Are they any good? If so can anyone recommend a good one? My budget is around 150.

Mmm.. go for a professional use one rather than home use and avoid any with plastic nozzles, you want metal parts, plastic ones MELT!

I have a karcher which does the job not ovens whatever it says. Sil has a polti if I were to buy another would look seriously at them they seem more robust/ Thats also what I intend to buy for my next steam generator iron. They seem to last without trouble and have good service people apparently

I love mine, the only fault with it is the cable is very short and in a house the size of mine, that is a real pain. Mine was around £60-70.
Oh and once I left it standing on wood laminate floor to heat up... got delayed and came back to find a nice faded patch in the shape of the mop head :-(

what make is yours cav?

It's the Steam Express steam mop, think it was ordered from JML.
Not sure if you can still get it though as mine is a few years old. One thing I would say is it leaves ceramic floor tiles quite wet but my wood laminate floor dries pretty much instantly.

We have a nilfisk, well worth having. Sorry cant rememeber the price paid.
Certainly would recommend though.

Karen  :)

Polti for me.  Excellent and well worth the money.

My mum and Aunty have both got a Polti. They both use it for ironing :) Think Aunty uses it for more, but know mum doesnt. Its a blooming good Iron!!!!!
Lea :)

There is adifference between a steam cleaner and a stem mop , so I suppose it depends on which you are looking for and what jobs you want it to do. I wouldnt use mine to mop the florr although it has some sort of attachment that will but very fiddly and akward to use. I use it for general cleaning, grout paintwork bathroom and so on. The polti is the same the irom is an extra attachment to the main base. 

I have a vax and it's good for my needs and was very reasonable, was aroundthe £70 mark.

I think it does depend on what you want to use it for.
I have a Polti, the one which is around £100, it is great with all the attachments, I do use it on floors, hard and soft surfaces. I have also used the steam in order to remove wall paper too!!

Yep all that and defrost the freezer, steam clothes instead of dry cleaning, deodorising trainers, cleaning the oven, cleaning Snowsilk whelping box! :)
I just love cleaning without chemicals.

I have the x5 which is fab for everyday use. Its real small and you can refill the tank without having to wait for it to cool down for an hour.  The only thing i dont use it for is my carpets. Its ok to give the carpets a quick freshen up but prefer my old steamer for that as it removes dog hairs too!

Thanks for the replies. I want one that I can use on carpets as well as cleaning of hard floors and surfaces too, but I guess the carpet is the main thing- I'm moving next month from a tiled/wooden floored house to one with carpets and I'm paranoid about doggy smells so want all the help I can get keeping it at bay(hard with 4 hairy ones!)