Compare steam generator and steamer

Iron­ing clothes is one of the “house­hold night­mares” along with clean­ing, cook­ing and wash­ing dish­es. Strug­gling with even one crease in your trousers can throw you off bal­ance. But what if you need to iron clothes for the whole fam­i­ly ?!

For­tu­nate­ly, appli­ance man­u­fac­tur­ers are con­stant­ly improv­ing their prod­ucts, try­ing to make life eas­i­er for wrin­kle fight­ers. So, ordi­nary irons are equipped with spe­cial slid­ing soles and steam gen­er­a­tors. Expo­sure to hot moist air helps to cope with even the most unruly wrin­kles.

Here are just a lot of tech­niques with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of steam­ing. There are both steam gen­er­a­tors and steam­ers. And they are quite dif­fer­ent from each oth­er.

In this arti­cle, we will ana­lyze what is bet­ter for clothes — a steam gen­er­a­tor or a steam­er.

Steam generator (iron with steam generator)

It should imme­di­ate­ly be not­ed that steam gen­er­a­tors as such are not used at home. It’s more of a clean­ing machine. But for the home, irons with a steam gen­er­a­tor are designed.

These devices, like irons in prin­ci­ple, are used for iron­ing clothes. But they are equipped with a large, often free-stand­ing water tank with a high-pow­er heater. That is why steam gen­er­a­tors are able to “give out” a large amount of steam with a rel­a­tive­ly high pres­sure.

As a result, steam from steam gen­er­a­tors is able to pen­e­trate deep into the fab­ric and smooth even the most dense mate­ri­als. For exam­ple, jeans. The steam pres­sure is almost always high (a so-called “steam boost” is cre­at­ed), and the steam itself is dry, so it can be used to dis­in­fect mate­ri­als, add extra vol­ume or remove unpleas­ant odors.

How­ev­er, a steam gen­er­a­tor is pri­mar­i­ly an iron. There­fore, it has the appro­pri­ate func­tion­al­i­ty. The device is designed for iron­ing clothes, it can sup­port steam flow pow­er adjust­ment, be equipped with replace­able noz­zles or soles, tem­per­a­ture set­tings, and so on. For oth­er pur­pos­es, the steam gen­er­a­tor will be of lit­tle use.

So, they will not be able to clean hang­ing cur­tains, dis­in­fect pil­lows, or, for exam­ple, steam a woolen coat that has over­win­tered in the clos­et. The steam gen­er­a­tor can­not be used in a ver­ti­cal posi­tion. And in the hor­i­zon­tal, its sole is too hot, as a result of which it is strict­ly for­bid­den to touch some mate­ri­als with it.

In gen­er­al, the steam gen­er­a­tor is char­ac­ter­ized as fol­lows:

1. The main pur­pose is to iron clothes. Steam is used to remove deep and dif­fi­cult-to-remove creas­es, as well as to get rid of the char­ac­ter­is­tic “shiny” streaks that remain on some mate­ri­als after iron­ing;

2. “Gives out” dry steam, which has dis­in­fect­ing prop­er­ties and increas­es the vol­ume of some mate­ri­als;

3. The tem­per­a­ture of the steam giv­en out is from 100 to 160 degrees, depend­ing on the mod­el of the steam gen­er­a­tor;

4. Able to steam only in a hor­i­zon­tal posi­tion. When con­vert­ed to ver­ti­cal, the effi­cien­cy drops sig­nif­i­cant­ly — includ­ing due to a decrease in steam pres­sure.

The main dif­fer­ence from a con­ven­tion­al iron with a built-in water tank is that the steam flow rate is much high­er. The device, in fact, works con­stant­ly in the “steam boost” mode. In addi­tion, the capac­i­ty of the water con­tain­er of the steam gen­er­a­tor is much high­er than that of any bud­get iron. And the dura­bil­i­ty is also longer, since the steam chan­nels in the sole do not become clogged with scale.

The most impor­tant advan­tage of an iron with a steam gen­er­a­tor is that this device is per­fect for iron­ing bed linen — duvet cov­ers, sheets, pil­low­cas­es — as well as cur­tains and oth­er dec­o­ra­tive fab­rics.

Pow­er­ful steam flow eas­i­ly pen­e­trates through sev­er­al lay­ers of fab­ric, smooth­ing wrin­kles and soft­en­ing the mate­r­i­al. When dry, home tex­tiles become unpleas­ant­ly stiff, which is espe­cial­ly crit­i­cal for bed linen. And the steam gen­er­a­tor is able to cor­rect this short­com­ing.

Steamer

The steam­er is a fair­ly new house­hold appli­ance. The device is designed for steam treat­ment of var­i­ous sur­faces and mate­ri­als. Visu­al­ly, the steam­er is sim­i­lar to a vac­u­um clean­er, only in the main unit there is a water con­tain­er and a heat­ing ele­ment.

Steam­ers are used in gen­er­al house clean­ing. Yes, they are able to:

1. Remove var­i­ous stub­born and greasy con­t­a­m­i­nants from kitchen fur­ni­ture and appli­ances. For exam­ple, with a steam­er, you can clean the hood, gas stove, oven, microwave, and so on;

2. Car­ry out anti­sep­tic treat­ment of uphol­stered fur­ni­ture, at the same time as refresh­ing the appear­ance of the coat­ing and remov­ing stub­born dirt from it;

3. Refresh win­ter and sum­mer clothes after pro­longed stor­age in the clos­et, smooth out small wrin­kles, improve col­or;

4. Remove unpleas­ant odors from fab­ric cov­er­ings. For exam­ple, from uphol­stered fur­ni­ture, car­pets, car­pet, cur­tains, cur­tains and table­cloths;

5. Dis­in­fect soft toys, destroy­ing dust mites and harm­ful bac­te­ria. This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for peo­ple with chil­dren suf­fer­ing from res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases or a weak­ened immune sys­tem;

6. Wash win­dows and any oth­er hard sur­faces.

Of course, the steam­er is also suit­able for car­ing for clothes. But iron­ing some­thing with it will not work — this device is not intend­ed for that. Here it will be pos­si­ble to remove “quick­ly” folds from a dress, T‑shirt or some down jack­et that have been hang­ing in the clos­et for more than one week with a steam­er. Then the clothes will straight­en out under the influ­ence of their own weight.

An impor­tant fea­ture of the steam­er is that it “gives out” wet steam. There­fore, it is not rec­om­mend­ed to influ­ence a sep­a­rate area of ​​cloth­ing, fur­ni­ture or soft toys for a long time. Mois­ture can con­dense in the thick­ness of the mate­r­i­al, which will lead to not the most pleas­ant con­se­quences.

In gen­er­al, steam­ers are char­ac­ter­ized as fol­lows:

1. The main pur­pose is to take care of house­hold items. The steam­er removes dirt, removes unpleas­ant odors, dis­in­fects, wash­es and refresh­es col­ors. With regard to cloth­ing, he is only capa­ble of straight­en­ing small folds caused by pro­longed stor­age;

2. Pro­duces “wet” steam, which has excel­lent clean­ing prop­er­ties and helps to remove dirt from hard and smooth sur­faces;

3. The tem­per­a­ture of the “issued” steam is from 90 to 120 degrees. Thanks to this, the steam­er does not dam­age even many del­i­cate fab­rics and heat-sen­si­tive mate­ri­als;

4. Able to steam in both hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal posi­tions. Effi­cien­cy does not drop, since the steam flow rate is in prin­ci­ple not too high.

In fact, a steam­er is some­thing like a ket­tle, only with a larg­er capac­i­ty and with a long mov­able “spout”. It does not have any mech­a­nisms for inject­ing steam pres­sure. There­fore, there are more degrees of free­dom when using, and areas of appli­ca­tion — but iron­ing clothes with a steam­er will still not work.

So, let’s sum up.

Steam­ers will also find appli­ca­tion in cloth­ing stores and ate­liers. With their abil­i­ty to smooth out fine lines, suit­able for the care of com­plex dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments, and refresh­ing the col­or of fab­rics, these devices will keep clothes look­ing “fresh”, “new” and visu­al­ly appeal­ing.

Which is better for clothes — a steam generator or a steamer?

So, if you need to iron your clothes after wash­ing and dry­ing, then it is bet­ter to take a steam gen­er­a­tor. A steam­er is a device for remov­ing small wrin­kles and sim­ply car­ing for fab­rics. It can also be used in home clean­ing.

But the dif­fer­ence between the two devices is not lim­it­ed to this. Let’s com­pare them.

Buy­ing a steam gen­er­a­tor (iron with a steam gen­er­a­tor) is advis­able in the fol­low­ing cas­es:

1. If you need to iron a lot of clothes with dif­fer­ent tex­tures. For exam­ple, in fam­i­lies where every few days a “big wash” is arranged and all dirty things are col­lect­ed;

2. If you often need to iron clothes made of mate­ri­als that quick­ly become cov­ered with dif­fi­cult-to-remove folds;

3. When you want to iron bed linen, woolen items, del­i­cate mate­ri­als, as well as volu­mi­nous fab­rics.

Buy­ing a steam­er is advis­able in the fol­low­ing cas­es:

1. To care for things with many com­plex dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments;

2. For quick removal of small wrin­kles from shirts, dress­es and sim­i­lar items of cloth­ing that are stored hang­ing;

3. For gen­er­al house clean­ing — clean­ing cur­tains, cur­tains, car­pets, uphol­stered fur­ni­ture, remov­ing stub­born dirt from var­i­ous sur­faces, and so on.

4. In addi­tion, the steam­er is a very use­ful device for cloth­ing stores and ate­liers. With it, fab­rics and dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments will keep an attrac­tive “orig­i­nal” look.