I love this thing!!! But don't throw away your mop.

Why did we buy this?
We have 2 toddlers and a 200 sq ft tile kitchen floor that seems to be perpetually dirty as a result. Food crumbs and wet sticky spills. We purchased a Hoover Flair S2200 stick vac (read review) with some regrets. We bought this to clean up the sticky spots.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?
1. Mop with whatever - wet, messy and a pain.
2. Buy a floor washer - vacuum/wet floor washer combo requires chemicals, $$, large upright size a pain to get out
3. Wet Swiffer - great but generates a lot of waste, chemicals bad fumes and for kids crawling on floor, $$ and doesn't pick up big chunks.
4. Buy steam mop and leave it permanently plugged in within the kitchen broom closet, along with our stick vac.

We opted for #4 and decided on the Bissell Steam Mop with lots of good reasons. We briefly looked at the other Eureka model but it wasn't as nice and didn't have the features. We didn't see the other Karcher one we had heard about.

Just plain old water, well actually, we use distilled/reverse osmosis filtered water (almost all solutes removed), even though it comes with a filter that takes the hardness out of the water. Using reverse osmosis/distilled water will allow you to use the machine almost indefinitely without having to change the ion exchange filter. We loved this idea since the kids are crawling on the floor, dropping things and sticking them in their mouths/eating them. The fewer chemicals the better.

The steam action is amazing. It takes about 30 sec. from plug in to shooting steam out the bottom and then you pull the trigger to activate a small quiet pump in the body that allows the steam to be generated at the bottom. The steam is great since you can hold the mop over a spot that needs an extra shot or just give the floor a light steaming. It is supposed to be fine for hardwood/laminate but we use it on ceramic tile floor. Also since it's hot steam and the floor doesn't get soaked like traditional mopped floors, it dries in a minute or so unlike the 15 min of wet floor you have to endure and avoid normally.

The cotton cloth mop head/pad fits snugly over the bottom and is held in place with a nylon cord fed through a plastic spring clip like those you find on ski jackets. It does take some effort to get it on but it is easy to get off. We use the mop almost daily and toss the mop pad in the laundry sink ready for wash every day or so depending on how dirty the thing is. Because of that we also bought 2 more 2 packs of mop pads from Walmart for US$10. It was definitely worth it. At least one person has said that it is difficult to push, but I would say that's a good thing since you want some friction that forces the mop head to scrub the floor a little. In any case I would say that it is no more difficult to push than a heavy wooden mop.

1 fill up of the removable resevoir lasts 10-15 min to empty I would say.

It has a quick release cord holder, hanging hook, looks stylish and is farily light.

PROBLEMS!
The main problem is that the water resevoir (that is easy to fill) has a tendency to leak sometimes when it is over half full and you leave it in the machine. If you take it out (easily and quickly done) there is no problem.

Not really problems but possible improvements/things to think about.
1. It does not act like a mop to soak up huge spills, but it's not designed for that either.
2. A longer cord would be better, ~20ft. but it's shorter than you think.
3. A scrub pad to get in between the tiles (grout lines) if things like raisins get ground in there. I think we'll sew 2 scouring pads onto the bottom of a pair of cheap slippers and use that instead. LOL!
4. Doesn't have that lemony fresh scent we have become accustomed to smelling and equating with a clean environment.