The brush is for agitation, shouldn't be too stiff make sure it's suitable for carpets you may have a floor cleaning brush. I pre-spray, agitate, lightly spray pad with pre spray for lubrication and bonnet. If it's really mucky the pad gets treated to a bucket of hot solution and wrung out. Clean about 20 sq mtr passing quickly then flip the pad for some slow passes. Then a quick buff with a dry pad (which then goes in the bucket and so on) works for me.