Karcher FC 7 – a boon for messy cooks!

It is no secret that I love to cook, but if truth be known, I’m not the world’s tidiest kitchen wizard. Sometimes after crafting a feed, the kitchen looks like an atomic spaghetti bomb was detonated. With polished wooden floors, vacuuming is pretty much a must, as is mopping, but having to vacuum before mopping is a total pain where the sun doesn’t shine.

Karcher must have felt my pain as they launched the FC 7, a nifty cordless power mop cleaner that keeps my kitchen floors sparkly nice and is almost effortless to use.

It’s a lightweight widget with a rechargeable battery. Being from Karcher, it comes in their trademark yellow finish. Looks-wise it resembles an old-school floor sweeper that you may have seen at your grandma’s. A long handle attaches to a small rectangular base with four detachable rollers. On the handle, there’s a water tank, plus another built into the base that collects dirty water and debris from the mop attachments. This is the big selling point with the FC 7. It doesn’t require that you vacuum before you mop. It’ll pick up small debris and dirt while giving my kitchen floor the clean of its life.

In use, the results were impressive. The fabric-covered rollers are dampened by the FC 7’s water tank. Add a small amount of the bundled cleaning compound, and lifting stubborn stains, like spilt coffee, batter, flour and bits of pasta (plus greyhound fur) is effortless, leaving my floors looking freshly scrubbed.

Driving the FC 7 wasn’t much of a chore either. Its wet rollers minimise sliding on the floor, so It feels like it’s hovering on an air cushion. In short, pushing the FC 7 around my kitchen felt pretty close to being effortless. Its rollers are held in place by friction. They sometimes needed to be re-inserted, which was a minor annoyance. That said, the roller design also handily meant that the FC 7 reached right into the edges of my kitchen unit kick-boards and under our stove, which our battered mop and bucket arrangement tend to struggle with.

The two water tanks the FC 7 uses are situated on its handle and in its base. The tank on the handle is clean water. It’s also where the cleaning solution goes. The other tank in the base is where dirty water is collected off the mops as you clean. This arrangement also handily means that you’re not shifting dirty water over the floor you’re cleaning, which from a hygiene perspective is a good thing.

The FC 7 did a great job of cleaning my kitchen floor. Thanks to its scrubbing action and the addition of the cleaning solution, it did a better job than many of the other vacuum and mopping widgets I’d previously reviewed. Dirt and grime were gone, and after the floor had dried – it takes 5-10 minutes depending on humidity levels – the floor looked shiny and new. Nice!

While The FC 7 saves you from having to vacuum before you mop, you still need to clean it after use. This was a straightforward exercise. Two panels on the top of the base pop out and can be rinsed under a tap, as can its two rollers. Karcher also bundles a small platform with a tank that the FC7 empties into. It can also be used to pre-wet the rollers before use.

The FC 7 uses a 25.2V lithium-ion battery. It took around four hours to charge and ran for 45 minutes (which was several times what was needed to clean my kitchen floors thoroughly). While there is a lot to like with the FC 7, its bundled instructions could prove a tad confusing for many, even if it is a doddle to get set up and use.

That one minor gripe aside, the FC 7 is a solid offering that anyone with hard floors will find really useful. Compared to the old school, grab a bucket and use a mop, the FC 7 is a breath of fresh air.

www.kaercher.com/nz