Kärcher WV 5 Plus N Window Vac

Product Information

Mel has been using the Kärcher Window Vac for several years, on a daily basis throughout the winter months, to remove water from single-glazed windows. It is also frequently used on the shower and to vacuum up spillages from the kitchen worktop. About the author Spurred on by the success on my bathroom tiles, I turned my attention to the shower screen – which was in a pretty dire state. Although we have a squeegee sitting on the tiles for use after each shower, we seldom use it – which results in a buildup of limescale on the shower screen. The set consists of two extending poles; one for the window vac and a separate one that has a washable cleaning head attachment. Each pole is 1.2 metres in length but can be extended to 1.9 metres. Your Karcher window cleaner can be securely mounted on the base plate and attached with the rubber strap.

I sprayed the cleaning solution on the harder-to-reach areas of the shower screen first, then turned on the window vac. I moved in a vertical direction and could see the buildup (almost) vanish. This was a great result. Another good use for the window vac is cleaning up liquid spills from hard floor surfaces, such as laminate, tiles or hardwood flooring. For this test, we simply poured water on the laminate/tile floor surface and the window vac handled this with ease. Again the surface was left clean and streak-free but we were surprised to find that the floor was almost entirely dry to the touch.

What is the Kärcher WV Classic like to use day-to-day?

Before I could start cleaning I needed to set up the window vac. Since I hadn't used such an appliance before, I was relying on the instructions included in the box. These were terribly poor, comprising a set of linear drawings – as opposed to step-by-step written instructions – to provide some clue as to what to do with the appliance. I interpreted the double-sided A3 sheet of instructions as best I could, and did get the Karcher Window Vac working –but the process could have been easier. Extendable pole: A few models on our list come with, or are compatible with, telescopic or multi-section poles to help you reach high windows and skylights without wobbling up a ladder. On the downside, a pole can make the vac hard to control, especially if it’s heavy.

The spray tool is very easy to use and the vac did a good job of cleaning up the dirty water first time. We only had to re-do a few small areas. We only used washing up liquid in the cleaning bottle but overall the windows looked clean and streak-free when we’d finished. We must mention that there was some stubborn bird poo on the window and we had to redo this area. We feel that if your windows are extremely dirty then some preparation might be needed beforehand to ensure the vac is as efficient as possible. I also have a Karcher window vac. It's brilliant for clearing condensation and also for cleaning the windows.” Rated by Mumsnet user Clarice99 Our verdict Mel said: “In the mornings in the winter, because we're not double glazed, the water is running down our windows and it's obviously going to damage the paintwork. With this, I can vacuum all of it up. It’s brilliant and it doesn't take very long.” I have to say I was impressed by the results. Surprisingly, I didn't have to repeatably go over the area with the spray bottle, and the squeegee blade wiped away all of the diluted concentrated cleaning liquid to reveal a shiny surface – with no water marks to be seen.I sprayed a generous amount of the cleaning solution over the window, then working the Karcher window vac vertically down the pane. I started with the smaller squeegee head, but later switched to the larger one to cover more surface area at once. We judge how comfortable each window vac is to hold and empty. We also do this wearing Cambridge Simulation Gloves – a piece of kit that helps replicate the experience of users who suffer with limited hand movement. However, the WV2 does have some minor disadvantages. We found that the spray bottle/cleaning head tool was a little bit fiddly to put together and on the first attempt we did not screw the trigger head on correctly and ended up with a wet floor. Most of the issues seem to be surrounding the water bottle. It has a tiny capacity which may be annoying for extended cleaning periods or if you live in a larger house. Additionally, there are no volume lines to measure out the mixture of cleaning fluid to water. We think that volume lines would be a useful feature as the instructions provided state that you should add 230ml water to the 20ml of cleaning fluid. All said and done we managed perfectly fine in our small window cleaning test and we think we could live with the small problems that we have discovered. Test no.1: Window cleaning Log in now or join Which? to see our full results and find out if any Karcher window vacs are good enough to earn our Best Buy recommendation.