The first thing we both commented on when we removed the iron from the box was the weight of it. It weighs nearly 1.6 kilo!  My Mum’s £20 iron is lighter than that so the difference in weight was noticeable. The extra weight has it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages. The good thing is that it really does make a noticeable difference to the amount of effort you have to put in when ironing your clothes as you don’t need to press down on the garment as much as you need to with her cheaper, light-weight iron. The things we don’t like about the weight are that it would really hurt you if the iron fell off the ironing board and onto your toe but also that if you have arthritis or similar then you may struggle to lift the iron , especially when using the vertical steam shot. My mum does have RSI in her wrists but we were surprised to find that she managed to use the iron comfortably but just struggled with holding it upright for the steam shot.

Whenever I write a review I always refer to notes I have made throughout the review process and I am now a bit confused. I had noted down that the iron we received says it has a 130g steam shot but when looking at the description details for the Rowenta Focus DZ5138 online and in the press release I see that it says it has a 180g/min steam shot.  The model number stated on the iron is DZ5138 and I have looked through the other Rowenta Irons available and I have definitely received and been testing out what seems to be the Rowenta Focus DZ5138. I did wonder for a minute if we had actually been using the Rowenta Focus DZ5045 which has a 130g steam but the iron we received looks nothing like that as the colours are different but also the DZ5045 only has 2300 watts and it doesn’t have a vertical steam shot. I have therefore come to the conclusion that the Rowenta Focus DZ5138 iron either has 130g steam shot but they have accidentally publicised it as having 180g or it does have 180g steam shot but they have mistakenly written 130g on the box and on the iron. Either way…it doesn’t matter to us whether it is 130g or 180g…the iron works and does a fantastic job!

The iron heats up really quickly which save a lot of time if you are ironing something in a rush. To be honest that is the kind of ironing my mum does a lot of! You know what it’s like…when you are part of a busy family home there is never much time to waste dawdling along doing things SLOWLY. Therefore this iron is just what is needed. It heats up in no time at all and it does a great job of getting rid of creases in an instant. I went round my mum’s the other day so she could demonstrate the effectiveness of the Rowenta Focus DZ5138 to me.  The first garment she tackled with the iron was the navy cardigan with fixed shirt that you  can see in the photos below.

 



Before ironing.



She tried out the vertical steam shot on the top and it worked wonders. The iron gives out a huge shot of steam and it really gets good results. We did find that the iron needed to be topped up with water quite often when using the steam shot but that was not really a problem.

My mum was pleased to see that it was okay to use tap water with the iron but as we live in a hard water area she is unsure whether or not this will cause a problem of limescale in the long run. The iron does have a self clean function and it also contains an anti-scale cartridge to reduce limescale deposits. It’s great that the cartridge is built in to the water tank and does not need replacing. Rowenta advise that you use the Self Clean function every 2 weeks but if you live in a hard water area they say you should clean the iron weekly.

The second garment she ironed was some cream linen trousers. The creases were ironed out really quickly and the trousers ended up looking nice and smart. The third garment she wanted to test out the Rowenta on was the navy linen trousers as the hems were all crinkled up and scruffy looking. As usual the iron did the job and made the hems nice and tidy. 

By this time I was getting jealous of mum having all the fun so while she went to find more garments to ‘demonstrate’ on I nicked the iron and ironed some pyjama bottoms while I was waiting. I was pleased to see that the weight of the iron actually helped get the creases out and that although the iron is heavy to lift up it glides really easily along the clothes. 

When the pyjama bottoms were ironed they looked much less bobbly than when they were un-ironed. As I mentioned earlier…I don’t do ironing! So the miracle disappearance of bobbles may be normal of all ironed garments but it certainly impressed me. 🙂

The iron has a high precision tip to help you get a professional finish when you are ironing.  The tip will no doubt come in very useful on garments that are tricky to iron but please be careful not to poke your eye on it. My mum said I had to warn you as she was convinced she was going to lean over and poke her eye on it as it is much more pointed on the end than her last iron.

The 300ml water chamber on the iron has a cover on it so that you don’t get lots of spills when using the iron. As it is a continuous fill water tank you don’t have to switch off the iron to top it up with water. My mum loved these features as it made ironing much less hassle. Other welcome features on the iron are the 3 metre anti-swivel cord, the traffic-light style indicator lights that shows when the iron is ready to use and the ‘auto-off’ system which turns the iron off automatically if left soleplate down for 30 seconds or 8 minutes on it’s heel. This sounds like a great safety feature but we haven’t tested it out.

The iron has a Microsteam 400 soleplate which is designed to give maximum steam output and to distribute heat evenly.  Overall my mum has had mainly positive outcomes when using the iron but my sister found that the soleplate did leave some white marks on her black trousers and also my mum found that her trousers looked a bit shiny after ironing.  We are unsure what caused these slight issues but it hasn’t put my mum off using the iron again. She says that her old iron was always leaving white marks on her clothes so she is used to it anyway. She is going to have a go at cleaning the iron as she thinks that will help.

In conclusion, my mum says that there is no getting away from the fact that the iron is very expensive at nearly £90 but she said it would be a great investment if you have things to iron on a daily basis. As she doesn’t need to iron things daily she probably wouldn’t have considered buying the iron at this price but now that she has the iron she will continue to use it and enjoy seeing the lovely, crease-free results. 

If you would like to buy your own Rowenta Focus DZ5138 then please click here to visit the Home and Cook website.