No, it does not heat the water. You just initially add hot water to the canister. For the cheap price of the machine, you can't expect for it do have all the fancy features lol. :-)

I have owned this machine for over 2 years now. I have used it on my mothers little house carpets and her large kitchen floor also, but you have to order the bare floor attachment from Bissell in order to use it on the bare floors all you do is snap out the carpet attachment and replace it with the bare floor attachment they just pop in and pop out when you want to clean them or change. I have ceramic tiles in my large kitchen and dinning area and it works great just like it does on the rugs it picks up the dirty solution as you clean. Bissell also has a solution for hard floors that you can get to use in this machine also at Walmart and I use it on my mothers vinyl linoleum floors and my tiles. I have a very large home so I just bought a Hoover Steamvac so will give my mother this little Bissell cause she fell in love with it a long time ago as it is so light weight for her to use. If I remember right I think I paid $8 for the floor attachment this didn't include shipping as I ordered it from the Bissell book I got with my shampooer right after I bought it so the price may have gone up sense then like everything else. :>( Hope this helps. :>)

NO. There are no attachments to make it easy with stairs. You can lug it up each stair and do them but it is a pain.