Hoover Powerscrub XL Pet Review

Analysis

A step by step breakdown of the PowerScrub XL Pet's performance.

The Hoover PowerScrub XL Pet was measured to have above average suction at the base (at a port near the vacuum motor), below average suction at the hose (at the end where you connect a spot cleaning tool), and right around average suction at the nozzle (where the carpet cleaner extracts moisture from the carpet in upright mode).

Bottom line – this model has below average (measured) suction for spot cleaning and right around average (measured) suction for upright cleaning.

Of the 16 carpet cleaners we’ve tested so far, the PowerScrub XL was the worst performer in our upright stain test overall.

The table above lists the number of passes it took the cleaner to clean each stain, and as you can see results for the PowerScrub XL are worse than average across the board.

Note that any score greater than 10 describes a stain that wasn’t cleaned. The higher the score the darker the stain left behind. In the table above you can see that the PowerScrub left behind a relatively dark tomato sauce, ice cream, and chocolate syrup stain. Most competitors completely cleaned these same stains in less than 10 back and forth passes.

After our stain test we measured the moisture level of the carpet that was cleaned. This reading was dryer (25%) than average (27%) for the PowerScrub XL.

We then pushed and pulled the cleaner over the same strip of carpet three more times only extracting moisture during these three passes. During regular cleaning we would dispense soap and water on the forward pass and extract on the backward pass. During these three passes we would only extract. The reading after these passes was average (25%) for the PowerScrub XL as it didn’t appear to extract any measurable amount of moisture during these three passes.

The PowerScrub XL has large water tanks and it doesn’t use a lot of water to clean, and so it can cover a very large area before you need to refill its clean tank and before you need to empty its dirty water tank.

It’s easy and straightforward to clean the PowerScrub XL after washing carpet.

Its dirty water tank comes apart like most competitor tanks so that you can clean the inside of the tank very easily.

You can remove its front nozzle and its brush assembly so that you can clean these parts and the components behind these parts very easily.

Like most other upright carpet cleaners we tested, the PowerScrub XL has a port on the front to which you can connect a hose and spot cleaning tool.

The particular model we bought for review came with an 8 ft. long (this is a fairly standard length) hose and two spot cleaning tools – an antimicrobial pet tool (3.75" wide suction area) and an upholstery tool (4" wide suction area).

Overall, the PowerScrub XL was a below average performer in our spot cleaning test.

Other Notes and Features

The PowerScrub XL is marketed as being the extra large version of the PowerScrub Deluxe, but in reality it really isn’t much larger at all.

Both the Deluxe model and the XL model have exactly the same measured cleaning path width (10.5”).

The XL model does have slightly more clean tank capacity, but the Deluxe model has more dirty water tank capacity, according to our measurements.

The biggest difference between the XL and Deluxe is that the XL model uses less water per sq. ft. to clean. This does give it a larger area of coverage before you need to refill its clean water tank, but it also really hurts its performance cleaning stains.

Verdict

Our bottom line recommendations.

We generally do not recommend the PowerScrub XL.

It leaves carpet drier than average after cleaning and it can cover a very large area before you need to refill or empty its water tanks, but it’s a terrible performer cleaning tough stains.

It’s mostly because of its terrible performance in our upright stain test that we generally do not recommend it.

All of the carpet cleaners we do recommend are listed here.