Surface cleaning apparatuses, such as vacuum cleaners and steam cleaners are configured for cleaning a wide variety of common household surfaces such as bare flooring, including tile, hardwood, laminate, vinyl, and linoleum, as well as carpets, rugs, countertops, stove tops and the like. Vacuum cleaners have a suction source for generating a suction force at a nozzle in contact with the surface to be cleaned and a collection system collects debris from a working airstream for later disposal. Typically, steam cleaners have at least one liquid tank or reservoir for storing a liquid, generally water, which is fluidly connected to a steam generator via a flow control mechanism, such as a pump or valve. The steam generator includes a heater for heating the liquid to produce steam, which can be directed towards the surface to be cleaned through a steam outlet, typically located in a foot or cleaning head that engages the surface to be cleaned during use. The steam is typically applied to the backside of a cleaning pad that is attached to the cleaning head. The steam saturates the cleaning pad, and the damp cleaning pad is wiped across the surface to be cleaned to remove dirt, debris, and other soils present on the surface. Some surface cleaning apparatus combine multiple types of cleaning actions, such as vacuum cleaning with steam cleaning. In this case, both liquid and debris can be collected from a surface to be cleaned, but many combination apparatuses operate the vacuum and steam cleaning functions separately in order to avoid collecting liquid at the same time as dry debris.