Dyson WashG1 review: What’s it like to use?
Given that the Dyson WashG1 has two rollers, I was expecting it to float around the room like the company’s Omni-glide dual roller hard floor cleaner. The reality is that this is a lot larger and heavier, weighing 4.9kg, making it less manoeuvrable. When switched off it really needs carrying around, though the rotation of its fluffy rollers give it some lift and make it easier to push once the motor has started.
I found that filling the cold water tank was straightforward. Push a button on the top and the assembly that holds both water tanks pops off the front. Remove the clean tank from the connecting unit, screw off the lid and you can fill the container nearly to the top.
Once you press the on button, Dyson suggests you wait about 15 seconds for the rollers to charge with water. I found it started doing a good job of wetting the floor sooner than that, but it’s worth knowing that it won’t be at its peak cleaning ability straight away.
In my tests, the battery lasted for around 34 minutes and the clean water tank needed refilling once during that time. Dyson claims the water tank will cover 290m2 but that will be reduced if you increase the water flow.
When cleaning is complete, you can place the device back on its stand for charging. Dyson suggests you empty the dirty water and the dirt collection tray, refill the clean water, then start the device’s own self cleaning process. This is as much of a faff as it sounds.
The dirt tray slides out from underneath and holds the kind of detritus that can be trapped by the filter. As with most hard floor cleaners, clearing it out isn’t a particularly pleasant job but I found that it could be mostly done by tapping into a bin and rinsing the apparatus. It’s arguably slightly less messy to empty than the debris traps in the Shark HydroVac WD210UK and Eufy Mach V1 Ultra because there’s less finger work involved. However, it’s still far from pleasant and the added moisture makes it a muckier job than emptying a vacuum cleaner.
Dyson’s marketing suggests that you can skip the vacuuming and go straight to this mop on your hard floors. In practice, I’d recommend vacuuming first, otherwise you’re likely to be dealing with more damp muck in the debris tray.
