Until today, we called simple upright vacuum cleaners designed for brief daily cleaning as electric brooms. But today, we got a real Kitfort electric broom for testing – a device designed to sweep debris using an electric turbo brush.
How useful and effective the KT-558 electric broom is and how clean the floor is after using it – testing will show and our review will tell.
Characteristics
| Manufacturer | kitfort |
|---|---|
| Model | KT-558 |
| Type | electric broom |
| Country of Origin | China |
| Warranty | 1 year |
| Service life * | 2 years |
| Battery life | 50 minutes |
| Charging time | about 5 hours |
| waste container capacity | 0.75 l |
| The weight | 1.5 kg |
| Dimensions (W×H×D) | 280×243×1355 mm |
| Network cable length | 1.85 m |
| Retail offers |
* If it’s quite simple: this is the period during which parts for repairing the device are delivered to official service centers. After this period, any repair in the official SC (both warranty and paid) is unlikely to be possible.
Equipment
The electric broom came to us in a rectangular brown cardboard box made of fashionable “ecological” cardboard with purple and black printing – a new design from Artemy Lebedev, which is slowly becoming familiar.
On the front and back sides of the box, the manufacturer’s logo, device image, model name and the slogan “Clean up? Noticed! (for each type of Kitfort household appliances, its marketers come up with their own funny slogan – it is placed both on the packaging and on the cover of the instructions).
On the sides of the box, in addition to the logo and the name of the model, the main technical characteristics of the device are printed – battery parameters, power, operating and charging time, garbage container capacity, dimensions and weight.
The box also contains information about the manufacturer, importer, contacts of the organization authorized to accept claims in the territory of the Russian Federation and contacts of the manufacturer’s hotline: phone number and email address.
Inside the box we found:
- electric broom body;
- device handle;
- two tubes extending the handle;
- power unit;
- manual;
- warranty card;
- promotional materials.
At first sight
The Kitfort KT-558 electric broom looks like a mop combined with a dustpan – a rectangular body on a long aluminum handle.
The body of the broom is made of white plastic with a dark blue decorative insert on top. The insert bears the Kitfort logo and there is also a round button to turn on the device. Next to the button there is a charging indicator – a two-color LED.
The body consists of two main parts: a motor block with a turbo brush and a “scoop”-garbage collector.
In the middle of the upper part of the case there is a socket for the handle – the handle of the device or an extension tube is inserted into it. In the parking position, the socket is parallel to the upper edge of the body, in the working position it is raised by 90°. Under the handle socket is a button that releases the body of the bin.
The garbage collector occupies about half the volume of the body and is a simple plastic box.
The turbo brush, made of black plastic, has two rows of bristles arranged in a spiral. At one end, it is fixed with a plastic holder, secured with a latch. To remove the turbo brush for cleaning, pull the holder up and remove the brush.
To facilitate sliding on the floor, the body of the electric broom is equipped with three small rollers from below – two in the front and one in the middle. Grooves for larger rollers are also located in the back of the case, but they are not in our copy of the device.
The handle of the device is made of aluminum alloy. At its working end there is a slightly curved handle with an insert made of soft-touch plastic.
The other end of the handle is equipped with a latch with a button: the handle can be inserted both into the body of the device and into one of the two extension tubes, thanks to which the device can be used with equal comfort by both a child and a fairly tall adult.
The electric broom is supplied with a charger marked 5.3 V/500 mA. The socket for its connection is located on the left side of the case, next to the power button.
Instruction
The instructions attached to the electric broom KT-558 have a standard design for Kitfort: it is an A5 brochure, the cover of which is made in the brand’s white and purple colors. On its cover – a schematic image of the device, the name of the model and the slogan “Get out? Noticed!
The instruction contains all the information necessary for mastering the device: technical characteristics, information about the configuration, care and storage. It is supplied with a sufficient number of photographs and explanatory drawings.
The only thing that caused us additional questions was the recommendation to replace the battery in case of shortening of the operating time. Information about disassembling the device for this procedure is not contained in the instructions, and in order to take advantage of the advice, you should probably contact the service center.
Control
The electric broom turns on and off with a single button, designed to be pressed by the foot.
The device has no other controls.
Exploitation
Before use, the device must be unpacked and assembled. Remove the shipping cap from the power button (the instruction warns that in some cases it may be missing – it was also absent in our copy of the device).
Before first use, the battery must be fully charged, making sure that the electric broom is turned off before charging. The power supply of the device should be connected to the connector on the case and make sure that the signal LED on the top panel lights up red. It takes about five hours to fully charge the battery, after which the charging process automatically stops and the indicator turns green.
To turn on the electric broom, you need to turn the handle to a convenient position and press the power button. Pressing again turns off the device.
In operation, the electric broom is as simple as in management. Sweeping with it is simple – it is enough to smoothly drive it back and forth across the floor. To clean along the wall, the broom should be led along it with its side, for cleaning in the corner, the device should be brought there with the front side – the one where the turbo brush is located.
We have ambivalent impressions about the efficiency of cleaning with the Kitfort KT-558 electric broom. The device copes well with ordinary, “daily” garbage, but is somewhat less effective when trying to remove fine debris (dust, flour, sawdust): it leaves some debris on the floor even after several passes. Large and heavy objects, such as coins or, say, scattered self-tapping screws and bolts, are also not the most favorite garbage for an electric broom.
The clearance between the floor and the top edge of the debris slot at the front of the unit is approximately 14 mm, which is the maximum size of an object that can be detected by the unit.
When opening the bin of an electric broom, you should be more careful and do it over the bin: some of the debris accumulates in front of its front wall and can wake up when you open it.
The turbo brush has a tendency to wrap threads, long hair and the like around itself – and does it more efficiently than similar vacuum cleaner turbo brushes. Here, apparently, the lack of air flow affects, which helps to suck such garbage into the bin.
The instruction warns that the cleanliness of the turbo brush must be carefully monitored and cleaned at the first sign of a slowdown in rotation.
Parking an electric broom is easy. The design of the handle allows you to put it in an upright position during a pause in cleaning or for storage, but it also allows you to fold it, bringing the body to a vertical position to store it in a narrow pantry or push it behind furniture.
Folding the handle will also help when cleaning under furniture: a broom can crawl under a cabinet, sofa or bed for the entire length of a one and a half meter handle. The only limitation in this case will be the upper dimensions of the case – its height is 95 mm.
Care
The manufacturer draws the user’s attention to the need to regularly clean the bin and turbo brush, warning that the quality of cleaning and operating time depend on this. If the turbo brush begins to rotate with force due to coiled debris, this will quickly drain or damage the battery and reduce cleaning performance.
To clean the bin, pull it towards you by pressing the release button, remove the bin and throw it into the trash can.
To clean the turbo brush, turn the body of the device over, pull the turbo brush holder up, pull it out and remove the turbo brush by pulling it by the pile.
After that, the gear should be removed from the turbo brush drive and its axis cleaned. This, as practice has shown, is a rather difficult task: the photos in the instructions recommend using thin-nosed pliers or small pliers for this. The gear is held on the axis very tightly, it is removed with considerable effort, and we managed to do this not the first time.
A bearing is located on the brush axis, which, like the axis, should be lubricated with a drop of machine oil after cleaning (oil is not included with the device).
Before long-term storage, the waste container of the device should be cleaned and wiped inside with a damp and then dry cloth. When stored for a long time, the battery of the device should be discharged to half in order to avoid loss of capacity. To do this, a fully charged device must be kept on for about 15-20 minutes.
Our measurements
The noise during the operation of an electric broom is small and, according to our measurements, is about 66 dBA – you can use the device even in the evening and at night without fear of disturbing your neighbors.
When charging, the KT-558 electric broom consumes 3.6 W, the power consumption of the power supply in standby mode was outside the measurement error of a laboratory wattmeter (less than 0.1 W). A full charge of the device was enough, according to our measurements, for 1 hour and 6 minutes – this is a little more than the declared battery life.
The weight of the body of the device, according to our measurements, was 1070 g, each of the two extension tubes weighed 70 g, and the weight of the handle was 105 g. Thus, a ready-to-use electric broom has a weight of 1175 to 1315 g.
practice tests
To evaluate the effectiveness of the device, we carried out several ordinary daily cleanings of the apartment with it, and also tested it on two synthetic tests, using specially scattered rice and flour for this.
Cleaning of the apartment
Sweeping the floors in the apartment with the Kitfort KT-558 electric broom is easy and fast. On smooth floors and especially under sofas and beds, its performance can be rated as excellent. Garbage removal next to the walls and especially in the corners turned out to be a little less successful: some of the debris near the walls remained unnoticed, and the dimensions of the case did not allow effective cleaning of the corners. The electric broom turned out to be not very effective on uneven floors and thresholds: small debris and dust were left to wait for the vacuum cleaner.
However, after looking at the contents of the bin, we were convinced that the cleaning as a whole was successful: a significant part of the garbage fell into the bin, and from there into the bin. A solid four.
Result: good.
“Rice” test
To evaluate the effectiveness of sweeping small debris, we scattered about 50 grams of long-grain rice on linoleum and turned on an electric broom. The cleaning process is on video.
In general, the electric broom coped with the task, however, during the harvesting process, part of the rice grains were thrown out of the harvested area by the turbo brush. For this, we reduce the rating by a point.
Result: good.
Scattered flour on linoleum
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of cleaning fine dust with a broom, we scattered a couple of tablespoons of wheat flour on a test linoleum area and tried to sweep it.
Fine dust and flour are not the best garbage for using an electric broom. It took twice as long to clean the test area than in the previous test. The direction of movement had to be changed several times. At the same time, part of the flour was smeared on the floor outside the site, and part remained in the area of the turbo brush and woke up from it on the floor when the device was parked. We were not able to completely remove the spilled flour from the floor.
Result: bad.
findings
In the household, the Kitfort KT-558 electric broom will occupy a rather narrow, in our opinion, niche between mechanical floor brushes and upright vacuum cleaners. It is good for quick cleaning of the room, and in terms of sweeping efficiency under deep cabinets and beds, it even surpasses, perhaps, most vacuum cleaners.
Coping well with household debris on flat floors, it is, however, not very effective on uneven parquet and threshold crevices, leaving dust and small debris in them.
However, the KT-558 electric broom can significantly reduce the effort and time spent on sweeping the floors in the apartment, as well as sweeping the garbage into the dustpan and help reduce the frequency of vacuuming the house. Two extension tubes will allow both a fairly tall adult and a child to use the broom.
pros
- small weight of the device
- low noise
- cleaning under furniture
- good range of adjustment for the height of the user
- long battery life
Minuses
- insufficient efficiency of cleaning fine dust
- long hair, wool and threads are wound on the turbo brush, it needs frequent cleaning
- Difficulty cleaning the trash can
- low maneuverability
