Side by Side Comparison of: McCulloch vs Steamfast vs OXO vs Harris vs ClimbUp

There is a blog out there entitled "unf*ck your habitat," and I have been using it to help me for a while now. One of those things it recommends is using a steam mop and I thought, "Seriously? Can it be that much better?" So about 2 weeks ago I started the online research and I learned everyone has an opinion on what makes a "good" steam cleaner. With "scent pods" or without (a scent pod?); canister or upright; with vacuum or not; for floors only or with accessories or not; and on and on. That's when I realized I needed to change from looking for "steam mop" or "steam cleaner" and start looking for "heavy duty steam". Why? Because I didn't want something that would break within a year, I wanted something with some power, I didn't want to have to refill it every 10 minutes, and I wanted to be able to actually sterilize after working with a sick animal.
So I bought a Mcculloch MC1275 multi-use steam cleaner on Amazon. I spent so much time going back and forth between the different McCulloch model's reviews that eventually I just chose the simplest one (for me simple usually means less to break).
Now, it is important to note - I have only been using this thing for 3 days, so I can tell you nothing about longevity, but I am impressed with the construction and size of the water tank.
I cleaned the stovetop, the oven door, the refrigerator seals, the bathroom mirror, the toilet (including seals), bathroom baseboard, shower walls, bathroom grout, bathroom sink and drain, all the random mudspots from various surfaces (thanks dogs!), and then steam-mopped the hell out of living room floor.
Everything *feels* clean. Not just looks clean, but *feels* clean. It is so strange to not have things smell like cleaning products - just smells neutral.
So, in conclusion, I didn't know. I didn't know how much better a steam cleaner can get things clean. I also *really* like that I can sterilize areas as needed without excess chemicals. It doesn't make cleaning easier, but it does make it so much more effective.
I have never gotten anything for free and only shared this because I could have used this knowledge years ago. Good luck all!

First off , I am a car detailer so this review will not represent household use.
I give this little gem 5 stars due to price, long hose, cord and performance .
Give it time to warm up and she blows plenty of steam for general cleaning . I have found that if you are cleaning grease or seats, it's best to lightly spray a general purpose cleaner or degreaser on what you're cleaning first , It will cut down on your work time dramatically.

The steam gets HOT and is PRESSURIZED. It's hot and strong enough to melt/blast away the nasty black goo on top on the tile grout. Saved me a lot of elbow grease. The product comes with different nozzles and so far I've used this on my ceramic tiled floor, my house windows, my car seats and everything came out clean and sparkling.

The pictures are from the house that I recent moved into. The windows were dusty and the floors were grimy. The grout had a layer of black that could NOT be washed/scrubbed away with soaps or bleach. I used the steam cleaner with the jet nozzle and glided over the grout with contact time of 4-6 seconds or so and the grime goes flying away (now softened and being blown away from the pressure.)

I also used the cleaner/nozzle to clean my windows. The steam is pressurized enough to blast the dust and dead insects out from the window sliding bar. I also used the squeegee attachment to clean the glass themselves, they only came out sparkling.

There's a triangle brush (with plastic bristles) that I also used to lightly scrub/ clean my car chair seats and the interior of the car. It's cleaner than when I got my car back from the detailing place.

Basically I got cleaning crazy and used this all over.

Don't use on
-hardwood floor (the heat will expand the wood and definitely remove the shine from wax/oil.)
-anything plastic (like my wall with semi-glossy/polyuth paint that had a dog paw print), it will melt it right off.

Be careful when handling the unit. I wanted to refill the tank after it ran out, the screw/lid was hot and almost burning to the touch.

Got my new steam cleaner yesterday and couldn't wait to get started on my bathroom grout! The instructions were easy to understand, and I was happily steaming away in 10 minutes. I had heard amazing things about grout cleaning, but WOW! The pressure nozzle with a nylon utility brush really did the trick. Picture of the floor attached for your viewing pleasure! Lower left corner shows the "before", upper shows "after".

After the bathroom, I was excited to try other areas- so I moved on to all the sinks and faucets in my house. You know those super hard to clean places around the little handles and spouts, and behind the faucet? I usually clean with these with an old toothbrush, but it never really gets everything. Not so with the steam cleaner!! Everything was sparkling and looked brand-new afterwards. I forgot to take photos, but I'll update this review next time if it ever gets bad again (unlikely, as I am now addicted to steaming).

Once I was done with the sinks and faucets, I moved on to the water dispenser in the fridge that gets all that gunk on the inside, and the inside of the oven, and my patio furniture. All with amazing results. By that point, I had been steaming for about two hours and needed a break. Today, though, I'll be using the upholstery attachment to do the patio cushions and my living room couches! Next week, maybe I'll detail my car! Told my boyfriend about my cleaning escapades and now he wants to steam clean his carpeted stairs (they're really gross). If we end up doing it, I'll post more photos to compare.

I can't believe the value for the price on this product. It absolutely works as advertised, and feels very sturdy and well-made without being heavy. I am impressed on so many levels, and I can tell that this will get a lot of use at my house. The only possibly negative thing I could say about this was that the handle got pretty hot when I was steaming continuously, so I would recommend only holding the button down for a couple seconds at a time, then pausing to wipe, then repeating (it got hot when I was holding the button down for 10+ seconds). This could be easily remedied by putting on some gardening gloves or even an oven mitt if you really need to have longer bouts of steaming. All in all though, I love this steamer!

I did not want to review this until I tried it on multiple projects. After a month of everyday use here is what I think:

Floors: This replaced my Shark Steam mop which was somewhat useful but eventually broke. There is no comparison of the floor cleaning power of these two items. The MC-1275 cuts through dried dog drool spots, stickers, and everyday dirt easily and leaves my bamboo floors looking brand new. The kitchen laminate hasn't been this clean in years. The floor cleaning pads are high quality (2 included). A tip: Using a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol to lightly mist the floors before steaming leaves zero water streaking.

Grills: Works well. Not strong enough on it's own to eliminate baked on crud but some de-greaser sprayed on before steaming helps.

Car Parts: I used this to prep the bottom of my 1966 Plymouth for painting. It works well to remove old grease, oil, and dirt. I also used it on an aluminum intake manifold to remove old dirt and sealant. Great to prep gasket surfaces. If you own an old car or off-road vehicle the MC-1275 can be very handy.

Showers: Using this steamer after spraying your shower with scrubbing bubbles brand cleaner leaves it sparkling new. The squeegee attachment works well on shower door glass. Removes hard water stains.

Carpet and Upholstery: I steamed out some high traffic spots on our carpets and spills on area rugs quite well. Our white microfiber couches look great after steaming them.

Concrete floors: Works well for de-greasing and oil cleanup.

Windows: The squeegee attachments works well on windows and sliding doors. I use a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol to leave them streak free.

Kitchen: Works great on our granite counter tops and sinks. It blasts out hard water crud from the crevices of the faucet assembly and shines up the chrome.

Baby items: I used the steamer to clean two car seats and a jogging stroller. It makes fabric look new and works great at removing sticky goo, etc.

Overall the MC-1275 is an incredible tool for every household. Highly recommended.

It does not do grout as good as I thought it would. It's just okay. It does not hold 48 oz of water at one time. You have to let it cool down each time to refill it and you can refill 2 more times after the first filling in one day but than it does take a while to heat up each of the 3 times in a day. Water does condense in the hose and you have to stop and shake out the hose and sprayer so you only get steam. Overall I would give it a 4 since it might work as well or better than others on the market I haven't tried others to compare.

After I used this to steam all the nooks and crannies, all the corners of my walls and furniture, I have not seen a single bed bug and I'm so happy this saved me from spending thousands of dollars on an exterminator to get rid of the bed bugs that lived with us for 5 months. The plus size, it cleans my stove like a boss! I love it! Be careful though because the grey knobs on head of this can come off or melt like mine did. Which sucks. Other than that, this thing is beast and I love it!

Used to clean grout lines before resealing some tile. The grout looks a lot better after steaming it. Not perfect, but that's not the fault of the little steamer. It comes with plenty of attachments. And enough wand extension to clean the grout lines without having to kneel down. It's a handy system to have, also comes with floor steaming pads that are machine washable. It does a nice job. Only downside, it'd be nice to have a kit to store all of the attachments.

used to have a smaller upright that was around $50 or so. An O-ring on that thing lasted about 5 uses before it started leaking and drastically effecting performance. This thing, however, is a beast by comparison. MUCH MUCH hotter, MUCH MUCH more useful with all the attachments. Easy to use, comes with a measuring cup and funnel even in case you don't have them.

IF YOU BUY THIS AND ARE LIKE ME AND DON'T LIKE READING DIRECTIONS, PAY ATTENTION to this...
I didn't have a bad experience, I actually stopped and read the instructions...mostly. The chamber where the water goes is under extremely high pressure and will stay that way long after you turn it off, if you don't empty it. If that means just letting the steam out over the kitchen sink until it's depleted, so be it. I got a scare once early on when my wife used it one day. She didn't empty it after using it, and a day or so later I went to full it up and thankfully I started hearing a hissing noise before I got too close to having the cap loose enough for it to blow off. As long as you empty it, there is no problem. It does take a little getting used to how much water you need. If you're only doing 50sq ft of kitchen floor, for example, don't fill it all the way up. In fact, start with 1/2-2/3 a cup and see how far that gets you.

Great purchase overall. Only reason no 5* is no place to hold all the accessories or power cable.

I was looking for a steamer to clean the grout in my kitchen. After researching steamers online I was left with the impression that there is a lot of hype and buzz about steamers but not much objective information. Plus many are not exactly cheap and the vendors have dodgy-looking return policies.

So I decided to start small with this unit and have been very favorably impressed with the build quality and performance. For my project this little machine has performed excellently and probably saved me about $600 over getting it done professionally - with potentially questionable results, given a neighbor's experience. Of course it requires a fair amount of effort to do the cleaning oneself but it has been well worth it and I have moved on to attacking the bathroom tile!

My only negative is that the steamer comes with only one of the small brass bristle brushes which are essential for grout cleaning. The nylon brushes go flat in about 5 seconds. I ordered 10 more brass units off the manufacturer's web site - at a reasonable price - and problem solved. Item A275-004-5 steamfast.com

This product works well on bigger projects like tiled showers and vinyl flooring when the full capacity of water is used in the reservoir. On smaller jobs, when less than total capacity water is used, it sprays out more liquid hot water than steam. It also seems to loose it steam pressure much quicker making the job last way longer than it should take. It is well constructed and was very easy to put together. Both the hose and electrical cord are long enough to avoid having to move it around very often when doing large jobs.

Perhaps I expected too much. Lots of steam, but grout still not clean. Bought recommended grout cleaner and sprayed tiles before steaming and that didn't work on kitchen floor or bathroom tiles. Finally had to use elbow grease and hard bristled brush to get the job done. The other recommended uses I haven't needed yet.

Not powerful enough for the job so you really have to work at it. But Once I get going with it, it's fine. Thought about retunring it, but it's a little late now.

Meh... It's OK....

The primary use I hoped to get was cleaning bathroom tile. It does a decent job of cleaning the tile, but it's still not as clean as if I'd knuckled down with a bottle of Kaboom or similar cleaning product. It does excel at getting into cracks and crevasses, but you have to be careful near the edges of the room if your tile doesn't also go up the side wall. (i.e. if you have wooden baseboard.) Hence, the utility is somewhat limited.

For grins I took it out to work on the grill. It does a great job on the general grease on the inside of the grill lid, but don't expect it to replace Easy-Off to clean the grates of the grill.

As much as anything, that's probably a commentary on steam cleaning. Don't expect it to replace chemical cleaners, but it's a decent way to go.

This particular unit holds up pretty well. It heats in about 8 minutes, as described in the manual. It ran more-or-less continuously for about an hour, which was good capacity.The hose is nice and long, (even longer than a tank vacuum cleaner) making it easy to move around. Also the electric cord is plenty long as well. These are nice features so that you don't need to unplug the unit and move it around to clean with.

In terms of design, there are a couple of things they can improve, though they aren't show stoppers. There is no where to coil the hose or the cord on the unit. Seems like those are obvious design improvements. The electric cord could be on a retractable coil (like a tank-style vacuum cleaner). The brushes definitely wilt under the heat of the steam. They need to rethink the plastic they use for those. The scouring pad basically disintegrated when I used it on stainless steel. It should have held up better than it did.)

Overall, it's OK, but it's not going to replace hard work. Now if I could just find the product on amazon called "elbow grease"...

This is a nice machine, sleek, easy to move around and easy to use. My complaint is that the accessory tools are almost worthless. The small brush to get in the grout lines seems to work very well but that is where it ends. All of the other accessory tools seem cheap and ineffective. The scrubber attachment is too small and the sponge end flattens out after a couple of hours of use. The large tile steamer has too many holes and is too large. The corner scrub brush does not let enough steam come out to make it effective. The main unit is nice and if you could find good attachments, this would be a decent tool. As it is built and sold, I would not buy another one.

07-28-2013 Update
I took the small attachment that has the scrubbing pad glued to it and found a great alternative. I bought OXO Soap Dispensing Palm Brush Refills and tore off the scrubbing pad that comes with the unit. I then glued on the OXO brush with epoxy cement to the plaatic housing and now use that tool as a cleaner. It works great and the OXO brush fits exactly into the plastic housing from the scrubbing pad. The hole in the brush is exactly the same size of scrubbing pad's hole. It is as if this brush was a factory replacement part. It works wonderfully and gives you that little bit of extra scrub action needed when you do tile. Why does not the McCollough R&D team make this part of their package. Another $4 in expense would add an incredible feature to this unit and take the weakest feature and make it the strongest.

Good steamer, heats up fast and easy to setup. I didn't like it because it spews an obscene amount of water at all times. I would have had to lay out towels for even the smallest of cleaning projects so I returned it.

Poor quality. I mean...this device can produce a good amount of steam with good pressure but... is made of super cheap plastic parts. It's not easy assembly it together, start/stop buttons are super hard to press/release especially for my wife.
I was hoping that well know US brand McCulloch will care about products quality.
Will return this steamer and for sure and will well build, high quality european steamer made by Karcher.
Sorry McCulloch ....but for me quality counts

Plenty of attachments but the steam cleaner itself is extremely lacking in power and temperature. Don't be fooled by the "heated to over 200ºF". While the water may heat up to that much and the cleaner feels hot, when the steam comes out, it is anything but; more like <90ºF. I filled up the tank with ~40 oz of water and let it heat up for over 15 minutes. Within 2 minutes of constant use, the light flicked back on (indicating that the unit is warming up/not hot enough/ready for use, ALSO indicating that the unit has a problem with maintaining constant temperature). The surface of the floor I steamed was not even remotely hot. And there was constant water leakage, not just from the vapor. I let it run for a few seconds to get the initial water out and have tried using multiple attachments but water still leaked from all of them while using. You would probably get the same result from a ~$50 steam cleaner without all the fancy attachments. Definitely not worth the ~$100.

Came packaged very nicely, was great at cleaning the kitchen floor with the pad attachment. I was unable to get any change in my grout lines, not sure how others did it.
My biggest issue with this is that once you put water in it and wait 40 minutes for it to really heat up I found that you only have about 3 minutes worth of good adequate steam and then looses pressure and nothing comes out...I found waiting for about 5 minutes every so often increases the flow, steam and pressure that helps with cleaning, its hard to clean when you dont have hardly any water/steam coming out. Also on a seperate note I used the small attachment with the green pad and after a few strokes on my leather couch the green pad started to rip so it was rendered useless. I am pretty disappointed for the price I paid.

Maybe I had a defective one, or maybe it's just a generally faulty product- but it did not get hot enough to generate a good steam. No pressure and a low temperature. Followed the instructions with waiting for the light and ended up with some unimpressive steam (we could hold our hands near the steam, definitely not hot!) and puddles of water on our surfaces. Tried it on the wood floors, tile floors, the bathtub, and marble counters- didn't clean anything that I couldn't do with a scrub sponge. Called the company and they accepted the return without an hassle. But it's definitely a well designed and sturdy product, so if you get one that works I imagine it would be great!

It would have great pressure and the barley nothing and it went in and out alot, then after just a couple uses its extention piece broke, I don't know how it's solid plastic but it broke taking it part to store it

Not really useful. The Steamer only produces a steady shot of steam for about 20 seconds after that you will need to wait two minutes or so for the machine to warm back up. Also I tried cleaning a variety of surfaces like stained upholstery and caked on stove crud. The stains were still present on the upholstery after steaming and vacuuming (I wound up getting the stain out with shout and gentle scrubbing). On the stove crud, even with the brass brush attachment and working on the same spot through several steam cycles the steamer was completely ineffective. It did exactly the same job that a Brillo pad and comet cleaner did. Not worth the money in my opinion.

I bought this steamer based on good reviews, I have had a similiar one in past that lasted 10 years. This one sputtered, had low steam stream, really worthless for any uses. I tested the steam temperature at the nozzle, was 90 degrees, not enough to kill dust mites or sanitize, just throwing warm water around. Went back to my usual earth friendly scrub methods. Currently do not have a steamer, when I decide to spend the bucks will go other sites and get one that will do the job I expect it to do. Dont waste you time and money on this item

UPDATE on 3/22/2015 Read before buying.

After having this "heavy duty" (and I use this term lightly) Mc Culloch MC 1275 for exactly 5 months I am unhappy to report it is no longer working. I used it about a 15 times usually for 35 to 45 minutes in duration. I was about to use it again today and after filling the tank water leaked on one side onto the floor and no steam was emitted just a stream of water. My use was normally wood and tile floors, marble kitchen counters and tiled bathroom countertops...nothing too strenuous for this machine. It was no good on shower door residue, no good at all. Never cleaned my shower doors like the video at all. I also took good care of it emptying the machine after each use if I didn't use up all the water. I used filtered water not tap. I normally use the water up by the time I am done cleaning, normally I did not even need to empty the steam cleaner. This machine still looks new. Sadly it is too late to return it. I would just say buyer beware. So far, I have tried 3 steamers all under $150 and none of them worked over time or did what they claimed to do.

10/20/2014 Steamed my floors both tile and wood and it seems to have done a good job. I have not steamed my showers yet so the jury is out. I will update once I have done my shower doors.

This is a piece of crap, waste of money and time. I have spent most of this afternoon trying to get this to work properly. The instructions say to attach brushes, the scrubbing pad, etc. to the steam nozzle, and when I do, they just fall right off. After just a couple of sweeps over my shower, the scrubbing pad is flat and worn out, and keeps falling off. The steam output is so poor that I have to keep checking it to make sure steam is coming out at all. Really a shoddy product. I owned a Hoover steamer that I bought from Hammacher Schlemmer, and it worked beautifully with billows of steam coming out & really got my natural-stone shower sparkling. Unfortunately, the steam button kept breaking, and I had to send it back twice. This machine will be returned as well. Don't waste your money or your time. I'm giving up on steamers after this experience.