PurSteam Garment Steamer - Professional Heavy Duty 2.5 liter (85 fl. oz)

No one likes to purchase something and have it die after minimal use, but unfortunately this is now the SECOND time I’ve had a pursteam steamer stop working. I'll break the reviews up by section so that you can save your valuable time by skipping a topic that's unimportant to you. I'm also including the order summaries showing the two units I purchased and when so that the review lines up and you know I'm not just a competitor bashing this company for no reason.

How and why I had two:

I purchased my first Pursteam unit in August of 2018 after reading lots of descriptions and lots of reviews of different steamers. The unit died in July of 2020, so it lasted roughly 23 months. Below I go through the usage and how the usage varied from the first unit to the second unit. I bought the second unit, again after a lot of researching and reading reviews and information. I was hesitant ordering a Pursteam again, but all of the information I came across helped me feel confident that what I experienced was a fluke. I bought the replacement in August of 2020, and the unit completely died in June of 2023. That sounds as though I went through two units in five years, and maybe that sounds like I got my money out of them, but please read below to understand why that’s not quite true!

First vs Second units:

After my first unit died fairly quickly, I made it a point to treat the second one more carefully so as not to repeat that. For example, I used only purified water in the second as opposed to tap in the first. I'd turn the first unit off and leave it with a full tank of water without thinking twice, so with the second unit I’d empty the tank after every use so it would be stored dry. Lastly, the first unit was used fairly frequently, at least once a week or two, and I’d use it for one item at a time, as-needed, but I chose not to do that with the second unit and instead opted to use it once every four to six weeks. I’d accumulate all the items that needed steaming and would do all of them in one swoop to avoid having the unit be turning off and on so often.

Why I'm frustrated:

Understanding I only used this every four to six weeks, this means that the most I used this steamer was about 35 times, and that’s on the VERY high end of the estimate, but is likely more like 25 times. Knowing that I went through two units who had two very similar experiences around the same time frame leads me to believe these are designed as short-term units and designed to die after about 15-50 uses. Designing them this way ensures you will need to purchase another relatively soon, and that’s exactly what I did. I flat out refuse to use a Pursteam product again, and I hope that this review can save people from making the same mistake I did, which was ignoring the second set of negative reviews and assuming that my first experience was actually a fluke. Just as I don’t trust all positive reviews, I don’t trust all negative reviews either. With pursteam, TRUST THE BAD REVIEWS! These things are huge and take up quite a bit of space which isn’t a problem for me since I don't live in tight quarters. What is a problem is knowing I have now personally dumped two of these gigantic units into a dump within a 3 year period. Think about how full the dumps and landfills would be if everyone bought a steamer and it lasted this long, as the dumps would be drowning in steamers due to their size and their design of not lasting more than 1-2 years of use. Shame on Pursteam. Please don’t think this is a paid negative review or that I am bitter about my particular units dying. I am bitter, but I honestly do not want someone else to throw their $ away and take up dump space like I did twice. Save yourself the money and get one for half the price. Even if that one doesn’t last too long, neither do these so you’d may as well save your money and get the cheap ones.

Handheld vs Full-sized or cheap vs expensive units:

I liked having the adjustable temperature and the ability to steam more than one item at a time without having to continually fill the water tank. The handheld steamer I always traveled with functioned fine, it just didn't have those two features. However, my handheld is still lasting at least 5 years later. When that dies, I'll buy another much cheaper and smaller handheld unit for 1/3 or 1/4 the price of this instead of throwing money at pursteam.

Summary: Continuing to purchase pursteam products is allowing them to continue manufacturing cheap junk products. Pursteam disguises their units as nicer/long-term/worthy products and tricks their customers into thinking their units are worthy of an investment when they're far from that.

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