Like most people, when I notice the kitchen floor is a little dirty, I walk into the hall closet and dig out my mop and bucket. These were of course the cheapest mop and bucket I could find. I then proceed to mop the floor with dish soap because I never figured out where to buy floor cleaner.
Okay, so maybe you’re not as stupid as this. But living in an apartment with lino in the kitchen, tiles in the bathroom and wood in the hallways, I have more hard floors than carpet. Keeping them clean can be a little tedious, but when I wash it, I notice how much dirt builds up that our vacuum simply can’t handle.
So when Dyson asked if I wanted to test its new WashG1 – its new high-tech wet floor cleaner – I wondered if it would make me realize that mopping floors is an art that we need the latest equipment to master. I was a lazy millennial who had to clean my apartment more often than basically never.
I think the truth is somewhere in between.
The WashG1 is a heavy duty vacuum cleaner-like device, but it doesn’t pick up any debris at all. Instead, you pour a liter of water from the tap into one tank and leave the other empty. Detach the G1 from the charging unit and click it, and the two microfiber rollers go into action, creating a nice film of water as you roll the unit across floors.
There are three sensitivity levels, the highest of which uses the strongest rotation and water volume. You can use the G1 to clean up drinks, food and other household spills, but I mainly used it to keep the parquet floors or my hallway and living room clean of dirt and shoe prints, and to keep the kitchen floor shiny. I have cut, crushed and chopped the preparation of the meal.
You don’t need to apply pressure to make it work, and when the dirty water drains into the empty tank, there’s a reassuring sense of satisfaction that the G1 is doing what it’s supposed to do. The color of the water is slightly appalling, but there is no garbage in that water.
After cleaning the removable litter tray, which is first assigned via the Dyson app. All kinds of hair, dirt and grime collect here – if you think you have clean floors, the carnage collected in this tray might convince you otherwise. The fine mesh grates keep the dirty water separate from the garbage.
Otherwise, the G1 can completely self-clean. The mini display on the handle of the unit reminds you, but you have to manually drain the dirty water from the tank and refill the clean tank completely to make it through the cycle.
The £599.99 cleaning machine involves a lot of unplugging and filling tanks, emptying bins and docking charging stations. We’re used to a lazy automated lifestyle, even with Dyson’s set-and-forget vacuum cleaners, but setup rituals are unavoidable here. That said, the WashG1 is great for cleaning floors and does a better job than my old mop, but it’s still a faff. No technology can get around it here.
Floors dry very quickly, even with the highest water setting, because the microfiber rolls don’t leave blinding puddles everywhere. My floors were dry in about ten minutes each time. A full tank lasts about long even when cleaning, but a fully charged G1 lasts about 35 minutes without a charger.
Overall, I’m satisfied that my floors are clean. I thought them before. How wrong I was. But I’m not sure I’d recommend everyone spend £599.99 just to upgrade their mop.
The WashG1 does a much better job of wet cleaning than a traditional mop, mainly because it’s able to pick up all the dirt and debris and sort it out – mopping usually just moves all the dirt around. It means I don’t necessarily need to vacuum my hard floors before cleaning them, but this method isn’t for everyone.
It’s also worth confirming that this is an expensive electric mop that can clean surface level dirt and spills, but can’t get rid of grout or truly embedded stains. It is not a product to buy to deep clean the hardwood floors of your new house, but a luxury mop that makes cleaning a little easier. Whether it’s worth the £599.99 is entirely up to you.
