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How we test floor cleaners

Here's how we decide which floor cleaners to put to the test.

woman cleaning floor with mop

Whether you're doing a quick whip around the house or the annual spring clean, the job is made much easier with an effective surface cleaner. But when it comes to floor cleaners, not all are created equal – in fact in most cases, you're better off just using a bucket of water.

Read on to find out how we put floor cleaners to the test so we can see how good they are at removing dirt from floors.

Our expert testers

We buy floor cleaners available from major supermarkets and use our specialised laboratory for testing them. We also work out value for money for each product by measuring how much is recommended per use versus how much it costs to buy the cleaner at the time of testing.

How we choose which floor cleaners we test

With a range of products on the market, what makes us choose one floor cleaner to test over another? As with most of our product testing, our aim is to test the most brands on the market and what you're most likely to see in stores.

We check to see what's available in national supermarkets and survey manufacturers to find out about their range of products. From this information we put together a final list that goes to our buyers. They then head out to the retailers and purchase each product, just as a regular consumer would. We do this so we can be sure what we buy is the same as any consumer would find it and not 'tweaked' in any way for better performance.

How we test floor cleaners

Our test covers general floor cleaning/disinfecting products, not carpet cleaners or products specified for wooden floors. Lab experts put each floor cleaner to the test by soiling white ceramic tiles with oily grime. Using a scrubbing apparatus with a damp cloth (or wipe) attached, the tiles are scrubbed 20 times. The reflectance readings are measured before and after cleaning to determine the CHOICE Expert Rating, which is a measure of dirt removal.

Scoring

Unlike other products where we might score and assess them based on a range of tests, for floor cleaners dirt removal accounts for 100% of the CHOICE Expert Rating (the overall score that determines which products we recommend).

We care about accuracy. See something that's not quite right in this article? Let us know or read more about fact-checking at CHOICE.

Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.