0 because that would be a step backwards. There are other things Bissell can focus on, such as improving the reliability of the flow indicator, which has a tendency to break (at least in my experience on the older models). They could make enhanced features like adding lights at the bottom to see the carpet stains better etc. Buy the regular Big Green and save a little bit on the price difference and get the best carpet cleaning machine ever made.

This cleaner is the best i have wver purchased. It is somewhat big, i love the suction as it withdraws water very efficiently. It has a wide spray area. I have lent to a few and they are buying their own!

I am writing this immediately after the first few uses, so at this point cannot speak to the longevity of this machine. Currently, I'm extremely pleased with this carpet cleaner, which was purchased to replace an old and fried Bissell ProHeat model from a decade ago. Because that machine broke, we haven't really deep cleaned the carpet in our house in a few years. After the first use, I'm absolutely thrilled with how well this machine is doing. The carpets in our basement in particular are quite dirty/musty, with heavy basement smell (and subtle notes of cat to complete the bouquet). My first use only cleaned a small section of carpet but there's been a massive improvement in the ambient aroma, and the amount of dirt pulled out was spectacularly satisfying, especially considering the carpet in question is a looped carpet and the brush can't really get down into the fibers at all. Some other notes: Pros: - Ease of cleaning the machine after use: compared to the old Bissell we had, the water tanks on this machine are very easy to clean thoroughly. - excellent suction: This machine really does get the vast majority of water out of the carpet within a few passes, and so far they've been dry within a few hours, where our old machine would leave the carpets wet for much longer. - simple setup and operation - this is a very straightforward machine to use with little effort. Comes right out of the box ready to go. Cons: - very heavy, not very nimble. This machine is fine for me but could be a challenge to someone with little lifting capability - getting it up and down the stairs requires some effort. I find it perfectly easy to push, and I think the added weight is what helps it suck up so much water, but can definitely see this giving some people trouble. Other bits and bobs - there is no heater in this machine, but you can use hot water with it just fine. I don't mind this so much, and I find a lot of pet odors and kid mess cleans up a little better with cooler water anyway. Additionally, it seems to work best when you go really slowly, and do multiple passes. This means to do large areas, it's going to take you quite a while to get through them. Lastly, the solution is put in the water tank directly, rather than in a reservoir or dispenser. On the one hand, this lets you adjust how much you use, but on the other, if you're only doing a small spot, it can be hard to measure out without wasting some. Overall though, these things aren't too problematic for me though others may find them annoying or difficult to work around. All that said I love this thing, even though it's going to take ages to get through all these carpeted areas :)