The waste tank pulls off easily and affords access to a small filter. This requires cleaning by removing and running under warm water. We had to do that often – at least every clean tank full. We noticed the suction reducing markedly after a short while. The small foam filter was clogged up with dirt and lint from the carpet. That happened a few times during testing, so regular maintenance will be required. That adds a bit of unnecessary faff to cleaning proceedings, and pre-vacuuming your carpets before shampooing is essential. Moving over a hallway carpet, the Russell Hobbs did an okay job of lifting daily surface grime that vacuum cleaning alone leaves behind. It buffed the surface reasonably well and left the carpet moist, but not too wet. The waste water showed plenty of murkiness, which is a good sign. A couple of older, deeper stains and some mud deep in the pile remained untouched, though.

While we might have expected the scented equivalent of Julie Andrews spinning through the house singing “The Hills are alive…”, the reality was rather more industrial. More Dettol than dancing in dandelions, to be honest. A capful is around 10ml. That gives you a staggering 50 tanks per bottle at weakest dilution, 12-or-so at the strongest. Either way, that’s impressively frugal use of cleaning solution with commensurately low consumable running costs. We split the difference and opted for two capfuls per tank in our test. Putting the Refresh & Clean together requires no more than attaching the handle to the main body. But that does require a firm push and a small cross-head screwdriver. The unit needs to be stored fully assembled, upright, unless you want to keep removing and replacing the two screws. Given the affordable asking price, it’s no surprise that accessories are conspicuous by their absence. One 500ml bottle of Russell Hobbs-branded carpet-cleaning solution – and that’s it. Our bottle promised to waft the scent of an Alpine Breeze. The main downside is that it’s really noisy. You don’t expect a carpet cleaner to be silent but it’s not exactly a JCB, is it? I found myself wearing earphones while using it. ProsContinuing on for a few minutes, going over the area, we got to about as clean as this shampooer was going to get with deep liquid spills… and it wasn’t great. There was still quite an obvious dark stain on the carpet in the same shape as the original spill. It’s quite easy to set up and use and would be a good option if you just want a cheap carpet cleaner to deal with the odd spill here and there. Performance

Powered into life, you certainly won’t be stealth cleaning with the RHCC5001. It’s seriously noisy. At 85dB, it’s well above the sound of most modern vacuum cleaners, and started off by emitting a high-pitched whine as well. Thankfully, that disappeared after a little use.There are no attachments of the sort that would let you clean stairs – this is intended for room carpets and rugs. It does work on all floor surfaces though so it’d do well on carpet tiles in the kitchen, laminate or hard flooring. The business end of the floorhead uses a fair-sized 24cm spray bar and a similarly sized static bristle brush. Compared to models with rotating and agitating brush heads, a little more elbow grease is going to be required. Factor in the budget price and it’s a good gadget for light refresh of carpets, but don’t expect anything like the cleaning power of better specified models. Verdict