Bissell has hit the ball totally out of the park with the Bissell Big Green Machine! I have previously had three carpet cleaning machines, all of them top of the line offerings from Hoover or Royal. They worked well enough but not nearly as well as the Bissell Big Green Machine. I think the Bissell is much more effective at scrubbing the carpet and I know for a fact it is much more effective at extracting the carpet as the carpet is much less moist after cleaning with the Bissell than with the Hoovers or the Royal. I love that the Bissell is cleaning in both directions (forward and reverse) whereas all my other machines only cleaned in the reverse direction. I clean my carpets frequently (a combination of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and 3 large and lovely dogs!) and this thing almost makes this frequent task fun. Thanks Bissell!