Bissell Hard Floor Expert canister vacuum review – if your home has smooth floors, this is all you need

While less popular, canister vacuums bring a whole suite of benefits compared to upright and cordless models. They’re generally easier to maneuver, especially if you can’t handle a large, heavy vacuum, and they’re more versatile too, thanks to their long wands and flexible hoses.

If you’re looking for a canister vacuum that’s reasonably priced, the Bissell Hard Floor Expert is a mid-priced option from a trusted, reliable brand. We put it through its paces to see whether, at this low price, it can compete with the best vacuums for hardwood floors out there today.

I’m a professional product tester of more than five years and have reviewed dozens of vacuums, and here's how I got on with the Bissell Hard Floor Expert. While it does have some good features, there are limitations you’ll want to know about before you go all in.

Bissell Hard Floor Expert: Specifications

Bissell Hard Floor Expert: Setup

The Bissell Hard Floor Expert Canister Vacuum arrived in a mid-size box, and all its components were fairly jumbled inside. Each individual piece is wrapped in plastic to avoid scratches during shipping, and there were also some cardboard dividers to keep the smaller pieces separate. However, it wasn’t nearly as neatly packed as, for instance, one of the best Dyson vacuums.

The pieces inside the box include the main canister body, hose, telescoping metal wand, two floorheads, and a holder where you can store the dusting brush and crevice tool (more info on this at our vacuum jargon buster).

I found the whole thing intuitive to put together, so I didn’t need to consult the manual in the process. The holder snaps onto the top of the metal wand to keep the attachments within reach as you clean, but there’s nowhere to store the second floor nozzle when it’s not in use, which is a little inconvenient.

Bissell Hard Floor Expert: Design and features

The Hard Floor Expert is a compact bagless canister vacuum. It has a telescoping wand that you can adjust to suit your height, and the canister has two large wheels to roll across your floors. It’s equipped with a two-liter dustbin – much larger than what you’ll find on a cordless vacuum – and while it does have a multi-level filtration system, it doesn’t have a HEPA vacuum, a necessity in the best vacuums for allergies.

This vacuum comes with two floorheads. The first is the 'Turbine Hard Floor Nozzle,' which is made specifically for cleaning hard floors. Instead of stiff bristles, it has rubber fins and soft fibers that are gentle on hardwoods and other delicate surfaces. The vacuum also has its Multi-Surface Floor Nozzle that can be used on hard floors and rugs – it has a row of stationary bristles in the front, but no rotating brushroll.

The Hard Floor Expert just has one suction level, unlike the best Miele vacuums that have 4-6, and its power button is located on the canister body, so you turn it on/off with your foot.

The vacuum’s flexible hose is just under 6 feet long, and the power cord is 18 feet – together, that's about as long as the average cord of an upright vacuum, so it's a little limited compared to other canisters. There is however a second button on the vacuum that automatically retracts the cord, so you don’t have to wind it up manually like you do with most uprights.

What is the Bissell Hard Floor Expert like to use?

I used the Bissell Hard Floor Expert around my home for a week to get a sense for its performance, and the vacuum lived up to its name. It’s excellent for cleaning hardwood and linoleum floors, easily sucking up debris like dirt, dust, pet hair, and cat litter. The telescoping wand is also a great feature, as it makes the handle comfortable to use without bending over, and the canister is a very lightweight vacuum to pull along behind you – though it does tend to tip over if you pull it at an angle.

That said, this vacuum is not the one for you if your home also has rugs or carpeting. Because it lacks a brushroll, the Multi-Surface Floor Nozzle really only delivers a surface-level clean on rugs. It wasn’t able to lift up pet hair or ground-in dirt, and frankly, it’s very awkward and cumbersome to even pull the floorhead across a rug. If you have lots of rugs in your home, check out our designated guide to vacuums for carpets for better-suited options.

My other major complaint about this vacuum is that it’s unable to clean under low-profile furniture. Because the end of the wand is slightly angled, the floorhead lifts up if you try to clean under a couch or other low surface. When this happens, it no longer makes contact with the floor and isn’t able to suck up any debris.

Test 1: Flour and sugar

I also performed a series of more structured tests with the Hard Floor Expert to assess its performance on different types of debris. The first test involved sucking up flour and sugar, which are good proxies for dust and fine dirt that are commonly found on floors.

I spread the debris on my hardwood flooring, and as I suspected, the vacuum was able to pick up all of the fine particles in just one pass. It was also able to pull up the flour from between the floor cracks.

However, when I repeated this test on an area rug, the vacuum struggled quite a bit. It was able to pick up around 50% of the debris, but it couldn’t get a lot of the flour that had settled down in between the rug fibers.

Test 2: Pantry

For the next test, I used a mixture of cereal and lentils. The cereal tests the vacuum’s ability to suck up large pieces of debris, while the lentils offer a challenge of picking up smaller particles that are prone to scattering around the floor.

The Hard Floor Expert had no problem sucking up the lentils off the hardwood, and its soft brushroll captured them without sending them flying across the floor.

The cereal was a bit trickier, though. The vacuum could suck the pieces up, but they ended up clogging the brushroll and preventing it from spinning, therefore causing the vacuum to lose suction. If you’re going to be picking up large debris, you’ll need to remove the floorhead.

On carpeting, the vacuum was again able to pick up lentils in just a few passes, but the Multi-Surface Floor Nozzle struggled with the cereal, mostly just pushing it around the floor. I had to lift up the floorhead and place it on top of the pieces before the vacuum would suck them up.

Test 3: Pet hair

I share my home with two long-haired Golden Retrievers, so there always seems to be fur on the rugs and dust bunnies hiding in the corners of every room. The Hard Floor Expert had no problem vacuuming pet hair that was floating around our hardwood floors, and even after a week of use, there were only a few small strands wrapped around its brushroll.

Again, the vacuum didn’t fare nearly as well picking up pet hair off rugs. Its line of stiff bristles was able to pull up some of the hair, but a lot of it actually ended up tangled in the bristles – not sucked into the vacuum. It also generally took several passes to pick up even fairly small amounts of fur, so I wouldn't recommend it as a vacuum for pet hair if your home has soft flooring.

Test 4: Attachments

This canister vacuum comes with two basic attachments: a crevice tool and a dusting brush. You can either attach them to the end of the metal wand or directly to the vacuum’s handle, which makes it easy to clean both hard-to-reach areas like the edges of the ceiling, as well as in tight spaces. These two attachments worked as expected, and the crevice tool in particular has a small nozzle with strong suction power.

It’s worth noting that this vacuum doesn’t come with an attachment for cleaning upholstery, so it won’t be the most effective option for cleaning couches and other furniture.

Bissell Hard Floor Expert: Cleaning and maintenance

One of my favorite aspects of this vacuum is its large dustbin, which lets you clean for longer before needing to be emptied. I generally only needed to empty it every two or three cleaning sessions, as opposed to cordless models that need to be emptied every time.

To empty this vacuum’s dustbin, there’s a latch on top of the vacuum that lets you lift the whole thing off, then you simply hold it over the trash and pop open the bottom. Because it’s so spacious, I never had any issues with debris getting stuck inside the canister, either.

There are a few additional maintenance tasks that the brand recommends for this vacuum. There’s a filter in the dustbin that should be washed periodically, and there’s a post-motor filter that you may occasionally need to replace. The brand doesn’t specify how often this should be done, but most vacuums need a new filter once or twice a year.

How does the Bissell Hard Floor Expert compare?

If you’re specifically looking for a canister vacuum, there are plenty of other options out there that will perform better on carpeting. We were impressed by the performance of the Miele Blizzard CX1 Cat & Dog, another bagless canister model. While it is expensive, this vacuum has some of the best suction we've seen in a canister, and will last you for years if you look after it.

Or stepping outside of canister vacuums, our best corded vacuum is the Shark POWERDETECT, which performs impeccably across all types of flooring thanks to its dual brushrolls. This model also has a unique “Powered Lift-Away” feature that lets you detach its body and still use the floorhead, allowing you to clean under furniture like you would with a canister model.

Should you buy the Bissell Hard Floor Expert?

At just over $200, the Bissell Hard Floor Expert Canister Vacuum is a reasonably priced cleaning tool, but it’s not as versatile as many other vacuums out there today. As its name suggests, it excels at cleaning hard floors and has a large, easy-to-empty dustbin, but it’s not a good choice if you have rugs in your home. However, if you predominantly have hard flooring and are looking for a lightweight vacuum, it’s a strong option that won’t break the bank.

For more hard floor cleaning inspiration, check out our rigorously tested guides of the best vacuum-mops or the best Shark vacuums.