Reliable 3000IS Pro Iron Station review
My blood pressure is up and I’m still jittery, even though it’s been twenty minutes. Twenty minutes since I ironed my clothes. But instead of feeling like I just ironed my shirts and trousers, it’s more like I just stepped out of a sports car after clocking over 200 miles per hour. The power that was in my hands scared me a little.
I’m not trying to be melodramatic. You have to understand, I’m kind of obsessed with ironing. And after years of using a cheap home iron I finally used a real ironing station – the Reliable 3000IS – for the first time in my life. The iron is nice and heavy, with a thick aluminium plate. The separate boiler is polished stainless steel and looks like something you’d find in a laboratory. And the steam this thing produces could fry an egg. Ok, maybe more like poach an egg.
Let me gather my thoughts and back up a bit. A few weeks ago I met Reliable Corporation‘s president, Robert Kahn and director of marketing Kimberly Calder at an event where they were showing off some of their ironing stations and steamers. I saw an opportunity to learn about pressing and ironing from the experts and introduced myself. They were kind enough to invite me to their headquarters in North York for a full demonstration, which I took them up on last week.
Reliable is at the end of a nondescript street in Toronto’s garment district – surrounded by clothes factories and wholesalers. The offices are in a drab, one-story building. Inside, however, everything is gleaming white and modern, an extension of their company image. Kimberly gave me a tour of the entire complex where they not only ship all their sewing machines, irons, steamers and boards from, they also service everything they make. I am very impressed that despite the fact that their products are made overseas – commercial products in Italy, consumer products in China – an awful lot of work, from designing, testing, servicing and shipping, is located right here in Toronto.
Reliable Corporation president Robert Kahn.
When we finished our tour, we ran into Robert and that started ninety minutes of us nerding out over irons. Robert is very passionate about pressing. In fact, when he joined the company – which his father Milton founded in 1955 as “Reliable Sewing Machine” – he made it his mission to introduce pressing tables to their product line. Not only did Robert love pressing, he saw the writing on the wall in Toronto’s garment industry. It had once been the third largest employer in Toronto but by the 90s, factories were closing and more and more garments were being made overseas. So Reliable started expanding its products and services, eventually introducing consumer goods in 2005.
The first question I had for Robert about ironing started a long conversation about the fundamentals of pressing clothes: does an iron have to be heavy? I asked because old-timey irons are extremely heavy, upwards of ten to twenty pounds. And it just seems to make sense that you want weight because you are, after all, pressing. “Weight,” Robert told me emphatically, “has nothing to do with it.”
To explain his point, Robert went to his office to get an old, well-used 2 by 4. It had belonged to his grandfather, who was a tailor. It was used to smack the fabric after ironing which, Robert told me, was not to flatten it out but to knock out the steam. “Fabric doesn’t like steam,” Robert told me, because it loses its shape and the build up of moisture can lead to a host of problems. Part of the reason for heavy irons in the past was to insure you got the steam out. But new irons, like those made by Reliable, don’t have to be heavy because while the steam is plentiful, it’s also dry and extremely pressurized. “It doesn’t stick around very long in the garment.” Robert told me. Then, the intense heat of the iron does the work of restoring the fabric’s smooth shape without that much weight or pressure.
A heavy, vintage iron at the Reliable offices.
Robert did add, however, that the best way to insure the removal of steam without weight is to use one of Reliable’s vacuum ironing boards, which literally suck the steam out of your garments. Since I built my own ironing table (more on that in another article) I decided to pass. However, I gladly accepted Robert’s offer of their new 3000IS Pro Iron Station. (Despite being a gift, I have tried to make this review as impartial as possible.)
I stepped away from the iron for a few hours to let me blood pressure return to normal. That said, pressing my clothes with the 3000IS felt very much like the first time I shaved with a safety razor: I had to re-learn how to shave. No more pressing down hard on my razor or doing those long swoops across my face you see in commercials. Similar to the razor, I have to relearn how to iron. Unlike home irons, the 3000IS produces far more steam at a much, much higher rate. Not only that, the aluminium plate gets very hot and stays very hot. Plus, you don’t just turn this thing on and off you go. I read and reread the instructions of number of times. There are steps that must be taken to insure the boiler is filled correctly and turned on properly. It builds up a lot of pressure, which takes about ten minutes, and you don’t want to be messing with the boiler cap or it will come flying off.
But once I got it going, the iron was a pleasure to use. Instead of numerous passes to get a pretty good press with my old home iron, the 3000IS produced a smoothness in my shirts I had never seen, after just one pass. I ironed my clothes in less than half the time it normally took. And I have to admit, using this heavy iron (almost 4 pounds), shooting out intense steam, long black cord dangling above the table, I felt pretty badass.
In truth, the 3000IS is probably a bit of overkill if you are just ironing shirts. I intend to press most everything in my wardrobe, including suits, so it’s perfect for me. For the regular home user, Reliable has two choices, the Maven and the Senza. The new consumer-level Maven probably makes more sense if you’re like me, because you are still getting the steam and heat you need for a great press, at a much lower price than the 3000IS. However, it is a home consumer product, and while the DNA of the company trickles down through all their products, the Maven is not an industrial machine. Early versions had some technical issues that Robert tells me have been addressed with this new version, but these iron stations do require a fair bit more knowledge and skill than a regular home iron. And I have not used a Maven other than a quick demo, so I can’t comment on its long-term performance. Their other home iron, the Senza, is a hybrid: it can work both as an ironing station and as a stand-alone iron. Again, I only demoed it quickly so don’t have a real sense of how it would be to use regularly. I think the choice between the Maven and the Senza, however, comes down to what you need: the Maven is a simplified ironing station whereas the Senza is a pumped up home iron. So are you hoping to get tailor-like results on a small wardrobe or do you mostly iron your family’s clothes but want something with a bit more oomph?
The joy of steam.
What it comes down to for me, however, is that ironing is not a chore I seek to avoid. I look forward to ironing and enjoy the process. Now I can enjoy the process even more. During the product demonstration up at Reliable, Kimberly said, “We want to share the joy of steam.” I know exactly what she means.
You can find out all about Reliable’s many products on their web site.
4 Comments
Forrest Howe
October 12, 2016 at 3:39 pm
Pedro Mendes
October 13, 2016 at 9:32 am
Dan
June 28, 2017 at 7:11 am
Matt
August 6, 2017 at 10:55 am
I have started using a steam station of a different brand. I have found it so amazing that I too iron my shirts in far less time. The only down side to this is that my wife expects me to iron her blouses and trousers too. I love the smell of good steam! I know these irons are more expensive however, I have calculated that since I shan’t be going to the laundry as often, I can pay for this in just about a year. Plus I have the opportunity to laundry my bespoke dress shirts must more safely and frankly they look better.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Forrest. And I wholeheartedly agree about the smell of good steam.
The Reliable 3000is is an amazing iron. I’ve been using it for about a year now and I am very happy with it. I bought it after several other expensive irons that failed after just one year of use. It has paid for itself in saved time and dry cleaning. I made the ironing board too. I just place it on top of my existing ironing board. Thanks for the great recommendations!
I used to work at Jos A Bank (not because I love the clothing, but it was convenient and I needed work!) and the steam press we had in the store was not too dissimilar from the Aria 200SP steam presser sold by Reliable. It was bigger, but not digital. If you’re going to spend $450 on ironing, is there a reason not to get a press and REALLY save some time? BTW, the store had an iron very similar, if not identical, to the Reliable 5000IS station, so I can attest to how powerful it is.