Eureka New400 Wet/Dry Vacuum review: Kick the bucket–and mop

Price When Reviewed

$199.00

Best Prices Today: Eureka New400 Wet/Dry Vacuum

How did using the Eureka New400 series Wet/Dry Vacuum and Floor Washer first make me feel?

Disgusted.

I’ve often been a practitioner of the “10-second rule,” which glibly claims that food dropped on the floor is safe to eat if it’s picked up within 10 seconds.

But after a first swipe across my “pretty clean” kitchen floor with Eureka’s new wet/dry vac, and an inspection of what it scrubbed up and extracted to its holding tank, I swore I’d be floor-dining no more.

Poured into a tumbler, the recovered liquid looked like a foamy chocolate shake, with random bits of this and that floating around. Yuck. And even with periodic repeat washes, spaced out every four or five days, I found myself dumping out lighter-muddied recovery water from the holding tank. Maybe those fastidious folks who lose their shoes at the front door are on to something.

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

The New400 is one of a growing breed of what I’d call “specialty” or “limited use” vacuum cleaners. It looks like a typical upright vac, but this machine is useless on carpets and can’t even dry-clean bare floors. It could be more accurately described as a solution-spraying, brush-scrubbing floor washer enhanced with vacuum extraction of the moisture; well, the solution is optional—you could also use plain water.

An upward opening, suction-powered slit behind the brush takes in 90 percent of the dirty water and, at the same time, collects whatever other grit and goop was sitting in its path. The remaining 10 percent of wetness left on the floor dries in just a minute or two, and without leaving a haze behind. So, that’s what’s meant here by a “wet/dry vac.”

Design

The quick-release 600ml (20.3-ounce) capacity clean tank at the top of the body gets filled with warm water and, if you desire, a capful or two of special detergent created specifically for wet/dry vacs. The Eureka-branded Clean+Refresh “sterilizing liquid” supplied with the vac kit adds a nice smell (it’s billed as ”suitable for pet families”) and provides a tad more cleaning power than water alone.

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

I also dared to run through a tank of water infused with a couple capfuls of OMO Roborock Multisurface Floor Cleaning solution, developed for wet-vac use by Unilever. It lacked a coverup smell but seemed slightly more adept at loosening ground-in dirt. I say “dared” because the machine’s operating instructions warn “Always use Eureka cleaning solution in your machine, other cleaning solutions may damage the machine and void the warranty.” In a follow-up inquiry, Eureka raised the possibility of incompatible cleaning chemicals “corroding” parts.

For certain you should never use a soap product not specifically formulated for use in wet/dry vacs. Nor should you use more than a capsule or two of the specialty stuff, as that would surely create excess suds and clog the machine’s works. To lessen concerns, I now run the vac with a smidgeon of additive every other time I use it, alternating with plain tap water to flush the system of any agent residue.

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

Positioned below the clean tank is a second quick-release tank, slightly smaller at 400ml (13.5 ounces), that captures the dirty water the vac sucks back up. I initially scratched my head over the relative tank sizes, fearing “couldn’t a mess-up happen here?”

But the New400’s 2500mAh lithium-ion battery seems to shut down when the dispensing top tank is almost tapped out and the recycling bottom compartment is almost full. And a detection system (utilizing an internal float) blocks the suction port and flashes a warning light on the handle when the dirty water rises to its maximum intake line.

The Eureka New400 is easy to operate

Lightweight and easy to maneuver, you’ll be shouting “Eureka!” running this 8.7-pound, battery-powered machine round the room. The torque in its spinning roller, which spins at 600 rpm, is sufficient to self-propel it forward, but it doesn’t put up too much resistance when you’re tugging back and forth over problem areas to loosen hardened dirt. That’s something robot mops are hard pressed to do. You can almost be a passive observer as the Eureka does its thing. The clean water dispersion (distributed across the brush head) is automatic, as is the vacuum extraction that follows.

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

Operations are managed with three buttons—Power, Mode, and Self Clean—that are stacked on its ergonomically shaped handle. The On/Off switch is in the center, and it has an indicator light that shifts from blue to purple and then almost instantly to red when the power is running low. You’ll get five minutes of operating time once the color-shifting starts.

Pushing the handle and vac body forward into the full upright-and-locked position stops the machine, putting it in standby mode. Leave it like that for more than three minutes and it fully powers down.

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

Gear shifting is done on the handle-topping Low/High Mode button. In low gear, you’ll get upwards of 30 minutes for touch-up work. I found the time sufficient to swab down a kitchen floor, a couple bathrooms, the entryway, and a few patches of hallway.

But if you’re new with this gadget and tackling a rarely washed floor, that quick once-over you first did will just be the start. Give the vac a chance to recharge: The process takes upwards of five to six hours, according to Eureka’s literature, though the charging light goes out after three. Now start cleaning again, this time with the vac spraying, spinning, and sucking more aggressively on “High.” Work that puppy repeatedly over the worst zones. And be quick about it. When running on High, the Eureka New400 is only up for about 10 minutes of steady floor pounding. The good news is that never gets too noisy, whirring at 77.6 dB on High and 73.7 dB on Low, Eureka specifies.

Purpose built for usefulness on all kinds of sealed floors, the Eureka New400 vac features a plush material head that wets and surface-wipes vigorously without scratching. It did very well by a demanding, white tiled bathroom and put a brighter shine on my old polyurethane-coated Southern Pine floors.

Still, I wish there was an alternative, bristle-brush head that could tackle the deep recesses in my porous, uneven-surfaced ceramic kitchen tiles. Even after a second power wash, digging out the deepest-embedded dirt still required extracurricular activity. I got down on my hands and knees to work with a spray bottle of TileGuard Tile and Grout Cleaner and a scrub brush, quickly followed by a wipe up with a rag, and then another useful swipe of the floor with the Eureka. Only after that did the floor look like new.

Cautionary Note Two: Eureka operating instructions also warn against using the vac to wash away “solvents.” That could dissuade you from deploying even an old-fashioned homemade washing solution of vinegar and water directly on the floor or in the clean water tank.

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

While the Eureka will certainly pick up assorted loose detritus—random cereal flakes and cookie crumbs, sprinkles of seasonings, pet hair, and the like—I’d recommend you run a dry vac over your floors before letting this machine loose on them. Save the Eureka’s mop-and-vac talent for more dramatic liquid spills and for general-purpose floor washing. The make also warns against sucking up large clumps of stuff, as that will likely clog up the works.

Much, but not all, of the little stuff the New400 sucks up will wind up in the dirty-water tank, a concoction that should be filtered through a sieve if you’re planning on pouring it down the drain. Other grit clings to the top and sides of the dirty water tank, to a sponge filter above the same tank, to the plastic, and to the rubber-lipped frame around the roller brush. And you’ll find pet hair wrapped around the brush head, begging to be pulled off with a supplied tool before it locks up the operations. If you’ve pre-cleaned the floor with a dry vac, the New400 will be happier and you’ll find it easier to clean to boot.

Maintaining the Eureka New400

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

A couple seconds of whirred-up cleaning occurs each time you hit the power off button. When you’re finished using the New400 for the day, pressing the Self Cleaning button initiates a short (one minute) but rather noisy (80dB) process that flushes most of gathered gunk out of the tubing and into the dirty water tank.

Self Cleaning’s even bigger accomplishment is washing its spinning brush head. As some water flies off in the process, you should only tap the SC button when both tanks are in place and the vac is seated on its rimmed, hard plastic base, which helps with the brush scrubbing and contains any spillage. This self-cleaning process did such a good job that I rarely felt compelled to yank out the brush head and hand wash it under the tap. But if mopping-up stinky or sticky stuff, that’s a must.

My main concern here is with battery management. If you don’t shut the unit off immediately after its indicator light turns purple to report low power, you’ll find it lacking enough power in reserve to run the self-cleaning operation. Adding insult to injury, the process can’t be performed when the vac is plugged in for recharging. Note to the product design team: I wish the vac also issued an audible alert when running low on power, as its colored warning light is easy to overlook.

Why you need three vacuums

Jonathan Takiff / Foundry

Back in the days of heavy and clunky vacs, a vacuum-cleaner repair man suggested I should have a separate vac for each floor of my row house, simply to avoid the hesitation and aggravation of lugging a machine up and down stairs. In this age of lightweight, slim cordless models, I’ve come to an enhanced rationale for three are better than one.

My go-to machine for area rugs is the Dyson V 8 Absolute. It doesn’t beat the fibers as hard as its newer, higher-numbered siblings, but that’s a good thing for rug longevity. For hard-surface floors, I love the Dyson V15 Detect with its fluffy head installed. It throws a green laser on the floor, highlighting a noxious top layer of dust particles you’d otherwise never notice. This green illumination is also found on the V12 Detect Slim and two new Dyson Gen5 models.

Now I’m thrilled to welcome the Eureka New400 wet/dry vac into the happy-helpers fold for washing my bare floors.

Should you buy a Eureka New400 Wet/Dry Vacuum?

With its swiveling, relatively low-profile head, the Eureka NEW400 is not much harder to push around than a Swiffer, and it’s 50 times more pleasant to use for floor washing than a mop and bucket. Boasting a ton of muscle power, it cleans—and cleans up after itself—like nobody’s business.

Now if it had a swappable battery and brush head, I’d be totally in awe.