Black & Decker Inc B+D Scumbuster Replaces S500
by Black & Decker Inc
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Product Summary
Manufacturer: Black & Decker IncBrand: Black & Decker
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Black & Decker Inc B+D Scumbuster Replaces S500
Customer Review: It works fine. Possibly useful in limited situations.
Summary: 3 Stars
I have an older Scumbuster model but my comments mostly concern the usefulness of Scumbusters in general.
Overall, I don't think it's worth the space it takes up, but it does work.
Power: good. The power is fine and I was able to exert enough pressure with no problem to feel like I was doing something.
Battery Life: Excellent. I was favorably impressed with the battery life, it lasted much longer than I expected. However, with any cordless appliance you need two batteries so that you can charge one while you are using the other. Also, rechargeable batteries work best in appliances that are in daily use, like a cordless phone or a drill you use daily in your construction job. Otherwise you never have a charged battery when you need it and keeping them always on the charger shortens their life.
Speed of rotation: slow. It turns too slowly to clean quickly. However, I can see if it turned faster it might sling soap around the room, it might be dangerous, and it might be hard to control.
Cleaning carpet: Lousy. The circular motion scrubs only one way, not in all directions like I like. I went back to a manual scrubber. Manual is just as fast, better, and only a little more effort.
Cleaning the bathtub: Lousy. The tiny little pad and slow rotation combine to make the tool too slow. I went back to a manual scrubber and do it faster and much better, albeit with more effort.
Cleaning tile grout: Possibly useful. Since grout is soo difficult to scrub, and a toothbrush seems to be the tool of choice, a power tool like this would be a revolution (hahaha). My set came with a cone shaped bristle brush and if you hold the brush sideways to the wall the bristles are able to get into the grout groove. That makes it possibly useful but my scrubbing session did not yield success. I think that may be because grout mildew, like calcium, is impervious to scrubbing. The chemical action of the chlorine bleach in Tilex is the only thing that works.
Cleaning the shower tile: too slow. Same problem as with the tub. Hint: To get shower tile truly clean, try this. First, scrape each and every tile with a razor blade until it feels smooth and you aren't scraping off any more calcium. Then scrub each tile carefully with Ajax or Zud Heavy Duty. The Scumbuster could help in this task. For the final step, go over the tile carefully with Meguiar's Gold Class car wax. This stuff is amazing and the only product that I have found to really clean off that incredibly stubborn calcium, and I have tried them all. Also it smells great. Buff to a shine and your tile will look just like the pictures on the bottles of all those products that are supposed to clean tile but don't. This procedure takes me about 4 hours per shower stall. The scumbuster is not up to this job because it's too tiny. It would take something bigger like a car polisher that you can plug in.
Cleaning the tile at the water line of the pool: Good. The small area of tile, having to work in the water, having some of the tile under water, and the length of the tile to be cleaned make the Scumbuster useful for this task.
Cleaning the calcium off the sink faucet: lousy. First off, the Scumbuster pad can not fit in the narrow spaces required. Second off, the calcium can not be removed by scrubbing. Again, scraping with a razor blade is required. Simply scrape the calcium off, then follow with the Megauir's wax mentioned and you will get a better than brand new sparkle. Remove the faucet handles so that you can get all of the calcium. Keep a washcloth on the towel rack handy and wipe down the faucet after each use (5 seconds) to keep it sparkling like new.
Scrubbing the sink: Acceptable. The small area to be cleaned allow the Scumbuster's speed to be acceptable here. However, I still went back to manual.
UPDATE: This review (minus a few recent edits) was originally written in 2003. Since then my Scumbuster has been sitting unused under the sink. Recently I was doing a reorg and I dug it out and determined to either use it or trash it. I never expected the battery to hold a charge after that time. To my great surprise, the battery charged overnight and the Scumbuster worked fine! I reiterate my original opinion...this thing has a good battery.
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