I've always gotten asked so many times about my fancy steam iron, and I've never
had anywhere to recommend you to go because this one's not sold anymore.
So when it was new for a new one, I decided it was high time to talk about
just what these fancy steam irons, the steam generator irons
actually do what they're good for.
Will they help you in your sewing?
And what I look for in one, and then I actually test out
this brand new one that I've got to see if it is worth it.
My sewing friends.
Welcome back.
This is going to be a really interesting video.
It is. What are we going to talk about?
We are talking about the steam irons, the steam generators,
these fancy steam irons that you see me use many other people.
And he probably even looked at them and thought,
what did they do and is it worth it?
We are going to talk about all of that.
So let's cover off what they actually are, what they do.
Different functions than, say,
just your regular domestic item that you're kind of used to.
Why? These are like different.
And then what I look for in one, what are the requirements
that I did look for when I purchased this new one?
And we're going to test out this new Tefal.
Oh, write down what it is as well to see if this one is of use.
Because I've had this model of Tefal Tefal Easy Pressing.
I've had this one for a decade and I love it.
I absolutely love it.
And I get asked all of the time, where can I get one?
Like, what's it called? I want one. Where can I get one?
But unfortunately, they don't sell this model anymore,
which is super sad because I love it.
I love it.
And as you know, I'm building a second sewing space at my home now.
And so part of that is needing
one of these because to me that's hardly worth it.
And I would never go back to those domestic irons.
And we'll talk about that in a second.
So I needed to get a new one
and I wanted to find one that I could actually recommend to you.
So we'd see, you know, whether it's worthwhile or not purchase as well.
So this is my hunt for the perfect steam generator iron.
The perfect iron for a home.
So if that's you and me.
So this is what will become comparing.
So we'll talk first about just what are these fancy steam irons, what do they do?
The first thing that you notice
is obviously they're built into a big like water tank, boiler type thing.
So they have a larger capacity
so you can have much more steam than your regular for domestic iron.
So, so much, you know, you usually fill up like this much this new one.
This has 1.9 liters compared to that little cup
that you might put in the little household iron.
So a huge amount more so that means less trips filling it up
and you get a heap amount of steam.
They are designed to get steam, so you get really good steam, a lot of it.
And without the spitting of water, because they're really designed,
as the name suggests, a steam generator to get steam.
And a lot of these, which we'll talk in a minute,
actually come with the ability to vertically steam
so you can use it as a steamer and an iron.
So not all models do, but we'll talk about that in a little bit.
And of course, the other big thing is the big units that they're on here.
So they are like built in to this.
And so it actually provides some stability.
So usually, you know, with your home iron,
this is the new one I'm working out the noises.
You have to put it on the table, right.
And the ironing board and you can obviously hit yourself very easily.
It's always a little bit scary.
And your ironing board wobbles, right?
I'm holding on to this and it can be quite dangerous.
And of course you don't want to accidentally leave it like this.
And so these units are designed that it's hot, it's still on.
They actually sit on here.
No matter how bad your whining towards wobbling,
it won't fall off and it's a lot more safe and secure,
which I really like to the ease of use of these
because you're ironing a lot in sewing makes it really useful.
Now, what do I look for in one of these?
Well, this is the list that I did look for because I just purchased this one.
One of the things you look for is, of course, the steam generation.
Now you can get all technical and these are all measured in some balls of steam.
But you'll see in a minute the difference between my very old one and the new one.
They work a little bit differently.
And honestly, I was just, oh, that's a little too technical.
I just want to know how much steam it gets
because this one is actually only very low.
It is.
It says it's 4.5 bars, whereas this new one is 6.2 bars,
but 4.5, you can bring that low.
And you'll see in all the different models that I might talk about in a moment,
I always found this was plenty of steam to get me by like I did.
I was not without enough steam with this.
So I didn't really worry about all the science between that.
The bars of steam
they will all do way better job than your domestic little home iron.
So the big thing that I was looking at when I went searching for a new iron,
I discovered that most of the irons these days
are called
something like a one temperature technology
and you cannot adjust the temperature of the iron.
I was absolutely shocked.
So it means that there's no
thermostat with a cool, a manual thermostat.
You can't adjust it at all. There is none.
I was horrified and that's an absolute deal breaker for me.
I know what I'm ironing
and I know what temperature I want to use and I want to be able to select that.
So that was a really that's absolute deal breaker for me and I would have went
with other different models, but you couldn't adjust the temperature.
And so for me that was an absolute deal breaker.
And one of the reasons I chose this model,
the other feature is the vertical steaming that I was talking about.
So you want to be able to actually pick this up and vertically steam
and use it as a vertical steam up. So
right.
So you can use it as just that
and even if
even if you're don't use this for sewing,
I recommend it for ironing too because you get ironing, dresses, skirts, etc.
with a bit of steam like vertically steaming like that
in about 80% of the time and effort that it does to flat iron
and you get a pretty good job.
So for me it's an absolute like laundry saver being able to vertically steam
and this is two in one, it's a vertical steamer and an iron together.
So that was definitely the vertical steaming function
was one of the things that I was absolutely looking for.
What is also good is an eco mode.
So you can kind of I've always enjoyed it on this one.
You can turn it down to an eco mode and where it just kind of puts
along a little longer when you're using it for
say several hours, you can put it on that and just come and go
as needed is always quite handy, but not necessarily a deal breaker for me.
There are there other features that I looked for.
There are a few things that I've noticed in my very short
handling with this new one
that I'll walk you through
that are not necessarily features that you'll look for,
but maybe just things that I've noticed and pointed out.
So let's have a look at this new one
to see if it is going to live up to the task to the challenge.
If I had the choice, I would have just bought
another one of these because I love it so much. It's been perfect.
I had no complaints, nothing.
So unfortunately it's not available and I want to be able to give you
a better choice, too, on something that you might be able to purchase, too.
Now, when I did look, I had my list of requirements that I just mentioned.
The other requirement was that I wanted it to be made
for an Australian plug outlet.
So I did want something I could recommend to you.
But when I looked on Amazon, they're all from the U.S.
and they all have U.S.
plugs and just being such a high powered item,
I didn't want to risk it and have converters and things.
I wanted to get something that was made to fit the power that comes out of my wall.
So that was something that I went for.
Now the Tefal brand, this one, as I said, I've had for a decade,
the only thing that I changed was the boiler cap
once I replaced it and it has been a dream.
So I went with another teeth again.
Okay, keep pairing to the new one. Let's compare.
So this old one actually has a boiler so you'll see it's hot.
So went undo it but this is an actual boiler cap you have to screw it on you.
Pull the water inside screw the cap on like a boiler and it's great.
It's wonderful.
It's very hard to fill because you have to get a funnel
and fill it over and to clean it, you have to literally like
rinse it out, tip the whole heater upside down
and tip it out because the water unit is in there.
I mean, that didn't bother me too much, but
they're probably the only things that I mentioned.
So on this one, I have a steam control.
I can go from more steam to less steam to eat to eco, and I can choose
the temperature that I want going from synthetics all the way up to a linen.
So comparing to the new models and everything I found
this was the only the really one that had a temperature control.
Now this temperature only says it goes up to a cotton as a maximum.
So I'm curious about the temperature
there that you will get to in my mind that says that it's
going to be a slightly cooler temperature than this one, which
might not be so good.
But we'll give it a little test and see.
And this one has a water tank here that you literally pull out.
You can take it to the sink, you fill it up and you push it back in.
Now, I was very dubious because I really wanted a boiler like this one.
So we'll see anyway.
But this is how they were all like this.
They all just have a water tank and you just it on and off.
Unless you go to professional models or at least anything I could find.
So I'm very curious to see how this goes.
And it looks like the cleaning on this is much easier with a little anti
Kelly little thing here that you just pull out and can clean it.
So clearly the water refill and the cleaning are far easier
than this old model
and you can choose the modes there is an eco mode
and a vertical steaming mode and then just the regular mode.
So be interesting to see the difference between them.
So let's have a little look.
I have had only a little play as I said, just to get it started and get it
sort of worn in a little bit
because it did say it would spit water when you first used it and yes, it did.
But I've sort of worked that out and given it a bit of use now.
So but unfortunately, it still spit some water.
So there's water spits through here.
Did you hear this pumping?
Can you hear that? So
to get
the steam in this, it obviously draws the water from the tank into a boiler
and it keeps like like squirting water into itself, I guess.
And so
I was not expecting that noise.
And well, I know it's not necessarily a problem, but I feel tutorials.
So that pumping sound, I'm not sure.
It's very nice to glide.
It's probably heavier than my old one.
I do really like the tip of this.
It's quite pointed
and I can feel already that that would be really good to actually poke
into little corners and everything as opposed to my old one here.
I do think that little pointed tip will be absolutely beautiful.
So to give you an idea, this is how my old one steam.
You just press the button
and it goes it steam is just there waiting for use.
I usually press it and then stop and keep ironing.
So yeah, the steam is definitely different.
This one is delayed.
This reminds me more of the feel of a domestic home
iron where you kind of press the button
and you wait for the steam to build and generate and you keep going.
You keep going.
It reminds me of that.
It was a long time ago that I haven't used one of those.
This reminds me maybe I like to begin with.
It's more like an industrial
iron where the steam is to say You press the button and the steam goes.
So you know much of a muchness, but that's because I'm comparing it to that one.
But otherwise it's quite nice.
One thing I notice with these in using them is the
actual code at the back. So
this one actually comes off higher back here.
And so a little bit more flexible.
So it means when it hits the board you're not tugging on it
as much, whereas this one is not quite as high.
And so when I get to here, it's actually pulling on the board and you're
you can feel that resistance, which is not so nice.
Having that high end does make it more usable, particularly
if you had like a really big ironing board.
And the code on this one in general is just shorter, of course.
So no surprises there, though.
That probably saved millions of dollars in the manufacturing just by cutting out,
you know, this much code length on all of their codes.
So I've just turned it on to vertical steaming
and I want to give it a go.
And yeah, it seems to be good.
The same thing.
It kind of slowly gives the steam out and it's still steaming when it's there,
which is a little disconcerting compared to my old one.
It's definitely noisier.
Yeah, this one did run out of steam.
I was vertically steaming at it, kind of like that water a little bit at one stage.
So there is that.
I think that because it draws in smaller amounts, but
let's just give it a bit more of a try.
If you've never vertically steam before, if you can hang it up from something
really high, you can do it standing.
Otherwise really you'd want to be down here doing this
this put a little bit of pressure and let it drop and press.
That's done a really nice job actually.
It was quite nice to use for the vertical steaming and it's done a quite job.
I don't like how it just puffs out steam like that,
but all in all and I do like that you have a little light on the top.
So it's really obvious when it's on.
I don't like the fact that it pumps out.
Let's give it a little heat test.
I would like to compare with linen and see how hot it gets.
So I've got some wrinkly linen seams here and we'll do one each.
I've turned them up to the maximum temperatures to see
if this cotton setting is hot enough to actually find linen.
And what I've done is I've left it on the vertical steaming mode.
So we'll see if that gives more or less steam
or if I'm just ruining everything entirely.
We'll see.
So let's have a go.
Okay.
It was very nice to use to press the seam.
The linen is still a bit wrinkly, but linen is notorious for that.
It didn't feel
super hot when I did the little test and I shouldn't do that.
I know, but it's what I'm used to with this one.
So let's give this one and see if the temperature here is in fact hotter.
Akula Or is going to make any difference on our linen.
That one's hotter.
Okay, so having a look at these two,
I do feel like this one is slightly smoother
and this still does have more wrinkles and doing the unofficial temperature test
and just like seeing how hot it was, this one is definitely hotter.
I feel like this could be hotter in comparison.
Well, in conclusion is this one my absolute
go to like perfect iron.
I'm not sure.
I would say only on the fact that
the way that it pumps and creates the steam.
But then I'm used to industrial irons too.
And I look for something like that.
I would say this iron has an experience that is like an upgraded domestic
iron in the way that it feels and that it creates steam.
It feels much more like the iron that you're probably used to,
which is probably a good thing for most of you.
And the pumping of the water
probably isn't a big deal if you're not videoing,
you know, making videos.
Of course, it's very smooth.
I really like the pointy end.
The cord length, I don't think would be a deal breaker.
It has that a bit of water, which I'm, you know, concerned about.
Maybe it will stop, maybe it won't,
but we'll see about that long term.
So all in all, I think I would still want to give it a bit
more test long term in actual many garments in different situations.
But so far I would definitely think that it is a good choice for an iron.
It's not.
It was one of the lower models, so it's not super expensive
and it probably is a really, really good choice for an upgraded version.
I still might search around and maybe compare a few more tefal
if you're listening,
I've got some great ideas on what would make the perfect iron for the home.
So let's talk about I'll see if this search continues.
Leave your comments down below what I and what steam generator I indeed use.
Please let us know. I'd love to know.
And remember, if you're reading through
and you found someone's comment useful, give it a like and let them know too.
Because we are a community here all sharing our knowledge
and that's how we all get better at our sewing.
And you'll find great products to use. Okay.
All right. So happy sewing, happy ironing,
happy sewing, bye.
Okay.
This one ran out of steam.
First it was spitting water.
You can see the difference.
This one has a nice flow.
This one is like steam jets.
That was quite interesting
and it's still steaming.