Gimme the dirt on your vacuum

weldrwomn

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I am looking to purchase a new upright bagless vacuum (hope to spend less than $200). What type of vacuum do you have? What do you like about it? What do you hate about it?
 

momofmany

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If you can raise your budget up a little more, the Sears Kenmore bagless (goes on sale for about $250) is rated higher for picking up pet hair than a Dyson. I love mine.

The drawbacks to bagless ones is the amount of dust/hair that you have to remove from the filter each time you empty the cannister. With all my critters, I have to empty it 3-4 times each time I vaccum the house. I just take the filter outside and scrape off the excess in the yard. It's very messy.
 

natalie_ca

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Mine is a Phantom Fury which I bought about 6 or more years ago. It is bagless and has a heppa filter which I've yet to have to change. There is a red indicator button that pops up when the filter needs changing. It's an upright that converts to a cannister when you disengage the wand/handle from the top.

Likes:
- the tools fit right on the side of the vacuum and are convenient to access.
- being able to just press a latch and be able to convert my upright into a cannnister vacuum, attach the floor tool and continue to vacuum my floors.
- not having to worry about buying vacuum bags.
- the power head picks up lots of debris, hair and dust
- the heppa filter. There is none of that having to remove it and scrape off dust etc from it. It's inserted and you don't touch it again until the red button pops up indicating it's time to change it. Then all that is involved is pulling it up and tossing it (mess free), and sliding in a new one. Takes two seconds.


Dislikes:
- when the vacuum is converted to a cannister type that the brush in the powerhead keeps rotating and if you happen to not be paying attention and run over the cord or something else, that it gets wrapped around the brush and burns out the belt.
- the belts are very hard to change. I've learned to soak the belt in boiling water to soften it up but it's still difficult and IMHO is a 2 person job (1 to put the belt on and hold it in place while the other replaces the top of the vacuum without trapping your hands!)
- Belts sometimes don't last very long and seem to break for no reason. For awhile I was going through 1 every one to three weeks.
- too many places to look for blockages. I think there are 5.
- things such as dry cat food tend to get caught in the trap instead of going into the collection cannister. Not all, but some. And some is all it takes to cause a blockage.
- the metal wand fits into the hose and over time causes wear on the soft neoprene rubber of the hose which in turn tears, which in turn causes loss of suction. I've had to duct tape the end of the hose to cover a tear in it.
- the cannister is not covered by warranty and mine was defective and within a few weeks of getting it, cracked in a place that could not have been reached through banging the cannister on something while vacuuming. The company would not cover it under warranty and I had to patch it with duct tape.
- the brush tool is just a regular upholstery brush which does well with cat hair, but as a cannister type vacuum it doesn't have alot of suction so it gets some, but not all of the dust and cat dander left behind. The furniture looks clean. But I bought a different type of upholstery brush, a lint one. What I thought was "clean" with the Phantom Fury upholstery brush was actually dingy grey. I saw a huge difference in how my black furniture looked after I used the lint brush on it.
 

conbrio

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try looking into a dyson. they are a bit more than your price range but from when I sold them, the customers who had bought them, esp the ones with pets, LOVED the dyson.

On the other hand I have a Hoover windtunnel bagless. I have had it for about 5 years now and still picking up like day one. I agree the filter does get real dirty but it takes only a min. to shake/thump out the dirt from it
 

trouts mom

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Originally Posted by conbrio

try looking into a dyson. they are a bit more than your price range but from when I sold them, the customers who had bought them, esp the ones with pets, LOVED the dyson.

On the other hand I have a Hoover windtunnel bagless. I have had it for about 5 years now and still picking up like day one. I agree the filter does get real dirty but it takes only a min. to shake/thump out the dirt from it
I think I have that one..the Hoover Windtunnel bagless..normally its around $200 CAD...but I got it half price!
I have no dislikes yet.
 

gailc

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Consumer reports did rank the Kenmore quite highly!!
I stopped at the place I bought both of my vacs as I will need a new cannister one shortly and he said that there are better ones than the Dyson (and he sells them!)
One item he said to consider is the cost of the replacement filter. He said for the Dyson it could range for $30 to $50.
I would recommend getting one with a hepa filter though.
 

jcat

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I have two canister vacs, but my mom has Dyson and Dirt Devil uprights that I use daily when I'm visiting there. I find them a bit messy to empty, but you do save the cost of bags. The Dyson she has is much heavier than the Dirt Devil, and I don't see all that much of a difference in the amount of hair, dirt, etc., they pick up.
 

starryeyedtiger

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We have a REALLY old Oreck that's on its last legs- it doesn't have a lot of suction to it -so it takes forever to vaccume, then revaccume all of the house to get the pet fur out. I hate it!

At work though- we have an AWESOME Dyson Animal- it works soooooooo insanely well (i work at an animal shelter!) I am getting married soon- so that was the first thing i put on my registry and the only pricy thing- but it's sooo worth it- it works like a dream! If we don't wind up recieving it though, i plan to take our completion cupons and get it. (the registries give out discount cupons after the wedding so you can finish purchasing the things on your registry)

I would DEFINITELY recommend a Dyson Animal!
 

mbjerkness

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I had a Kenmore absolutley loved it, but they stopped making abgs for it
, My DH bought me an upright dirt devil I hate it
 

EnzoLeya

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I have a bagless Bissle. It works good for me, it could work better. It was an $80 marked down to $60 because it was a floor model. I think for a little more money it would be a great vaccum.
 

mezlo

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I also have a Bissel Powerforce Bagless. When I purchased it a year or so ago, it was rated highest of all the bagless vacuums my local Wal-Mart stocked.

Mez
 

pookieboy

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I, for one, absolutely DO NOT GET the appeal of a bagless vac! I have a bagless shop vac and 2 smaller type bagless vacs and I absolutely HATE when I have to empty them. I have to go outside [because of the dust] to empty them and during the winter It's not exactly an enjoyable chore. I mean, bags are inexpensive so why would I want to go bagless??? It makes no sense to me. I am soooo repulsed by the thought of breathing in those fine dust particulates that I actually wear a facial mask while doing it. [I also wear a mask when I scoop out my 5 litter boxes].
 

white cat lover

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Our bagless sucks, & not in a good way. It throws kitty litter, never picks it up. The style is awful. I use our shop vac for everything. Sprinkle pet hair release powder down first, then viola. I'm done fast.
 

natalie_ca

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Originally Posted by PookieBoy

I absolutely HATE when I have to empty them. I have to go outside [because of the dust] to empty them and during the winter It's not exactly an enjoyable chore. I mean, bags are inexpensive so why would I want to go bagless??? It makes no sense to me. I am soooo repulsed by the thought of breathing in those fine dust particulates that I actually wear a facial mask while doing it. [I also wear a mask when I scoop out my 5 litter boxes].
My vacuum is bagless and I don't have a problem emptying it. I guess if you shake it around and dump the dust from high up you will have dust and dirt everywhere.

I pop out the cannister and tip it upside down into a plastic grocery bag, bang on the bottom a bit to make sure all of the compressed clumps fall down, wait a couple of minutes and lift the cannister out of the bag. The dirt remains and none fly around. I then snap the cannister back onto the vacuum.

The appeal of bagless vacuums is the fact that you don't have to worry about running out of bags, spending money on bags and filling up the landfill with vacuum bags.

Prior to getting my Phantom Fury bagless I had a Sears Kenmore that used a bag. It wasn't a bad vacuum but lost suction as the bag filled up and it was a total mess to have to change
 

littleraven7726

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Mine has bags and I love it, I will never go back. I have allergies that would get very aggravated when I used to empty my bagless vacuum (my previous one was bagless because my Mom recommended them). I love that my Eureka has bags.
There's no dust cloud when you switch bags.

Mine picks up so much litter and cat hair, it's great.
I can buy bags at Target for it, which are not expensive at all. The HEPA filter is a little harder to find, but usually if all else fails Sears carries it. When I bought my vacuum, I ordered it from Walmart.com and it came with 6 extra bags.
 

zissou'smom

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I have this one. It only cost 60$ and it works as well as ones triple the price.

The first time I vaccuumed with it I could have made another cat. It picks up litter out of pile, it picks up entire pretzels, etc. You can handwash the filter (up to three times) which saves more money.

I haven't had it very long, but it's still working as well as the day I bought it. With ANY bagless, it's a good idea to empty them outside or in the basement or something, IMO.

The only thing I dislike about it is that I can't figure out how to open the bottom to take the rollerbrush out. I know you can, I just can't figure it out. So it is a pain to clean it, because I have to clean it while its still in the vaccuum.
 
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