I dumbly set my upright on a fringed rug while I was using the hose, and suddenly my bedroom smelled like burning and the vacuum up and quit. Luckily it was a $70 machine that I didn’t like much anyway.
I would like something that works on bare floors well and carpets at least passably, that is quite light and quiet. It looks like I need a bagged model, since I’m allergic to dust mites, and standing in a cloud of dust while I clean out the filter or dump the dust chamber is right out. But I don’t necessarily need a HEPA filter in it - I’ve got a Honeywell air filter that works great.
Ideally, it would also be cheap, but I’m thinking at this point I’d rather invest a few hundred dollars in something I’ll use happily for years, rather than buying something cheap, then avoiding vacuuming because I hate using it.
I’m thinking canister, because I’ve pretty much hated every upright I’ve used, but I’m not wedded to the idea. I find that uprights that say they clean bare floors are lying, and I need to vacuum my laminate way more often than my carpets. It’s also a pain shoving the heavy upright around the whole time you vacuum.
I see Miele has some highly rated models available with Prime at Amazon, and I’m considering it, even though $400 (possibly plus a carpet attachment) is pretty painful.
So what do you guys like? Perhaps more importantly, what do you hate?
I have a Dyson Animal ball and I absolutely love it. Because of the way the chamber empties, you can just wrap the garbage bag around it and press the button. the bottom drops out, and then you slide the chamber up and close the bag. No plume to then re-clean.
It works beautifully, the scution is indeed quite strong, and the hose is simple to use. I find it doesn’t hurt my back the way other vacuums do either. With normal ones, they roll nicely front to back, but I have to wrestle them sideways to do the next swath,a nd that hurts my lower back. the Ball is equally happy to roll in any direction, so feels lighter than even my “stick” to use.
Last night I shattered a whole corningware lid all over the tile floor in my kitchen. It took about five minutes to clean up. To my surprise, it even licked* up all the tiny bits down in the grouting on the first swipe. A quick yank on the hose pulled it out to do the edges of the cabinets, and clicked back into place, and I was done.
Hold the chamber over the paper bag, touch the button, voila! Nasty shards all disappeared for good.
Before I had this thing I would have ben hours with a wet paper towel trying to get all that up. I did try a few test swipes just to be sure, but there was nothing left behind.
*Picked, it picked up the tiny bits. Leaving the mistake because it’s just so freakin’ funny.
I have thislittle Dirt Devil canister, and I really like it. (My husband bought it for me a few Christmases ago. At the time, they did offer one with a power nozzle. It doesn’t look like they do in this model anymore.)
It works a treat on our hardwood floors, and is lightweight with a carrying strap for over the shoulder. It is also bagless, so that might not be what you’re looking for. (I empty it straight into our trashcan outside, which is generally mess free. However, emptying out the filter is not - I bang it against the insides of the can, and dust flies everywhere. Sounds like you want to avoid this.)
It doesn’t do well on carpets at all. (I have a Dyson that I use in my carpeted areas.) If you have rugs or carpets as well, I’d look for a canister with a power nozzle instead of the pretty ineffective carpet tool this thing has. (Indeed, if this one gives up the ghost, I might end up doing that.) But for $85, I’m consistently surprised how good of a little vacuum it is.
Hmm, maybe I’ll check out the Dirt Devil for downstairs use. I do have a Eureka that was highly rated by CR, that needs a new belt. Perhaps I’d feel more amiable towards it if I kept it upstairs and used it for the carpets, rather than having to haul it up and down and get frustrated with its performance on bare floors.
How often do y’all have to clean/change the filter on your bagless vacs? I’ve read that they can lose suction easily unless cleaned obsessively.
Actually I’m thinking of a whole-house system after someone’s having mentioned them in the thread about things that surprise you that kids under 30 don’t know (grossly paraphrased title, there).
Probably not as cheap as what you’re considering, but with external venting, your dust mites are no longer a problem. And it’s probably a system that would last a lifetime (what I’ve spent on vacuum cleaners in the last 15 years would have paid for such a system).
I haven’t noticed a loss of suction on my Dirt Devil, but then again, I’m not that anal about my cleaning either - I read some reviews of clean freaks getting a second vacuum so that they could vacuum the first’s filter and thought that those guys were nuts.
I clean the filter whenever I empty the canister. Cleaning the filter entails unscrewing it from the center of the canister, pulling it out, and banging it against the side of my trash can outside - it’s a HEPA pleated thing, so the dust sticks in its nooks and crannies. And like I mentioned, the cleaning of the filter is a dusty, dirty process that makes dust fly willy-nilly. (Which is why I do it outside.)
I think it’s recommended that I replace the filter every 6 months or every year or some such. After 4 or 5 years, I finally replaced it earlier this year. And I don’t notice it to be doing any better of a job than it did previously. However, this could be because it’s a pretty inexpensive vacuum, too.
I have the Miele White Star. It’s almost 10 years old by now and still works as well as when I first bought it. It’s by far the best vacuum I’ve ever had. It’s also the only vac I’ve ever had that my first dog wasn’t afraid of - it’s much quieter than any of the previous ones.
It works equally well on carpet and bare floors - there’s also a motor speed control which is helpful if you’ve got multiple surface types.
Their Olympus line just came out last year - they are a little cheaper.
I used my parents’ Animal Dyson for many years when I still lived with them (my dog, my job to vaccuum). It did a good job but I was never a fan of the bagless system, even with the “so easy to dump”. We did have a large dog and 3 smokers in the house, so perhaps my cannister was more filled with crap than most people’s…but I had to dump it 3 or 4 times every time I cleaned and it just made a bigger mess.
I’ve been completely happy with my Kenmore Progressive with a bag…I chose it after reading on Consumer Reports. However, it is heavy. I just took it down to the basement last night and it was not easy. It’s got fantastic suction… I just looked on the Kenmore site and it’s not listed there anymore!!
I totally am all about bagged vacuums now, tho. Also, I paid like $250 for it so it’s not cheap, but it’s worth it.
FWIW, here are Consumer Reports’ top models under $300:
See, I have the Eureka Boss and the Hoover Tempo, and I don’t like them much. One’s too heavy, the other’s too noisy, and they’re both crap on bare floors. So while I have a subscription to CR, I haven’t bothered to look at their recommendations again on this subject!
Come to think of it, I quite like using my broom. It gets into the corners and makes it easy to clean the baseboards while cleaning the floor. I just need something with attachments to do stuff like cleaning off the HEPA filter and the blinds.
