The Neat is the most affordable steam cleaner from steam appliance specialist, Dupray. Minimalist in design and super-quiet in operation, it’s a multi-purpose cylinder steam cleaner that comes with a range of accessories. While there’s no water-level indicator and it takes a while to heat up, the water tank here is large – meaning you won’t have to do it too often.
The Neat Steam Cleaner’s steam volume is powerful, but it doesn’t tend to soak any surface since the temperatures run pretty high: it boasts 135°C super-heated steam.
Dupray Neat Steam Cleaner – What you need to know
- Hard floors – Dried muddy water prints were removed from textured wooden flooring with only slight pressure. The floor was left moist, but with no excess water or marks when dry. Dried tomato paste required some extra pressure, but was wiped up with no colour residue remaining. There was a faint smell of cooked tomatoes, so the supplied fragrance disc proved handy
- Grouting – Using a small brush, I restored some grey grouting between my kitchen tiles to its former gleaming-white glory. While the cleaner emitted some water, it wasn’t too much and could be wiped up easily
- Other surfaces – Limescale and soap were removed from my bathroom mirror and shower screen using the squeegee tool, with only the most stubborn limescale remaining. The squeegee tool also removed dirt from windows in only a couple of passes. Burnt-in oil was removed from the inside of the oven door and bottom of the oven using a small brush, while the brass brush was handy to remove grease from an oven rack
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The Dupray Neat Steam Cleaner design and features – A minimalist, compact steam cleaner, but there’s no built-in tool storage
If Apple was to go into steam cleaners, I’d expect the result to look much like the Neat. The main body of the cleaner is essentially a white plastic cube on two wheels and two castors, with a large power button sits in the centre of one face, and a 2m black hose extending out from just below it. There’s a white handle on top that allows for easy carrying; it retracts into the box when you no longer need it.
Next to the handle, you’ll find the boiler cap. In this appliance, the water tank and boiler are virtually the same. This means you always have to let the boiler cool for 20 minutes before opening the cap to refill. However, since the tank here is large, you’re unlikely to run out of water too quickly.
Annoyingly, there’s no water-level indicator when you’re filling the tank, so you’ll have to measure it out beforehand – or risk overfilling since the levels are difficult to gauge from the tiny filling hole. (The manual says that the maximum water amount is 1.2l, but it’s stated as 1.6l elsewhere and marketing materials; 1.6l was fine in my experience).
Although there’s no built-in storage for accessories, the cable can be rolled up and stored on the underside of the appliance.
The floor head is provided with three microfibre pads as well as a microfibre cloth that can be attached to it. Thanks to this design feature, you can essentially attach any sufficiently large piece of cloth to the floor head, so you don’t have to go out of your way to replace the pads. Meanwhile, the microfibre cloth also proves handy in drying up any water the cleaner has left behind.
The triangle-shaped manual nozzle a comes with a microfibre cover, which helps to intensify the heat and dirt pick-up, and proves useful for tasks such as upholstery steaming. For any glass or other smooth surfaces, there’s a sturdy and wide squeegee tool. Two extension tubes that fit onto the steam gun give the cleaner a reach of 80cm. Also included is a detail nozzle that fits the small brushes: five brushes with nylon bristles and one with brass bristles is provided.
When the cleaner is switched on, the large power button turns orange, indicating the boiler is heating. Once the light turns green, it’s ready to use. This took just under 7 minutes when I first started with 1.2l of water in the tank. While heating, the cleaner was surprisingly quiet.
Interestingly, there’s no steam control switch. But it does feel like this steam cleaner produces just the right amount of steam, so you’re unlikely to miss one. In comparison, the Karcher SC 4 EasyFix tended to release significant amounts of steam and soaked everything, even on its lower setting.
On the steam gun, you’ll find the steam trigger as well as a lock button for continuous steaming. If you press it while holding down the steam trigger, the cleaner will keep letting out steam without you having to touch the trigger. This means less grip fatigue for longer steaming action.
Dupray Neat Steam Cleaner performance – Excellent results on a variety of surfaces
I tested this steam cleaner on a variety of surfaces with excellent results overall. The cleaner produced quite a lot of steam at times, but it never left the surfaces dripping wet.
First, I used the squeegee tool to remove soap scum and limescale from my bathroom mirror and shower screen. It managed to remove all the soap and most of the limescale, leaving only the most stubborn bits. Since both are next to the shower, I’m used to these surfaces being tricky to clean even when chemical cleaners are involved.
I then tried the squeegee tool on a window with excellent results: it only took two passes to clean an area of heavy city dirt. Next, I turned my attention to the manual tool. It managed to dislodge dirt in my bathtub, but tended to blow it around a bit. Things improved when I put the microfibre cover on the tool to collect the dirt.
Using the same combination, I cleaned a patch of my red sofa that had become a little grey over time. The steam is hot enough that any excess evaporates instead of condensing and soaking everything – the sofa didn’t get too wet, allowing me to steam it for longer.
After the sofa had dried, you could notice a visible difference: the steamed area looked a little darker and more even in colour. However, this means that I now need to go over the entire sofa – so this isn’t the ideal tool for spot cleaning.
I then tried the detail nozzle with a small nylon bristle brush. It managed to restore some of my kitchen grouting to its original bright-white state without emitting too much water. (Although the microfibre cloth was handy here for wiping up any excess.)
The brush proved quite resilient, with little damage to the bristles after bouts of intense scrubbing. Nevertheless, having five of these in total is useful – you can reserve brushes for specific purposes.
I used another nylon bristle brush for scrubbing the inside of my oven door, restoring a patch to its original transparent state after prolonged brown haziness. The brush was also successful at removing burnt-in oil from the bottom of my oven, only surrendering to the toughest staining. The brass bristle brush proved useful for cleaning a rack from the oven, breaking through food remnants and oil, to get to the shiny metal.
Finally, I turned my attention to the floors. I had to exert only a little extra pressure to remove dried muddy water stains from a textured wooden floor. The microfibre pad managed to create enough friction with the floor to remove the dirt, leaving it relatively dry afterwards.
I had to apply a degree of pressure on the mop as I wiped dried tomato paste from smooth kitchen tiles. While there was no red residue water, a smell of cooked tomatoes emerged, perhaps due to the high temperature of the steam from this cleaner. There weren’t many watermarks on the floor, but I preferred to go over it again with half of the fragrance disc provided, which filled my kitchen with a pleasant, clean smell.
The Neat feels safe to use, as long as you don’t get too close to the steam. While the handle on the main unit and the steam gun tended to become a little warm during steaming, this is relatively common to steam cleaners, and the steam hose never felt too hot.
Should you buy the Dupray Neat Steam Cleaner?
If you’re looking for an affordable cylinder steam cleaner that has sufficient oomph to clean your entire home, you won’t do much better than the Dupray Neat.
While filling the water tank/boiler can be fiddly, Dupray claims the tank is big enough to see you through 50 minutes of cleaning. The range of accessories is another bonus here – you get way more than you would with the Karcher SC 4 EasyFix steam cleaner, for example.
For a steam cleaner that can tackle most jobs around your home, you won’t go far wrong with the Dupray Neat Steam Cleaner.
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