Ryobi ONE+ 18V HP SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner
Ryobi ONE+ 18V HP SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner
If you own a car with cloth upholstery, there is a good chance you have stains on that upholstery. If you own a house with rugs, there is an excellent chance you have stains on those rugs, especially if you also have pets or children! Dirt and stains happen… it’s just a fact of life. The question is, do you have the right equipment to remove those ugly stains before they haunt you forever? Well, if you don’t yet own a rug and upholstery cleaner, I would suggest you get to your nearest Home Depot and purchase the Ryobi ONE+ 18V HP SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner (PBLHV704). With it, you will have the power to wash those stains away!
Specifications
- Box Includes: 7” wide path nozzle, bristle brush insert, rubber brush insert, crevice tool nozzle, hose rinse tool, 6 ounces OXY cleaning concentrate
- Battery and Charger: sold separately, or could buy the package with a 4Ah battery and charger
- Air Flow: Up to 29 cubic feet per minute (CFM)
- Sealed Suction: Up to 70 inches of water lift (IOW)
- Solution Tank Capacity: 36 ounces
- Dirty Tank Capacity: 20 ounces
- Warranty: 3-year limited warranty
- Price: Not yet available on The Home Depot website
Portable and Ready Right Out Of The Box
The Ryobi SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner arrives in a conveniently sized box with lots of protective cardboard packaging. My unit came without a battery and a charger, though you can purchase one with them included if you don’t already own several members of the Ryobi ONE+ family of tools. The Ryobi SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner arrives completely assembled and is ready to attack stains immediately.
Ryobi designed the ONE+ 18V HP SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner for ultimate portability. The unit weighs approximately 10 pounds with a battery installed. The very sturdy and recessed plastic handle is at the top of the cleaner. When you pull the handle up, it securely locks in place and provides lots of confidence when you carry it from place-to-place.
The Ryobi cleaner is approximately 10.5 inches tall, 14 inches in length, and 7.5 inches wide, not including the attached hose. From the tip of the cleaning nozzle to the cleaner’s body, the hose stretches 5 feet in length. I was impressed by the sturdiness of the cleaning hose and appreciated how Ryobi designed it to wrap around the cleaner and secure to the side in its holster. Also attached to the left side of the unit was the crevice tool and hose rinse tool. The Ryobi SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner’s physical footprint and built-in storage was impressive and it was clearly designed for portability and cordless convenience.
Already attached to the unit is the 7” wide path nozzle that is designed to tackle your most stubborn stains. Attached to the 7” nozzle is the bristle brush for your quick scrubbing action clean ups. In addition, Ryobi includes a rubber bristle insert to attach to the 7” nozzle to attack those more difficult stains. Removing the wide path nozzle from the hose allows you to attach the crevice tool nozzle, which I found ideal for maneuvering in tight spaces, like the corners and crevices of my car seats. A hose rinse tool is included to clean the hose after your work has completed.
Storage Tanks and OXY Cleaning Concentrate
The Ryobi ONE+ 18V HP SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner comes with a separate clean solution tank and a dirty water tank. The dirty tank is attached at the front of the machine, and the clean tank is at the back of the unit. The clean solution tank has a capacity of 36 ounces and the dirty tank has a capacity of 20 ounces.
To remove the clean solution tank, you just need to lift the tank upward using the two recessed handles. There is no lock to secure the clean tank to the cleaner, so if you were to accidentally lift-up the unit from the tank itself, the tank could accidentally be removed. When the clean tank is removed, it is very transparent so that you can observe the liquid level inside. To fill the tank with the OXY cleaning solution, you need to flip it over and place it on a flat surface. The blue plug is removed by unscrewing it counter-clockwise.
There are two printed lines on the tank indicating when it is full (36 ounces) or half full (18 ounces). To make the 18-ounce solution, you need to add 2 caps of the OXY Cleaning Concentrate to the tank and fill the rest with water. The 36-ounce full tank requires 4 caps of the OXY Cleaning Concentrate. After tightening the blue cap, the clean solution tank can be flipped over again and carefully inserted into the unit. An audible “click” can be heard when you have successfully secured the tank to the Cleaner.
At no point did I ever have a leak from the blue cap, which was certainly a sign of excellent engineering. I appreciated how easy it was to remove the tank, as well as how clearly the full and half-full markings were indicated on the tank. The only difficulty I had was not spilling any of the cleaning concentrate and the water when I added them to the tank–I did find a funnel helpful for this process in the end. The Home Depot sells a 32 ounce OXY Cleaning Solution when you run out of the concentrate.
The dirty recovery tank is located toward the front of the Cleaner. The recovery tank has a latch that must be pushed forward in order to unlock the tank from the Cleaner. I liked that the dirty tank required it to be unlocked before removing it since that ensured it wouldn’t be removed by accident, potentially leading to a very messy spill. Never once in my 3 weeks of testing had I experienced any leaks from the dirty tank–again, a sign of excellent engineering.
Once the tank is unlocked, you use the embedded front handle on the tank to pull it off the Cleaner. With the tank off, there are two tabs on the side that must be manipulated to remove the top. There is a float inside of the tank that will automatically shut off the Cleaner within 10 seconds of it being engaged by a high level of liquid—a nice safety feature! The opening of the dirty tank is very large, which makes it super easy and convenient to empty and clean out after each usage. When you are ready to reattach the dirty tank, you need to insert the front edge into the housing first and then snap the back in. Again, another audible “click” can be heard when you have successfully secured the dirty tank to the Cleaner.
Excellent Cleaning Capability
What is most important to remember about the Ryobi ONE+ 18V HP SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner is that it is designed to be a “spot cleaner”. This is not a full-size, industrial rug cleaner that you rent from a box store and plug-in to do your entire home. Ryobi designed a very valuable tool that is meant to tackle the small spots and stains that occur on our rugs, our car seats, and our furniture.
I used the Ryobi Mid-Size Spot Cleaner for almost 3 weeks and it effectively removed each of the stains I presented it. My interior rugs had typical small stains caused by food or dirt and the bristle brushes were more than enough to remove them. It also was able to remove the larger vomit stains left behind by our cat after he ate grass outside. The spray head distributes the cleaning solution over a 5-to-6-inch area when close to the rug’s surface. Of course, holding the head higher off the surface will allow for a wider distribution of fluid.
The handle is very easy to hold and manipulate. The trigger to release the fluid is on the underside of the handle. I found I unintentionally engaged the trigger several times when trying to squeeze the tab atop the handle to change cleaning heads. That will be something to monitor since it can be very easy to dispense the fluid.
While running the Cleaner inside my house, I found the decibel level to average 71 decibels. I felt this was still quiet enough for me to perform my work and not disturb my entire house. Inside a closed car, the average decibel level rose to 80 decibels. I would probably have the doors open when cleaning a car to keep the noise level down.
I used the 7” wide path nozzle and bristle brush insert for the majority of my rug and upholstery cleaning. The bristle brush is stiff enough to work out the stains, but not so hard that I worried about ruining our area rugs or chairs. For stubborn, older stains like my cat’s vomit, I found it helpful pre-treating them and allowing the stain cleaner to soak in for a couple of minutes.
Once the fluid was on the rug, scrubbing the brush back and forth helped to loosen and remove the stains. To clean and remove the stains, it is advisable to hold the brush parallel to the surface you are cleaning. Once I was ready to extract the dirty water, I pushed or pulled the brush at a downward facing angle so that the suction area in the front of the brush area would be engaged more fully.
Here is a 10-second video of the dirt being extracted from an area rug.
Here is a 15-second video of the dirt being extracted from a car seat.
Even after 3 weeks of usage on several low-pile rugs, a Berber rug, 4 car seats, and many upholstered chairs, the nylon brushes showed almost no sign of age or usage—very well constructed!
The suction power of the Cleaner was extraordinary. While perhaps a little disgusting, I enjoyed watching as the Spot Cleaner extracted the cleaning solution, water, and dirt from my rugs. You could easily monitor the extraction through the transparent head. The suction power of the unit was enough to leave the rugs only slightly damp. Every single rug stain that I attempted to remove was done successfully.
Serious Stain Cleaning Capability!!
When I was ready to give the Ryobi Mid-Size Spot Cleaner a serious test, I asked my sister to bring me her older Honda Pilot as a test subject. My sister has 2 young children who sit, play, and eat atop her car seats. She had not had the car professionally detailed in more than a year, so I had a lot of heavy duty stains to tackle.
Upon placing it in car, I again appreciated its compact form. The Spot Cleaner fit so well on the floor mat and the five-foot hose allowed me to reach all of the areas of the seat I needed to. When I needed to reach the back of the seat, it was easy to lift, maneuver, and place on the seat. Plus, as a I stated before, it never leaks, so the seats stayed dry until I used the trigger. Portability will make this Cleaner a real asset to those that own a compact car.
Ryobi clearly states in its manual that you should clean the area of debris before using the Cleaner since it is not designed for “chunky messes”. Once her front passenger seat and rear passenger seat were vacuumed off, I pre-treated each area fully first. The stains were substantial, so I was prepared for a lot of vigorous scrubbing. In addition to the nylon brush insert, Ryobi packages the Cleaner with a rubber brush insert for stubborn stains. The 2 cleaning heads are super easy to swap out by pulling the tab.
Using them each successively, I assaulted the stains with a lot of scrubbing. When I was extracting the dirty water, it was obvious that the Ryobi Cleaner and the solution did an excellent job on the stains. I worked for several minutes in the seat area of each chair to remove as many stains as I could. While the results might not compare to a professional auto detailers heavy-duty cleaner, this battery-operated device yielded significant results and my sister’s children were both impressed and repulsed by the stains that were removed.
Here is a 32-second video of the front passenger seat being cleaned.
Here is a “Before Cleaning” picture of my niece’s seat. Many meals and ice creams were spilled atop it, apparently:
Here is an “After Cleaning” of the same seat. This was after approximately 10 minutes of cleaning:
Here is a “Before” and “After” picture of the passenger-side headrest. I was told some of the stains were honey mustard.
Before
After
Ryobi also includes a narrow crevice tool nozzle for tight areas. I used this for a couple of spots in my house. This nozzle only allows for the attached bristle brush and the suction area is atop the cleaning head, requiring you to flip it over. The crevice tool nozzle did a great job on the car seats, especially in the corners. For a car’s seat, this crevice tool was pure gold and it was a great idea for Ryobi to engineer it.
Cleaning The Spot Cleaner
When you are done with your cleaning, Ryobi allows you to thoroughly clean the unit with another clever hose rinse tool attachment. Prior to cleaning the unit’s hoses, you will need to store any remaining cleaning solution for later and fill that tank with plain water. I would also recommend emptying the dirty water tank. Next, you need to remove the cleaning head entirely. The hose rinse tool is conveniently stored on the side of the Cleaner and it is easily installed atop the hose and the sprayer in a sideways u-like fashion. Once securely attached, you turn on the unit and depress the trigger, causing the clean water to rush through the trigger area and hose. I found this hose rinse tool attachment to be quite crafty and effective at cleaning leftover dirt and debris from the hose.
Battery Life
I enjoyed using the Ryobi Mid-Size Spot Cleaner each and every time I tested it. In the house, I cleaned small areas individually. In these cases, it was not easy gauging the lifespan of the 18V 6Ah battery, but it would usually run for 45-50 minutes over several rooms in my house.
When I tackled the extremely stained car seats in my sister’s car, I used the Cleaner nearly non-stop. Using a fully-charged 18V 6Ah battery, the Ryobi Mid-Size Spot Cleaner could run continuously for 30-35 minutes on average. I had anticipated that it might run longer, but the Cleaner clearly demands a lot of power delivering the solution and later extracting the dirty water. I have several Ryobi 18V batteries, so I had no trouble swapping out batteries to keep the Cleaner functioning throughout my testings. If you also have multiple ONE+ 18V batteries, then you will also benefit from this cordless convenience.
The battery itself plugs into the back of the unit. I liked this since it was away from the wet area in the front of the machine. The Cleaner was also cleverly designed so that the battery level indicator faces up so that you can check its capacity with a quick glance of your eye. If Ryobi designs a Hybrid model of this Cleaner, that would be a game changer!!
For those with limited battery resources, I would suggest using the battery to dispense the cleaning solution, and then turning off the Cleaner while you scrubbed the stains with the bristle brush or the rubber bristle brush. I used this method often on our interior rugs. When I was satisfied, I would turn on the Cleaner again and extract the dirty water from the carpet. Using the Spot Cleaner in this manner, I could attack multiple rooms, chairs, and cars. Economical usage of the battery will definitely extend your run-time.
Final Thoughts
The Ryobi ONE+ 18V HP SWIFTClean Mid-Size Spot Cleaner is exactly what you need when life presents you with nasty stains. It’s portable, it’s powerful, it’s well designed, and it does exactly what it is advertised to do—it removes spots and stains almost effortlessly, bringing cleanliness to your life and a smile to your face. Once it becomes available at The Home Depot, I would highly recommend you add it to your cleaning collection.
