Cleaning & Household
Buy and sell cleaning and household in Costa Rica.
Most Costa Rican houses stand on ceramic or porcelain tile rather than carpet, and that changes which cleaning machine earns its keep. A vacuum that also mops, a steam mop or a robot dragging a damp pad does more work here than a carpet upright. Outside, the algae that turns a carport or a back patio green in the wet months is a job for a pressure washer. New and pre-owned, the machines run from the wet/dry drum vacuum sold by the gallon to the gas-powered pressure washer. A listing that gives the gallons, the PSI or how long the battery lasts has already answered most questions.
Tile floors and the vacuum cleaner that suits them:
on porcelain and ceramic tile, raw suction matters less than how the machine deals with fine grit and grout lines. Among vacuum cleaners, a cylinder with a soft hard-floor head or a cordless stick suits a tiled house, while a heavy upright with a beater bar is built for carpet and wasted on a couple of loose rugs. The drum-style wet/dry vacuum is sold here the American way, by gallons of tank and horsepower. A five-gallon unit is plenty for a car interior or water on the laundry-room floor; ten gallons and up is for workshops and building dust.
Steam mops, mopping robots and laminate:
a tiled floor still wants mopping after the vacuum. A steam mop does it with hot water alone and gets into grout that a string mop skips, but keep it off unsealed wood and most laminate, where steam swells the joints. A garment steamer is a different tool and sits with irons and washers in laundry.
A wandering robot vacuum against a mapped one:
a basic robot that bumps its way round is around ₡70,000 new, while a laser-navigated one that can be sent to a single room, with a dock that empties its own bin, is nearer ₡200,000. The gap is the map and the dock, not the suction, and the mopping pad on either gives tile a daily wipe rather than a scrub. On a used robot the money is in the battery: one that still covers the whole house on a charge is worth far more than the same model that gives up halfway down the hallway.
Pressure washers and algae on the carport:
after a few weeks of rain, a shaded wall, the carport and the front sidewalk go green and slippery, and a garden hose will not shift it. A household electric pressure washer clears patios and cars; a gas-powered one, with far more pressure and flow, is for long driveways, farm machinery and anyone who cleans for a living. Look at flow as well as PSI, since flow does the rinsing, and get a rotating turbo nozzle for algae. Start wide on old grout, paint and soft wood: a narrow jet cuts into all three.
Motors, batteries and pump seals on a second-hand machine:
cover the end of a vacuum hose with your palm. The motor note should rise and the hose should grip; weak pull with a clean filter points to a split hose or a tired motor, and a burning smell from the vents means worn motor brushes. On a cordless stick or a robot, ask how long it runs on a full charge and whether the charger is the original, and ask the seller to remove a robot from their app account and reset it before you collect. Run a pressure washer off a hose. The spray should be steady, not pulsing, and water dripping from the pump body means worn seals. An electric unit that keeps starting and stopping with the trigger released has a leak somewhere. A steam mop that spits water instead of steam is usually scaled up inside.
A house with a carport, traded for an apartment:
is when most of these come up. Someone leaving a house in Grecia for a flat in Curridabat has no more use for the pressure washer or the ten-gallon drum vacuum. Give the gallons and horsepower on a wet/dry vacuum, PSI and electric or gas on a pressure washer, and battery age and runtime on anything cordless. List the nozzles, spare filters or dock that go with it, and photograph the rating plate. A pressure washer sells best when the buyer driving over from Cartago can watch it run off your own tap before it goes in the car.