nlm@ulysses.UUCP (Nancy Mintz) (08/02/84)
I recently asked for recommendations for vacuum cleaners that can
deal with carpet. Here are the results.
My thanks to everyone who responded!
Nancy Mintz ihnp4!ulysses!nlm
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Be sure to check out the Kirby. They are expensive, but may be worth it
for your applications. Do not let the salesperson arrange financing.
Pay cash (check, VISA,etc.) and try to dicker. My wife and I bought
one a few years ago when we were still living in Illinois. I think
we paid $475 for a package that included lots of stuff like a carpet
shampooing attachment and what not. We told the sales guy that some
friends of ours had received the same deal at a different location.
That wasn't exactly true; we got a better de than they did but
this guy didn't know that and wanted to make the sale.
Whatever brand you decide on, be sure that it has plenty of suction,
a special attachment for things like getting cat-hairs off the carpet,
the sofa, etc. and get a good demonstration. Don't be misled by
the kind of demo where plain ol' dirt is thrown down and picked up
by the vacuum cleaner. A broom and dust shovel will do that well.
For what it's worth, we're fairly happy with our Kirby. The various
brush surfaces have to be picked clean by hand occasionally, but that
is true of any brushes. Oh, yes. One feature we really like is that
the vacuum bag is permanent and easily emptied without getting your
hands dirty. I believe also that uprights have generally better
power than cannister types, but this may be a personal bias.
At any rate, you may be wise to check out a couple or so of the
better manufacturers: Kirby, Electrolux, and possibly Hoover
(although I've been disappointed by Hoover in the past). Pay
attention to things like materials (steel is better than plastic here)
ease of assembly, changing tools, cleaning and so on. Make sure *you*
or whoever will use it is comfortable handling the unit; it always
looks easy when a salesperson does it.
Vacuum cleaners have come along fairly nicely in development over
say, the past 25 years. You should try to sit down and make
some sort of requirements list so you'll have an idea of what
to look for when you go shopping.
Good luck.
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electrolux, by all means. they do a splendid job, and last forever.
the carpet attachment, i forget what they call it, is worth it.
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I've had an Electrolux for about ten years and it's
held up like a champ. Not cheap, but probably worth it.
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I have had a mid-priced Hoover upright for about
3 years and have been real happy with it. I don't remember the model
name but it cost around $150.
We gave in to a demo of one of the ulra-expensive door to door salesman
variety vacuums. I can't remember the brand, but they wanted $800 for
it. Said it would outlast 10 of my Hoovers (and outclean it too). The
guy put a filter before the dust bag so he could show us (after he had
us run our Hoover) how much dirt was left. After he did that, we ran
the same test where he did and picked up as much dirt as he did with our
Hoover!! I am skeptical about the value of the ultra-high priced machines.
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Do not buy any vacuum cleaner by EUREKA - they are
absolutely terrible. Once you have paid for one,
EUREKA considers you beyond help.
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I have always liked a Kirby. They are more expensive,
but worth the LONG ACTIVE USE that they give.
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This is in regards to your posting in "net.consumers" asking
for recommendations for GOOD vacuum cleaners. My wife and I
also live in a house with carpeting throughout (except kitchen
and bathroom). We also have a dog and two birds, which adds
to the problem of keeping carpets clean.
We recently purchased a "Kirby" vacuum cleaner/rug cleaner combo
and am VERY SATISFIED with the product, so far anyway. It came with
a two year warranty + a thirty (30) year re-building agreement.
It is rather expensive, but in the long run it should SAVE you alot
of money, mostly due to it's versatility/durability. It converts to
the following; 1) Canister Type Vacuum, 2) Upright Vacuum, 3) Dry
Foam Rug Shampooer (?), 4) Small Air Compressor ( 1 P.S.I).
It also comes with many useful attatchments. It does a SUPER JOB
on our carpeting. The product is well put together and easily
converts to ANY of the above uses. It is also rather light weight
and has wide caster rollers for easy manuvering.
All in all I'd say it IS WORTH the money ($850-tax included). If
you'd like more info, please send me EMAIL. I'll get back to you
a.s.a.p with more info. Hope this helps you out, good luck in your
search. Have an interesting day!!
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Electrolux vacs work very well, and for *years* on end. You'll
need to get the "power nozzle" for carpets.
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There are basically 3 flavors of vacuums. (1) lightweight portable
model with hose and nozzle ($50), (2) upright with carpet beater
($100), (3) cannister with nozzle and carpet beater ($150).
If you have lots of carpet, what's really important is that it have
a carpet beater. That is, the cheapos just have a hose and a T shaped
attachment on the end, with no moving parts. The carpet beater is a
gizmo that spins around down next to the rug (in the nozzle or at
the bottom of the upright) with tufts that, when combined with the
vaccum action, pull up on the rug (to give it that nice "vacuumed look")
and pull stuff up in the process.
Most uprights have such a gizmo, and that's what we use. You can
probably find one on sale for well under $100.
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I recently bought a Sears model on sale for about $160. It isn't anything
really fancy, though it does have a power brush which is well worth the money
on almost any vacuum cleaner. Some things to consider:
How much does it weigh ? If you have to carry it upstairs, you'll want
something reasonably light.
Does it have height adjustments for the brushes ? How many ? You
definitely don't want to use the same setting on a shag carpet as you would
use on a bare floor.
What sort of small brushes does it come with ? Vacuuming furniture/drapes
requires a very different type of brush than what you'd use for floors.
What is the capacity of the dust bags ? You don't want to have to empty
them every few minutes.
How good is the suction ? This is clearly an important feature, since you
want to pick up the dirt, not just brush it around.
How is the hose constructed ? Some of them have electric wires (to power
the brush motor) running through them. If you damage the hose, it is much
more expensive to replace a hose of this type than a standard hose.
What sort of connections are used for the wires to the brush motor ? If
they break, you could be in for expensive repairs.
I've been pretty happy with the Sears model I bought, though it's only used
for a 1 1/2 bedroom apartment. For a full size house, I'd be tempted to
get something like my parents got about 5 years ago. It's a Hoover roll
around model with VERY strong suction. (They don't recommend using the
high suction setting on some carpets.) I think it was in the $300 range,
but it did a far better job than other models I've seen. If you can afford
it, I think it's worth the extra money.
If you buy a Sears model, they're almost certain to try to pressure you into
buying a maintenance contract. I don't think it's worth the money, and
usually counter with "Why ? Aren't your products reliable ?" This quickly
shuts up the salesperson, since they can't admit that they sell bad
products.
Oh - one other feature to consider is a retractable cord. It may not sound
like a big deal, but it makes life a lot easier.
One final consideration is whether or not to use reusable dust bags. They're
cheaper, though they don't seem to do as good of a job. It might be worth
trying both types to see which works best for you in terms of price/performance.
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For pile carpets you really need a vacuum with a motorized head which will
sort of comb out the junk so that the vacuum part can suck it away.
For other cleaning I use a shop vac. These are wonderful since they not
only clean up normal dust and such, but they also clean up water. When I
scrub the kitchen floor, I use the shop vac to pick up the dirty water,
and the rinse water as well.
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I just bought a new condo (with wall-to-wall carpeting) about two months ago,
and I ended up buying a Montgomerey Ward's vacuum on sale. It's a good machine
for carpeting, and the sale price was $250 (I'm sure some other company bulids
MW appliances and they put their name plate on it, but I'm not sure who in this
case. All the paperwork is through Ward's).
A really good carpet vacuum is going to cost you at least what I paid, I
would guess, unless you buy a used one or find an incredible deal.
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you'd have to be crazy to spend $850 for a vacuum.
even people i know who clean professionally (i know all kinds of people...)
only get a filter queen for $300-$400 and that's still overkill for
personal use.
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In any case, I had one very bad experience with a sears vacuum. It wasn
t mine, but I did prevail on the owner to return it, which succeeded
admirably. I have an antique Kirby commercial, but they cost too much
new.
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I highly recommend Kirby Vacuum cleaners. They
have a belt driven roller brush in the head, which
works well for carpet. They are extremely well built,
and are easy to operate. The unit is an upright, as
opposed to a canister with a wand. The only drawback to
the Kirby is that it is heavy, which can be a problem
with two story houses. The unit, with attachments, retailed
for as much as 600 dollars 3 years ago when we got one, but
by shopping around and bargaining we were able to buy
one for 330. Worth every penny!
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We have a Hoover Celerity IV Vacuum cleaner and it works like a
charm. We have to vacuum up puppy hair almost daily and the
carpets are clean in no time at all. It also vacuums floors by
stepping on the switch. It also has some attachments for
vacuuming drapes, sofas etc. The nicest part is the cord rewind.
We bought it in Bambergers on sale.
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The best vacuum cleaners for carpeting are uprights.
The have big motor-powered brushes that beat on the
carpet getting the dirt out. The disadvantage of them'
used to be that they didn't have all the cute attachments
to clean your upholstry, etc, that the canister models had.
However, now most of the better ones come with a set of
attachments. Even so, the attachments are not as good as
those on the canister models, because the primary purpose
of these vacs is to clean CARPETS (they are the only kind
that office cleaning agencies use).
If you decide that you want a canister vacuum cleaner for
some reason (like that you will move out of this house
and into one with no carpeting -- I can see no other good
reason), you should by one with a "power brush", or whatever
the particular brand that you get calls this. It is
an attachment for carpeting that tries to pretend it's an
upright vac by having rotating brushes in one of the cleaning
attachments. You plug this into the vac with a special
little power cord in additon to the regular tube.
As for brands, etc, Hoover has a good reputaion. If you hate
vacuuming as much as I do, you will get as powerful a vac
(in terms of suction) as you can get -- that really
makes the job much easier. As far as prices go, you might
be happy to know that the upright models are generally cheaper
than the canisters. Let me know if you have other questions.
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I bought a Sears cannister vacuum with a power head. I'm very
happy with it. It is about 3.2 horsepower and really gets the
carpet fuzzies up! It was on sale for about $200.
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I've had upright vacuum cleaners of all kinds during my
20 yrs. of owning wall-to-wall carpeting in various houses.
The WORST was a Hoover with PowerMatic; it broke those
rubber belts almost every time I used it.
The BEST is what I now own: a Eureka. I contend that anything
they make is good. It has never broken & it is used twice
a week on over 2000 sq. feet of carpeting. I have no attachments,
but I also own a cheap Sears cannister & a REgina electric broom.
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I really enjoy my Eureka canister vacuum with power brush. The power
brush *really* gets everything out of the carpet, and you can use the
other attachments to do other things. It has all the cleaning ability
of an upright with all the versatility and portability of a canister.
It's not very heavy either.
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We bought a rebuilt Electrolux cannister vacuum.
If it is done by a good company you can't go wrong, and
t should cost less than $100.
If you have about $400 you can get a new one. We have
firends who just bought one and LOVE it. My Mom's
electrolux is 30 years old and still going strong.
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We bought a vacuum cleaner according to the most recent Consumer Reports
article on the subject. We have four long-haired cats, and had a problem
with vacuuming up the hair that they shed. The top-rated vacuum for
"surface dirt" like cat hair was like $300, a Hoover I think. Number 2 in
this category was J C Penney's best, which CR said was made by the same
company. We bought one of those, for $180, and have been delighted.
Perhaps you should look in Consumer Reports for the recommendations on
the kind of vacuuming you are having problems with--they had several
categories.
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For the best all-around vacuum cleaner, it is hard to beat the Kirby. I have
one that is currently pushing 30 years old and was only in the shop once after
25 years of HARD use. They have the advantage that one does not need paper bags
for them, the dust goes into a trap that you dump into a trash bag.
They are built like Sherman tanks and can take almost any conceivable kind of
abuse without complaining (except picking up construction/demolition debris
and wet pickup - if you want that kind of machine get one of Sears' wet/dry
shop vacs - they can take anything - I've used them as emergency sump pumps on
occasions and they work quite well)
The only drawback is the $600 price tag.
If you want something a bit more reasonably priced, look at the recent Consumer
Reports vacuum cleaner article.
BTW - Electrolux has a good machine but their high-pressure sales tatics are
straight out of a textbook on sales.
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I recommend the Rainbow line. They are very effective, and use a water bath
instead of a paper filter, resulting in much less dust (important if
you are allergic.) Unfortunately they cost over $600. Gag.
Failing that, get a good quality upright vacuum like Hoover or whatever.
You can get them almost anywhere for under $100. Make sure it has a beater
to get all the grunge out of your carpet.
If you need to do other vacuuming tasks, get an industrial wet/dry vac.
I got a 'Shop-Vac' at Best Products (a catalog showroom type place)
for under $60, and use it for removing chrome from trailer hitches and
such-like.....
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1) Make sure you can take it apart before you buy it, I bought one and
when it broke I discovered that parts of it were riveted on, those parts
have never worked since.
2) I was unable to tell any difference between the older, cheaper, hover
uprights and any other more expensive model, for example if you read cons.
reports it isn't clear there is much difference... so I bought an old
model upright and I've been pleased. Ben.
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I am extremely happy with my Sears. I've had it since 1976, and it has never
given any trouble at all. I highly recommend the "beater brush" for carpets,
to avoid the problem of "pulling stuff out of the carpets by hand." I got
the middle of their product range (I forget the exact horsepower rating).
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I have terrible algeries so when I was looking for a vacuum cleaner I needed
one that would really do the job on rugs as well as the bed! (I found out
that a mattres even with clean sheets can trigger algeries by all of the dust
and skin flakes, etc that can collect there!) So I bought a Kerby vacuum.
It is expensive, but for the money and the different jobs (like shampooing
the carpets) it can do, it was well worth it. They are not sold in stores,
you have to have a demo in your house and buy it from a salesmam. It also
has a lot of different options you may or may not want. Make sure you don't
let the salesman (reguardless of what vacuum or where you by it) talk you
into buying anything you don't want.
Anyway, for my money I'd buy a Kerby anytime. I keeps my apt as dust free as
you can get, and it can handle any job!
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If you decide to buy a Kirby, dicker. Play extremely hard to sell, based on
price. Tell them you can get a Sears vacuum for $xx. Tell them it's too much
money. The salesmen have room to bargain.
If I remember correctly we got ours for %40 off of the original asking price.
Their interest rate was also quite reasonable if you finance it with them.
This was 12 years ago though.
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The important thing to bear in mind is that vacuum cleaners are
like screw drivers -- you should never expect one to do everything,
and you can do your work better if you match the correct instrument
to the job. We have five vacuum cleaners:
(1) An upright that cleans deep carpets beautifully.
(2) A very small model (runs on A.C.) with a head similar
to #1 above, for carepted staircases and few special
nooks and crannies.
(3) A wet/dry cannister vacuum cleaner for basement puddles
and minor flooding. Also handles very tough vacuuming
jobs.
(4) A tiny vacuum that plugs into the cigarette lighter
service in the car. very handy for keeping the car neat
during traffic jams.
(5) (I'm sure there is one more. Oh yes:) A general purpose
multi-attachment vacuum cleaner for hard floors,
the refrigerator motor, upholstery, etc.
None of these five could do a reasonable job substituting for any
other! (By the way, I use #5 to clean the filter in the wet/dry
vacuum. This makes perfect sense, and greatly extends the life of the
big filter, but it does seem insane to design a vacuum cleaner that
needs another one to clean it.)