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- Extendable wand to reach awkward spots and up high
- Effective cleaning, even on stubborn stains
- Easy to manoeuvre around the floor
- Expensive
- Doesn’t do a great job of separating debris from liquid in the dirty water tank
My house has no carpets at all downstairs, with hard wood floors, a few rugs and laminate in the kitchen. It looks lovely, but as anyone with hard floors will tell you, cleaning them can be a laborious process. This is why 2-in-1 vacuum mops can be so useful, saving you from having to vacuum or sweep a space first before you come back and mop it.
Shark’s latest AquaReach hard floor cleaners do exactly this job (and a few extra things, too), and I’ve been testing out the Pro model for this review. Generally, I’ve been thoroughly impressed with its cleaning capabilities, but I fear the price could be a sticking point for some.
Shark AquaReach Pro Hard Surface Vacuum: What do you get for the money?
At £500 full price, the AquaReach Pro is even more expensive than the Dyson Clean+Wash Hygiene I tested recently, and over double the price of the Karcher FCV 3 and the Bissell CrossWave EdgeFind Select.
There’s no getting away from that price, although I will say, in its defence, that it does do a fair bit more than simply clean the floor. The clue is in the name, AquaReach: you can detach the handle and wand, using this to clean, scrub and vacuum vertical surfaces such as tiled walls and hard-to-reach spots like behind the toilet.
And while the standard AquaReach is £380, it’s worth noting that you don’t get the drying system, edge-optimisation nozzle or LED reveal beam that’s included on the pro version.
Unlike many of these cleaners, which tend not to have much in the box, the AquaReach Pro comes with a fair amount of accessories and bits and pieces. The main machine arrives in three pieces (main body, extendable wand, and hose and handle), along with a charging, cleaning and heated drying dock.
You also get a detail mop with spare mop pad, a “Stain Scrubber” wand tool, a scrubbing brush to clean out the hose, a bottle of cleaning solution, a Speed Wash cup and a little stand for storing both the tools and the cup.
The build quality of the cleaner is pretty obvious. It looks great, too, clad in a rather stylish black and gold colourway, with a few touches of blue dotted about. It’s quite a chunky beast though, weighing 5.8kg empty and 6.4kg with the clean water tank full, and standing 1.11m high. The dirty water tank sits at the back of the machine, and in the base you’ll find the clean water tank along with the roller.
There are also two wheels at the back of the base to ease manoeuvrability on the floor, and a detachable hose that’s used with the extendable wand and accessories for cleaning hard-to-reach and high-up areas.
How easy is it to use?
Although setup is pretty straightforward, I should point out that clipping the hose into the base is a bit tricky. I like to think that I’ve got fairly good arm strength, but I had to ask my husband for help, and even he struggled to clip it into its fitting at the back of the base.
Before you start cleaning, you’ll need to fill the clean water tank, which is pretty easy. The tank sits on top of the main floor head. Remove this, fill with water up to the clearly marked line and then top up with cleaning solution to the second marked line. Replace the tank and you’re ready to go.
To use it in normal floor cleaning mode, you then attach the hose to the back of the machine with its provided clips, slot the reach wand in at the front and attach the handle to the wand up at the top. You’ll also need to make sure the mode select lever located on the base is in the ‘Up’ position.
If you want to use the extended reach function, you have two choices. For cleaning something such as a sink or tiling, you can simply detach the handle and use that with one of the accessories to scrub away at the area you need to clean. Or, for tricky-to-reach areas low down (or high up), you can remove the extension wand and handle together. You’ll need to make sure that the mode select lever has been moved to the ‘Down’ position to ensure water and detergent is rerouted from the clean water tank. Then, just press the trigger button on the handle to activate the spray of water.
There are four floor cleaning modes: wet and dry, plus boost modes for both of these. There’s also a wand cleaning mode (plus boost) for use with the extendable wand. The AquaReach Pro switches on with a power button and defaults to dry mode so you’ll need to toggle between wet and dry depending on what you’re cleaning. It is worth noting that once the roller is wet in the machine it won’t dry until you put it on its dedicated cleaning and drying cycle, so make sure you do any dry mode vacuuming first.
I was concerned that the cleaner would be rather difficult to move around, considering its weight and the fact that it only has two wheels. But in fact, thanks to the roller wheels, the whole machine glides effortlessly around the floor. It really is a pleasure to use.
How easy is it to clean and empty?
It’s easy to detach both clean and dirty water tanks. The latter has a hole through which to drain dirty water, as well as a lid that can be unscrewed to access the filter and to remove debris. The tank and the filter are easy to rinse out and clean, but since much of the debris ends up mixed in with the water, it helps to have a sink strainer to catch any solids when draining.
For a quick clean, you can also use the Speed Wash cup on its stand to clear out the wand and hose. To do this, you need to empty the dirty water tank, fill the cup up to its fill line with either clean water or a mix of water and cleaning solution (depending on how dirty everything is) and pop it in its stand. Then put the mode select lever in the down position, power on the machine and submerge the end of the wand in the water. I found it quite satisfying to watch water whoosh into the dirty water tank, cleaning out any residue in the hose and wand. You can also remove the roller and wash it out with warm water, before putting it on the roller stand on the dock to dry out for 24 hours.
Alternatively, the AquaReach Pro also has a really useful sanitisation cycle, which you can activate by pressing the self-clean button when the cleaner is on its dock. This runs a washing cycle for three minutes, before following it up with a 60 minute drying cycle. There is a little noise involved with this, but it’s not as loud as the Bissell CrossWave EdgeFind. I was pretty impressed by how well this cleaned and dried the roller in particular, and it means you can use it again straight away.
How do we test hard floor cleaners?
We test all the hard floor cleaners we review at Expert Reviews in the same way. We run a series of cleaning tests on hard flooring, with dried-on ketchup, mud and mustard. With each stain, we pass the cleaner over it forwards and backwards once and take before and after photos; then we keep cleaning, counting the number of forward/backward passes it takes to fully remove the stain from the floor.
We also test battery life, running the device on its max and minimum power modes to give you an idea of how long it takes before running out. We time how long it takes to fully charge the battery from empty. And we test noise levels in dBA.
How well does it clean?
The AquaReach Pro was an incredibly efficient day-to-day floor cleaner. It freshened up my floors in minutes, effortlessly lifting any dirt from foot traffic, cat hair and bits of debris – surfaces looking very clean in its wake. Unlike with a traditional mop and bucket, you’re not just pushing dirty water around the floor. Although not its primary function, it also performed very well on carpets, pulling out a good amount of hair and even lifting some Cheerios that I threw down as a larger debris test. I did notice that a few bits of larger debris were spat back out of the front of the roller as it was pulled backwards (it did this in my mud test too), but it wasn’t too much hassle to pick these back up on a second pass. The LED light did a rather upsettingly good job of highlighting dirt, particularly on my kitchen floor, and I was also impressed by how close the AquaReach Pro could get to edges.
I loved the extendable wand and had great fun trying to blast away some stains in my sink (the joys of hard water and limescale). The Stain Scrubber tool was the most effective overall, but you still need to employ a little bit of elbow grease to get the best results.
In our standardised tests, the AquaReach Pro performed very well, taking just seven passes to completely get rid of our ketchup stain, 14 passes to remove the concrete-like mustard and just three passes to get rid of caked-on mud. Noise-wise, the AquaReach Pro was similar to the FCV 3: I recorded a level of 73dBA in all standard modes, which raised to 79dBA in its boost modes.
Battery life is pretty impressive too, and I was never in danger of running out of charge. I recorded a runtime of 47 minutes and 31 seconds in the standard modes, which dropped to 29 minutes and 20 seconds in boost modes.
Should you buy the Shark AquaReach Pro Hard Surface Vacuum?
The AquaReach Pro is an excellent machine. It’s powerful, makes short work of even the most ground-in stains and does a reasonable job on carpets too. The extendable wand isn’t just a gimmick: I can confidently recommend this for cleaning hard-to-reach places. I’m not sure it’s quite as effective as a steam cleaner for tricksky jobs such as grouting, but for those everyday stains, it’s a joy.
It is, however, pretty expensive. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives available, although by opting for one of these you’ll be sacrificing the drying dock and the nifty extendable wand. I’ve yet to see this feature on any other hard floor cleaner. So if you have the budget, it’s a fantastic option.
