Black & Decker Scum Buster Review
How It Works
The Scum Buster is made by Black and Decker. It’s a tool that looks similar to a hand held drill. It’s aqua colored, cordless and rechargeable. It gives a strong performance and runs several hours without having to be recharged.
It comes with nine attachments, made up of an assortment of brushes and discs. There are short and long bristle brushes, a carpet brush, and a radial brush. The long brush is good for cleaning hard to reach spots such as corners of bath tubs. The radial brush is unique and gets into other tight spaces such as where the sink and counter top, or tile and tub meet. The disc attachments are mild, coarse and heavy duty scrubbing pads, the latter for heavy duty cleaning chores. It also has a flexible accessory attachment that pivots for cleaning curved surfaces like the inside of a sink. All of these attachments fit onto the cleaning head. It comes with a storage caddy to keep everything together, and it has a wall mount and jack plug charger for easy charging and storage.
The Scum Buster has on/off buttons and two speed controls. When it is turned on, the center of the cleaning head spins quite quickly (159/240 RPM’s). The idea is to let the tool do the cleaning for you. I thought it would be perfect for cleaning my grunged up shower stall, and our shower door with hard water spots all over it. I’m sad to say that it didn’t work any better than scrubbing by hand with an abrasive pad. I found that I was exerting as much energy pushing this tool against what I was cleaning as I would have ordinarily used in scrubbing the area in the first place.
To make scrubbing carpets a breeze, the unit holds 3 ounces of cleaner and/or water, so all you need is ready right at your fingertips. You can use your favorite cleaners, and they will spray out from the top of the unit. This portability makes it ideal for cleaning stained carpets or seats in your automobile. Other suggested uses are for scrubbing patio furniture and outdoor grills.
I find the Scum Buster useful for cleaning the dirt that accumulates in the small crevices on the linoleum floor of my bathroom. With the brush attachment this actually works pretty well. It also works well for spot cleaning small spills on carpeting.
I’m sure there are probably many uses for the Scum Buster, but I wanted it specifically for cleaning my shower tile, and I was disappointed. Probably the type of cleaner I used with it had some effect on the performance as well – just like when you hand clean something. But I didn’t like holding it upright as it was a bit heavy. I think if you have arthritis or a disability, this tool may work for you if you don’t find it too heavy.
Scum Buster Trivia
* It has a 3.6 volt motor
* It is completely immersible, nice for cleaning the attachments when you’re done using it!
* 2 year warranty
* Retails for less than $40.00 in most stores
