Watch CBS News

Does It Really Do That? Mighty Blaster

Follow KDKA-TV: Facebook | Twitter

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The infomercial makes the Mighty Blaster seem fierce: "Leaky plastic sprayers shoot water everywhere, except where you want it. And power blasters are bulky, heavy and a pain to set up. Introducing the power blaster fireman's nozzle."

Spring, summer and fall there are always chores that require cleaning around the house. Gutters, grit and grime, or simply watering spring flowers.

Kathy Smith does all of those things, so the idea behind the Mighty Blaster fireman's nozzle sounded good.

"I like this, 'cause it's not plugged into anything. There's no batteries, so it seems like it'd be really simple to use, nothing clunky to drag around the yard," she said.

mighty blaster
(Photo Credit: KDKA)

When we opened the package, the nozzle looked just like the one in the commercial. The only difference was ours did not have a separate on/off knob, just a twist of the nozzle to change the pressure levels.

The directions were very simple: "After connecting the Mighty Blaster to your hose, continue to turn on the nozzle to adjust the stream."

For Kathy, attaching a regular nozzle can be a challenge, but once we did and turned on the water, she said, "Whoa, it doesn't look very strong."

Kathy had several different chores in mind around her house where the Mighty Blaster could come in handy. We started with her gutters.

"It is getting some gook out and it gets the window pretty good," she said.

But it didn't work like a "Mighty" blaster, it seemed like more of an "OK" blaster.

It did reach the gutters, but getting anything off the roof would be have been tough. We moved in closer to see if it would make a difference. This time, we zeroed in on some bird droppings on the bricks of the house. The closer we got, the wetter we got, and the bird droppings were still on the bricks.

We began to wonder just how much power does the Mighty Blaster have?

The commercial says, "Developed using the same power pressure as the professional nozzles, the Mighty Blaster packs a punch, even plowed through these stones."

But the stones we lined up did not move, not even a little bit.

At this point, we were convinced the Mighty Blaster did have potential, but did it do everything they said it would? The front of Kathy's house had some white blotches left over from a science project using flour. She has tried a pressure washer on it before, but there was still some left, so she hit it with the Mighty Blaster.

"It looks like white stuff is coming down, but I don't know if that's just bubbles," she said.

mighty blaster hose
(Photo Credit: KDKA)

From there, we tried to removed the winter soil from Kathy's white garage door.

"It's stronger than my normal garden hose. It would be good for a spring clean-up around the windows and getting all the cobwebs out around them," she said.

We both agreed the garage door did look cleaner. But did the Mighty Blaster have the power of a fireman's hose?

"I watched the infomercial first, and for what they showed, it was like a fireman's hose. I expected it to reach the second floor. I thought I could stand back from the house and get the pressure that I needed to do the cleaning, but that turned out not to be the case," she said.

The nozzle wasn't a complete bust for Kathy though. It was easy to handle, easy to use.

"I do like it 'cause there's no trigger. So this is better than a regular garden hose. Your hand doesn't get tired from holding the trigger," she said.

We tried gutters, rocks, cleaning bricks, even moldy cement, so how did Kathy answer, does it really do that?

"No, it doesn't do exactly what the commercial said it would do," she said.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.