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Nov 04, 2024

Gtech Orca Hard Floor Cleaner review | TechRadar

The Gtech Orca is ideal for anyone who needs a simple, cordless hard floor cleaner for daily or frequent cleaning duties. It's very easy to manoeuvre, looks far more stylish than most of the

The Gtech Orca is ideal for anyone who needs a simple, cordless hard floor cleaner for daily or frequent cleaning duties. It's very easy to manoeuvre, looks far more stylish than most of the competition, and excels at tackling a wide range of spillage types with minimal effort. It's let down by some poor design choices (including an on-off trigger that's far too easy to accidentally push), but the self-cleaning feature is superb, and the large water tank means fear fewer trips to the sink, too.

Excellent cleaning performance

Thorough self-cleaning feature

Commendably manoeuvrable

Comparatively quiet

Large water tank

Some poor design choices

Can struggle with very ingrained stains

Only one level of water dispensation

Perhaps slightly overpriced

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UK-founded Gtech produces a range of excellent cordless products, from power tools and garden gear to vacuum cleaners and, in this instance, the company’s first ever cordless wet-and-dry hard floor cleaner.

The Gtech Orca Hard Floor Cleaner is only available in white and it’s the perfect partner to the superb Gtech AirRAM 3 cordless upright vacuum cleaner I have already reviewed. With its neat styling and very discrete charging base/self-cleaning plinth, the Orca looks smart enough to be stored somewhere practical rather than having to be hidden away behind closed doors.

Like many of today's best wet-dry vacuum cleaners, the Orca offers a balance of wet mopping and light vacuuming, making it a very decent choice for households with extensive hard flooring. While it might not be as thorough as a standard mop and bucket or have as many bells-and-whistles as some premium models on the market, I can guarantee that it will save you loads of time and hassle when it comes to disappearing large liquid spills of almost any variety, including the kind of stuff you would absolutely not want to tackle with a roll of paper towels.

Granted, there are one or two design anomalies that I would like to see improved on subsequent models but when it comes to performance, this one is well up there with the best of the competition. If you’re looking for an efficient hard floor cleaner that saves a ton of time and effort, the Gtech Orca is well worth a punt.

The Gtech Orca’s £350 price tag comfortably reflects its slew of features like cordless operation, dual water tanks and motorised roller for scrubbing. That said, it is quite expensive when compared to products like the lower-priced Vax ONEPWR Glide 2 (£250) or new Bissell HF3 (£300).

In fact, its pricing is almost in line with a premium model like the Tineco Floor One S5 (£399.99) which has far more smarts on board, including automatic adjustment of cleaning based on how dirty the floor is. Although it's nowhere near as pricey as the Dyson WashG1, nor the Tineco Floor One S7 Pro.

Sadly I’ve found no evidence of the Gtech Orca on sale in the US but it’s available at plenty of online stores in the UK. If you fancy joining the Gtech bandwagon, consider buying yourself an Orca direct from Gtech, Amazon, B&Q, AO or Wilko.

Manually mopping floors is a very messy and extremely energy- and time-intensive household chore, not to mention ineffective at tackling large liquid spillages. The Gtech Orca is here to solve both of those problems.

Like other similarly-styled cordless hard floor cleaners on the market, the Orca serves as both a wet mop and light-duty vacuum cleaner that uses the combination of a revolving towel brush and a mix of fresh sanitised water with floor-cleaning solution to perform a range of hard floor cleaning duties, from general spruce-ups and stain removal to collecting large liquid spills of almost any variety.

And because it includes a vacuum feature, any excess water on the floor is sucked into a dirty water tank, which you then empty down the toilet or sink. When it comes to 21st Century mopping, there’s nothing like having one of these revolutionary machines to hand.

So what’s so special about the Orca? Truth is it’s no better or worse than much of the competition when it comes to cleaning performance, though I have to say it’s a much better looker than most others on the market (bar, perhaps, Tineco, which is arguably the most popular of hard floor cleaner brands).

In fact, I’m rather liking the Orca’s sleek, modern and compact aesthetic. It blends well with most household interiors without sticking out like a sore thumb. Put another way, I have no problem sitting this machine within easy reach rather than tucking it away under the stairs.

However, there are a few design anomalies I’m not that keen on. I’ll start at the very top – the handle and interface. Most hard floor cleaners have a finger trigger under the push handle, which is designed to boost water levels to the brush head for deeper cleaning of ingrained stains. By contrast, the Orca’s trigger is used solely for turning it on and off, and this poses an issue when in use because the trigger is positioned in such a way that one’s finger accidentally rests on it while pushing and pulling.

The result? It turns the machine off on a regular basis. The solution? Make sure to grip the handle further back or remember to keep your finger away from the trigger.

Actually, I’m surprised that this model has only one level of water dispensation because there may be times when you want more aqua to hand. As it stands, the small LCD screen on top of the handle provides just three options – ‘Sterilising Water’, ‘Eco Vacuum’ and ‘Max Vacuum’. Confusingly, the first option is actually the main cleaning mode, where water is dispensed and collected via the vacuum function.

According to the blurb, the Gtech Orca ‘generates sanitised water eliminating bacteria, viruses and spores, as well as odours for a hygienic clean’. I’ll take that, whatever it means.

The other two options are simply different levels of vacuum where no water is dispensed. I should add at this juncture that this machine isn’t a bona fide dry-work vacuum cleaner, although it will devour most things in its path. It'll need to be supplemented with a dedicated vacuum (head to TechRadar's best cordless vacuum guide for some recommendations there).

Heading downwards, you’ll find the 700ml dirty water tank and, just behind it on the other side of the unit, the 800ml clean water tank. This latter tank is actually quite a bit bigger than the competition and that means fewer trips to the tap for refills.

This brings me to another design fault. Since the filler cap for the water tank is positioned on the back of the tank, with the filler marks on the front, it’s very difficult to fill this thing to the right level without causing splashback all over the sink.

While Gtech provides 300ml of its own hard floor solution with the package (about £5 for a replacement), the Orca doesn’t come with a separate solution reservoir like some models, so you need to add a few capfuls to the main tank. Both tanks are easy to fit, though you do need to give them a really firm press until you hear a reassuring click. If you don’t, chances are one of the tanks will pop off while in use.

Like the vast majority of hard floor cleaners, the Orca is equipped with a single 24.5cm towelling roller that spins at a decent rate of knots, sucking up all manner of detritus in the process. And because the roller is almost flush to one side of the unit, this model is very good at edge cleaning, too.

One of the very best things about this new generation of hard floor cleaners is the way they’re able to self clean their brush rollers and internal piping. Simply drop the Orca on its small 30cm x 28cm cleaning plinth and tap the ‘self clean’ button located at the very top of the handle.

You have two levels of self cleaning at your disposal: 85 seconds for Standard and 125 seconds for Deep Clean. And by clean I mean really clean – as if the brush roller had never seen a dirty floor. Top marks here.

Naturally there will be some matted hair deposits and other gunk under the roller’s magnetic protective cover, but this can be easily removed for a quick rinse under a tap. Likewise, the roller itself can also be removed for easy access to the main suction tube. To be honest you will only need to engage in this type of maintenance once every week or so and it’s not too messy a business.

At 4.1 kilos, the Orca feels pretty light to carry and its motorised head articulates at a very wide angle to make manoeuvrability a cinch when cleaning along edges and around furniture. At 115cm in height, 28.5cm in width and 23cm in depth, it’s a great size for all users and its overall construction feels sturdy and durable, too.

In terms of running time, the battery provided about 20 minutes of wet mopping before needing a recharge, and between 20 and 40 minutes of vacuuming depending on whether it was set to 'Max Vacuum’ or 'Eco Vacuum' mode. However, it should be noted that the brush roller will always be damp so, as alluded to above, the vacuum modes are essentially for collecting large liquid spills and not for general vacuuming duties.

A row of green charging LEDs kept me in the loop and when finished I simply plonked the Orca on its charging plinth, tapped the self-clean button and left it to recharge for just under five hours.

Before I get into the Gtech Orca’s performance ratings, I should first mention the types of flooring this model and others like it are suitable for. Clearly, well-sealed materials like linoleum and tile are perfect for a model like the Orca, but bear in mind that the stiff roller will unlikely reach any recessed grouting.

When it comes to wooden floors, you can happily use the Orca on thicker engineered flooring, but I would be careful with standard laminate since the water dispensed will inevitably find its way into the cracks and possibly cause noticeable expansion in the joints. The secret for all hard floors is to not spend too much time in one spot and switch to the vacuum mode to suck up as much remaining moisture as possible. (Here's more on how to clean a hardwood floor.)

Also be mindful if using this machine on polished concrete flooring and do not use anything other than plain water in the tank. This is because concrete is a calcium-based product, so it can be easily damaged by acidic or alkaline cleaning solutions.

Before I get to my official tests, a quick shout out to the developers for making this model so easy to push, pull and steer. It really is a very pleasant thing to use and, at just 73 decibels, it’s remarkably quiet, too.

My first test involved the removal of dried soy sauce and honey on my utility room’s tiled flooring. It removed all visible traces in one forward sweep but I still had to perform another three sweeps to remove any invisible sticky residue.

I should also add that most cordless hard floor cleaners struggle with cleaning up heavily ingrained stains. In this instance the best course of action is a bowl of hot water, a scrubbing brush and a pair of knees.

Test two required a mashed-up cocktail of various food ingredients that no-one in their right mind would wish to encounter on any given day – a broken egg, a squirt of brown sauce and a sprinkling of raw oats and Crunchy Nut cereal. I didn’t hold out much hope for this test, but strike me down with a feather if it didn’t remove 80 per cent of the offending matter – including most of the eggshell – in one forward push, and the rest of it after a couple more forward and backward motions.

Test three wasn’t an official test, in fact it was a pet accident. Nevertheless, I feel the urge to include it because this type of real-world scenario is exactly what a machine like this was designed for. Before reading the following I would refrain from eating anything because it might not stay down.

In a nutshell, one of my lovely Labradors had been eating grass on the way back from a run and then drank copious amounts of water on our return. You can guess what’s coming but thankfully it was completely clear apart from a few blades of grass. There was a huge amount of it on my wooden floor and, worst of all, it was extraordinarily slimy. Normally I would reach for 10 sheets of Blitz – the only paper towel to have in the home if you’re a pet owner – or, disgustingly, a squeegee and dustpan. But not this time.

Thankfully the Orca arrived partly charged so I steered it over to the offending mess, turned it on and – mind blown – the whole lot disappeared with a strangely satisfying but slightly wretch-inducing whoomph. And that was that. All I had to do was head over to the loo and pour the offending matter down the bowl before putting the whole unit on its cleaning base and selecting its most intensive clean. As revolting as this sounds, I can tell you that, from my own experience, every other alternative cleaning method in a worst-case scenario like this would be, well, infinitely worse.

Right, you can get back to your lunch now because that’s all I have to report. Should you buy the Gtech Orca despite some of its irritating design traits? I’d say a resounding yes. It’s simple to manoeuvre, light in the hand, super easy to store and, above all, it performs exceedingly well in pretty much all hard floor cleaning disciplines.

You have lots of hard flooring

This is a perfect machine for keeping hard floors clean and looking swish. It's low-effort, can tackle daily cleans and larger messes, and the self-clean feature is excellent too.

You have pets or clumsy housemates

The Orca can handle all kinds of solid and liquid spillages, with its combination of wet mopping and light vacuuming.

You need to tackle awkward spaces

The Orca is impressively easy to manoeuvre for a wet-dry vacuum, and the floorhead design will clean right up to the edges of rooms, too.

Most of your home is carpeted

It won't replace a vacuum cleaner for dry cleaning, so there's no real point in a machine like this unless you have a decent amount of hard flooring.

You want smart features

The self-cleaning function is about as clever as this model gets – there aren't even different hydration levels to pick from. Something like the Tineco Floor One S5 offers more in terms of automation.

I’m personally a big fan of cordless hard floor cleaners, mostly because I’ve endured quite a few spillage and pet-induced scenarios and all of them have been dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

I’ve been using the Orca for general cleaning of my kitchen, dining room and utility room and it’s been a pretty effortless experience. I know it’s working well simply by the brown colour of the water in its container. It also leaves far less moisture behind than a mop and bucket.

However, I was most surprised by how amazingly well the Orca dealt with collecting the large pieces of broken eggshell in my main spillage test. I was also gobsmacked – and rather relieved – by the efficiency with which it collected my dog’s regurgitated watery mix. This event alone was more than enough of a success to give it 4.5 stars out of five for overall performance.

Derek Adams has been in consumer tech journalism since joining London listings magazine Time Out in the early ‘80s. He’s an experienced reviewer of cordless vacs and robot vacs, indeed anything that runs on batteries or has a plug attached. Derek also writes extensively for TechRadar’s sister site T3.com between playing drums and guitar with his bandmates in Red Box.

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