The best irons of 2021 — TOP 10 models for the home

What is the best iron for home use? Mod­ern, func­tion­al, com­fort­able. The home appli­ance has come a long way from antiq­ui­ty to the present day (2021). But before, a sim­ple cob­ble­stone, which was heat­ed on coals, served as an iron. Mod­ern ironers have good steam pow­er as well as smart extras.

The right choice of pow­er

The strength of the steam boost and the sup­ply of steam itself entire­ly depend on this impor­tant cri­te­ri­on. The most pow­er­ful iron­ing devices are con­sid­ered to be 2500 to 3500 watts. Opti­mal val­ues ​​for sav­ing ener­gy: from 1700 to 2000 W., but irons with such indi­ca­tors do not always cope with stale things and coarse fab­rics. Steam boost is mea­sured in grams, this is the amount of steam released by the holes of the sole­plate per minute. The best indi­ca­tors are from 200 to 400 grams.

Which sole is best?

Man­u­fac­tur­ers have learned to make the sole durable and light­weight. So in 2021, they use anodized alu­minum (light and durable) or cer­met (ceram­ic-coat­ed alu­minum). Irons with a steel sole are pro­duced less often than usu­al, the rea­son is that the mate­r­i­al adds weight to the unit, and the cost of steel is more expen­sive than oth­er met­als. There­fore, stain­less steel is also com­bined with ceram­ics.

Note each man­u­fac­tur­er has its own sole pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy and its own inno­va­tions, so the rat­ing of the best irons 2021 is writ­ten with a detailed break­down of the com­po­si­tion of the alloy. The num­ber of holes and their shape (oblong is bet­ter) deter­mines whether the item will be ironed thor­ough­ly.

Func­tion­al­i­ty

Almost all mod­ern irons have a built-in ther­mo­stat and the func­tion of spray­ing water onto the fab­ric. There­fore, most peo­ple choose a mul­ti­func­tion­al good iron for the home at an aver­age price, rather than the usu­al clas­sics in a cheap ver­sion. Irons with a built-in steam gen­er­a­tor are pop­u­lar; such iron­ing devices can dis­in­fect clothes in a sec­ond and give them a per­fect look.

Ease of use

Com­fort for the host­ess in 2021, first of all, is why com­pa­nies are increas­ing­ly aban­don­ing bulk­i­ness, a short cord, and oth­er incon­ve­niences. On the con­trary, they began to equip iron­ing machines with a long wire rotat­ing on a hinge, use anti-slip mate­r­i­al for the han­dle, and indi­ca­tion. The mod­ern ironer is tapered at the front for easy rota­tion when iron­ing.

Safe­ty sys­tem

The best irons in 2021 are designed with safe oper­a­tion in mind: in addi­tion to anti-drip and anti-scale pro­tec­tion. If the iron is left on the fab­ric or for­got­ten in an upright posi­tion, an auto­mat­ic switch-off is pro­vid­ed (after a few min­utes).

Criteria for choosing a good iron

Irons can be attrib­uted to those house­hold appli­ances, with­out which the house­hold can­not do. Even if you want­ed to, it still won’t work. There­fore, if you real­ly choose, then so that he can eas­i­ly and quick­ly solve any task, would not spoil things and, more impor­tant­ly, the mood of his own­ers.
If you briefly decide on the basic require­ments that a good iron must meet, then when choos­ing, first of all, you should pay atten­tion to:

• pow­er (for domes­tic use, usu­al­ly 1.5–2‑2.5 kW is enough, lovers of more pow­er­ful equip­ment should take into account that such a device will load the net­work too much and can eas­i­ly ruin del­i­cate fab­ric);
• num­ber of holes on the sole: in this case, the more, the bet­ter (at least 50, but about 100 is bet­ter), because the qual­i­ty of steam­ing depends on it;
• the weight (in this case, the gold­en mean is impor­tant: with a too light iron it will be dif­fi­cult to smooth out, for exam­ple, linen or some dense fab­rics, and a hand that is too heavy can quick­ly get tired);
• water tank should be trans­par­ent enough to eas­i­ly con­trol the amount of water left for steam­ing, and volu­mi­nous enough so that it is not nec­es­sary to fre­quent­ly turn off the iron dur­ing the steam­ing process to top up;
• pow­er cable must be heat-resis­tant and of suf­fi­cient length (opti­mal­ly 2–2.5–3 m) so that there are no restric­tions on move­ment, in addi­tion, it is very con­ve­nient when there is a 360˚ hinge and a place for wind­ing;
• addi­tion­al fea­tures: ver­ti­cal steam (the abil­i­ty to iron clothes, coats, jack­ets right on the hang­er or cur­tains with­out remov­ing them from the eaves);
• steam boost (sup­ply of dou­ble pow­er steam at the touch of a but­ton);
• self-clean­ing (descale inside the appli­ance) can be per­formed by press­ing a spe­cial but­ton, auto­mat­i­cal­ly when the “tur­bo steam” func­tion is turned on; in some cas­es, the pack­age includes a remov­able anti-lime rod, which will need to be cleaned peri­od­i­cal­ly;
• “drop stop” sys­tem (drip stop), which will be use­ful when iron­ing with steam at not too high tem­per­a­tures to pre­vent water droplets from the steam holes from falling onto the fab­ric;
• fire pro­tec­tion — a func­tion due to which the device auto­mat­i­cal­ly turns off the pow­er sup­ply after it has ceased to be used (after 30 sec­onds with a hor­i­zon­tal posi­tion of the sole or 8 min­utes with a ver­ti­cal one).

Convenient models

The cat­e­go­ry presents uni­ver­sal nov­el­ties that are rec­om­mend­ed to buy for home use. Each of the irons irons well, while it is equipped with sev­er­al addi­tion­al fea­tures that make iron­ing pleas­ant and com­fort­able.

Hottek HT-955–100 — ideal for a modest budget

An inex­pen­sive iron from a sec­ond-tier man­u­fac­tur­er. It has a bal­anced price-qual­i­ty ratio. The pow­er of 2200 W pro­vides ultra-fast heat­ing of the steam gen­er­a­tor, soles. The heat­ing tem­per­a­ture of the sole is adjustable. The degree of heat­ing is sig­naled by the LED indi­ca­tor. The iron is capa­ble of ver­ti­cal steam­ing, there is a spray func­tion, anti-drip pro­tec­tion.

Advan­tages:

• express heat­ing;
• ceram­ic sur­face glides smooth­ly, gen­tly affects the fab­ric;
• light;
• price;
• a self-clean­ing func­tion is pro­vid­ed.

Flaws:

• short cord;
• set of addi­tion­al options.

Polaris PIR 2487AK — balance of functionality

Inex­pen­sive mod­el with the nec­es­sary set of func­tions. Polaris PIR 2487AK with enough pow­er that is even­ly dis­trib­uted over the sole area. There is a steam­er, but the pow­er of the steam boost is infe­ri­or to mod­els from the top seg­ment (145 g / min.).

Advan­tages:

• pow­er 2400 W;
• ver­ti­cal steam­ing;
• anti-drop pro­tec­tion;
• a glass for water is includ­ed in the pack­age of deliv­ery;
• spec­tac­u­lar design;
• long cord.

Flaws:

• case made of glossy plas­tic;
• steam pow­er.

What is the best soleplate?

A lot depends on the mate­r­i­al of the sole of the iron — ease of iron­ing, dura­bil­i­ty, ease of use. There­fore, man­u­fac­tur­ers pay a lot of atten­tion to the mate­r­i­al of the soles.

The most reli­able are irons with a sole made of of stain­less steel. Such a sole does not scratch, is not afraid of bumps and falls. The best irons with stain­less steel soles are pro­duced by Rowen­ta and Braun (Sap­phire sole).

irons with ceram­ic coat­ing glide on the fab­ric the best. But ceram­ics are more frag­ile than oth­er coat­ings — they can­not be dropped, eas­i­ly scratched by met­al zip­pers or riv­ets. Over time, the ceram­ic coat­ing may crum­ble. The best ceram­ic coat­ed irons are pro­duced by Tefal.

The rest of the coat­ings are com­plex com­bined mate­ri­als — from steel, alu­minum, ceram­ics, alloys. Man­u­fac­tur­ers are look­ing for a com­pro­mise between ease of slid­ing and dura­bil­i­ty. For exam­ple, Bosch pro­duces met­al coat­ed irons with ceram­ic ele­ments. The coat­ing of Philips irons — SteamGlide — con­sists of met­al alloys, sil­i­con, ceram­ics.

Types of irons

Before decid­ing which iron is bet­ter to buy, you need to decide what exact­ly you will use it for. Of course, the device is need­ed for iron­ing clothes, but the con­di­tions for its use may be dif­fer­ent. If you often trav­el on busi­ness trips, you need a com­pact device. If you plan to use it “pro­fes­sion­al­ly” — you will need the most pow­er­ful one.

Accord­ing to these cri­te­ria, man­u­fac­tur­ers and share their prod­ucts. It makes no sense to com­pare devices of dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories with each oth­er — they have dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es, the char­ac­ter­is­tics will dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Com­par­isons are allowed only with­in the bound­aries of cat­e­gories, and there are only three of them.

1. Road. This cat­e­go­ry con­tains the most com­pact mod­els. They can be small or fold­able so they take up min­i­mal space in your bag or suit­case. Their impor­tant advan­tage is light­ness, but one should not expect spe­cial pow­er from them. Man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­vide pow­er in the range of 800‑1200 W, which means that they do an excel­lent job with thin syn­thet­ic fab­rics, but when iron­ing things made of thick cot­ton, dif­fi­cul­ties can arise. Plus, they may not have a steam func­tion, and if it is pro­vid­ed, the liq­uid reser­voir will be very small. There­fore, even the best iron from the trav­el cat­e­go­ry is not con­sid­ered by man­u­fac­tur­ers as the con­sumer’s choice for every day. It is rather a life­saver dur­ing a busi­ness trip for occa­sion­al use.
2. house­hold. This is the largest cat­e­go­ry of irons, which are also called clas­sic. They are dis­tin­guished by their aver­age size, an abun­dance of addi­tion­al func­tions (the more there are, the more expen­sive the mod­el), pow­er from 1500 to 2500 W, the oblig­a­tory pres­ence of a steam­ing mode — irons for the home are no longer pro­duced with­out it. We will com­pile the qual­i­ty rat­ing of irons from these mod­els, since they are usu­al­ly of inter­est to buy­ers.
3. Pro­fes­sion­al. Their pow­er can reach 4000 watts. Such high rates are due to the fact that such irons are used to work with a large num­ber of fab­rics and for a long time. They must equal­ly effec­tive­ly and quick­ly smooth out thick cot­ton, linen, den­im, so they are not only pow­er­ful, but also quite mas­sive. For home use, they are more like­ly to be incon­ve­nient, but for ate­liers, tai­lor­ing work­shops, they become indis­pens­able helpers.

Man­u­fac­tur­ers often lump home and pro­fes­sion­al mod­els into the same cat­e­go­ry. There­fore, when choos­ing an option for the home, pay atten­tion to pow­er, as well as oth­er fea­tures of irons that affect their dura­bil­i­ty and ease of use.

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Iron or steam generator — which is better?

If there is a lot of iron­ing in the fam­i­ly, it is worth think­ing about steam gen­er­a­tor. The first thing every­one pays atten­tion to when it comes to a steam gen­er­a­tor is the price. It is high, but quite ade­quate­ly cor­re­lates with the lev­el of com­fort and the pos­si­bil­i­ties of using such a device at home. I would also like to note sev­er­al fea­tures of oper­a­tion (it’s sim­ply unfair to clas­si­fy them as dis­ad­van­tages — what they fought for …): first­ly, the base requires sep­a­rate place­ment (the board can­not with­stand weight and bends), and sec­ond­ly, stan­dard iron­ing boards made of ply­wood or chip­board do not endure such intense expo­sure to steam and quick­ly become unus­able, and water seeps through the met­al. How­ev­er, there must be holes in the board, oth­er­wise the steam will wet the fab­ric. And remem­ber — steam iron­ing requires care.

Saturn Intellitemp 305003

Let’s start with a very unusu­al mod­el. Sat­urn Intel­litemp 305003 is an iron with a built-in steam gen­er­a­tor. A small pump allows you to get 50 grams of steam per minute at a pres­sure of 1.5 bar, and dur­ing iron­ing it con­stant­ly flows through 485 holes in the sole.

There is no usu­al tem­per­a­ture con­trol here — the Intel­liTemp sys­tem reg­u­lates it and the steam sup­ply auto­mat­i­cal­ly. By the way, the flow of steam stops when the iron is placed in a ver­ti­cal posi­tion.

In addi­tion to con­stant sup­ply, there is a steam boost mode (230 grams per minute). It can be used both to fight the most stub­born creas­es and to steam cur­tains or clothes on a hang­er. In order to avoid scale stains on things, the iron has a self-clean­ing mode and a spe­cial anti-lime car­tridge.

Anoth­er inter­est­ing fea­ture that we have nev­er seen on irons is the illu­mi­na­tion of the iron­ing area. The noz­zle of the Intel­litemp 305003 has a small LED that illu­mi­nates the area in front of the iron. The man­u­fac­tur­er empha­sizes that on dark fab­rics and on clothes with a com­plex pat­tern, the back­light allows you to bet­ter see the folds.

What kind of water to use in irons

There is an opin­ion that an iron or a steam gen­er­a­tor is best filled with dis­tilled or well-fil­tered water. Say, it will pro­tect against scale, pro­long the ser­vice life and get rid of trou­bles such as “spit­ting” rust or cal­ci­um on light-col­ored clothes at the most inop­por­tune moment, etc. etc.

In real­i­ty, you just need fol­low the man­u­fac­tur­er’s rec­om­men­da­tionsunam­bigu­ous­ly spelled out in user instruc­tions. Most mod­ern irons are adapt­ed for plumb­ing “refu­el­ing”. And it’s not that they are equipped with a clean­ing sys­tem. Some­times too ster­ile water in its prop­er­ties does not cor­re­spond to the design fea­tures of indi­vid­ual mod­els.

Case in point: Philips’ new high-pow­ered irons often require a “run-in” of the appli­ance in tap water to acti­vate a full burst of steam, so that the evap­o­rat­ing sur­face is cov­ered with a thin lay­er of salts. And only after that it blows from the sole so that “mom don’t cry”!

Philips GC3925/30 PerfectCare PowerLife

• Type — steam iron.
• Pow­er — 2500 watts.
• Water con­tain­er — 300 ml.
• Large hole for fill­ing water.
• SteamGlide Plus out­sole (cer­met + tita­ni­um).
• Auto tem­per­a­ture set­ting.
• Ver­ti­cal steam­ing.
• Steam reg­u­la­tion.
• Steam boost, water con­sump­tion — 180 g / min.
• Con­tin­u­ous steam sup­ply, con­sump­tion — 45 g / min.
• Water spray func­tion, anti-drip sys­tem.
• Anti-calc pro­tec­tion, built-in clean­ing slid­er.
• Can be used with tap water.
• Auto-shut­down, light indi­ca­tion.
• 1 col­or (black-vio­let), case — plas­tic.
• Dimen­sions (W × H × D) — 12.7 × 14.7 × 31.2 cm, weight — 1.485 kg.
• Cord — 2 m, ball attach­ment to the body.

Anoth­er steam iron from Philips — now the GC3925/30 mod­els from the Per­fect­Care Pow­er­Life line. Like the GC4556/20 Azur just reviewed, this appli­ance has a 2500W out­put, a durable SteamGlide Plus sole­plate made of cer­met with mul­ti­lay­er tita­ni­um coat­ing, a 2m cord with ball attach­ment and a 300ml water tank. At the same time, this mod­el has more com­pact dimen­sions and slight­ly less weight. The iron is capa­ble of deliv­er­ing a con­stant steam out­put of 45 g/min and a steam boost of 180 g/min.

The main fea­ture of this mod­el is the imple­ment­ed Opti­mal­TEMP tech­nol­o­gy, thanks to which the iron inde­pen­dent­ly reg­u­lates the tem­per­a­ture set­tings depend­ing on the type of fab­ric being processed. This allows you to iron things in any order with­out the risk of burn­ing through the fab­ric or leav­ing shiny marks on it.

The device sup­ports the func­tions of ver­ti­cal steam­ing and auto-off, is char­ac­ter­ized by increased sta­bil­i­ty in a ver­ti­cal posi­tion, and can also be used with ordi­nary tap water. For descal­ing, the device has a spe­cial built-in slid­er.

Helpful Hints

• An inde­pen­dent lab­o­ra­to­ry from France con­duct­ed research and found that it is more expe­di­ent to use a Teflon sur­face for iron­ing syn­thet­ic and del­i­cate fab­rics at a low tem­per­a­ture. And for high tem­per­a­tures and dense mate­ri­als, cer­mets are more suit­able.
• If you often iron gar­ments, then it is bet­ter to choose an elon­gat­ed mod­el. For wide can­vas­es — bed linen, bed­spreads, cur­tains, it is much more effi­cient to use irons with a wide sole.
• Con­sid­er the weight of the iron, it should be com­fort­able for you. Usu­al­ly users pre­fer one and a half to two kilo­gram mod­els.
• The length of the pow­er cord mat­ters a lot. Its length should be no more than two meters. The ball mount allows the wire to rotate 360 ​​degrees with­out get­ting tan­gled.
• The “stop-drop” or “anti-drop” sys­tem pre­vents water from flow­ing through the work sur­face and leav­ing stains on clothes.