The Oreck XL - Carpet Cleaning Machine Review

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday, while visiting family, I was introduced to the Oreck XL Carpet Cleaning Machine. My sister-in-law had just purchased one to clean her carpets and spoke very highly of it. I was all for getting one myself until she told me the price. I had to sit down and really think about this when she told me she had spent $500 on this carpet cleaner. I was a little discouraged but thought about it for a few days and decided to look it up online and see if there were any Holiday specials on this high dollar carpet cleaner. I pulled up the Oreck.com website and found that they were having a 20% off special for the Holidays. I decided to go ahead and make the investment.

The Oreck XL Model 700 Orbiter is a rotating floor cleaner. It cleans carpets, tile floors, wood floors, and linoleum floors. It has quite a few attachments that are used for each of these applications. It will also sand and buff wood floors with the proper attachment accessories. The attachments I decided to purchase are the terrycloth bonnet (for berber or low pile carpets) and the black carpet brush ( for medium or high pile carpets). This is a fairly simple machine to operate. You lay the machine on the side and attach something called a black drive pad to the orbiter on the bottom and the terrycloth bonnet sticks to this similar to Velcro. If using the black brush you simply attach that over the orbiter alone. Sit the machine upright, flip the big red switch, and you are ready to clean. It is a very simple machine to use and the attachments are easy to attach.

This is a dry carpet cleaning system. I know, I was skeptical too. How can you clean a carpet without water or steam? It really works and works well. There are three steps to cleaning with this machine. I must first say that all the carpet cleaning supplies must be purchased through Oreck. Some may think that is a drawback to the machine but they are easily purchased at a local Oreck store or online at Oreck.com.

Required Accessories and Cleaning Supplies:

1. Black Drive Pad Holder – attached to the bottom of the machine

2. Terrycloth bonnet – attached to the bottom of the Black Drive Pad Holder. If using the black brush you attach it directly to the bottom of the orbiter without the black drive pad holder.

3. Oreck Stain Pre-Treat

4. Oreck Premist Soil Release Pre-Spray

5. Oreck Dry Carpet Cleaner

Steps to a clean carpet:

1. Treat any really soiled areas of carpet with the Spot Treater. Spray on the soiled areas and let sit for a few minutes.

2. Lightly spray a 6' x 6' area of carpet with the Premist Soil Release Pre-Spray.

3. Sprinkle the Dry Carpet Cleaner over the treated area.

4. Cut the machine on and hold on as it orbits around on the carpet. It really takes only a little bit of force to move it as it is already in motion and all you really have to do is hold on to it and guide it from one area of the carpet to the other. The stains will start to disappear before your eyes.

5. Once that area of carpet is cleaned, vacuum it to make sure all the dry carpet cleaning powder is removed from the carpet.

6. Repeat steps until entire room is clean.

I was amazed at the results from this dry cleaning system. There were no buckets of dirty water to empty and the machine was really easy to operate. The terrycloth bonnet can be washed in the washing machine and laid out to dry when finished.

If you happen to be in the market for a new carpet cleaner, I would suggest trying the Oreck XL Orbiter. I was impressed with how easy it is to use and how clean my carpets came out without the use of water. It is an expensive machine but Oreck runs specials online from time to time with 20% off right now during the Holiday season. There is a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee. If you are not satisfied with it, you can return it for a complete refund within 30 days. It also comes with a 10 year warranty. With that warranty comes a yearly “tune-up” at an Oreck store or authorized dealer free of charge. I was at the point of going to Walmart and purchasing your normal run of the mill carpet cleaner for $289 - $389. I was so glad that I was introduced to this machine and for not much more I was able to make an investment in something that will last a lot longer and get my carpets a lot cleaner.