christine

MH, the Parquet Twister floor tool wasn't offered, I know nothing about it; I just took the standard combination floor/carpet tool that comes with the Carina.

Have used the machine already and like it very much.

C

Thanks Lucky. The dealer isn't going out of business, has been there for years and will be I hope for years more. I live in North Eastern USA.

C.

Well, as MH, after giving such kind and lengthy help (along with some others), asked me to let you know what I bought in the end, here's the answer: I --we--chose a Miele Carina.

I know I said I wasn't very keen on canisters--and in fact, I wasn't. This meant everyone here spent a lot of time on analysing uprights for me--please don't feel it was wasted--it was very helpful and enabled us to narrow things down, rule things out, and learn a lot in the process.

The Carina is so small and manageable, and not heavy--though not quite as light as Oreck or Simplicity. However it has crevice and upholstery tools, telescoping wand (so no bending as you vacuum), suction controls (so my lighter area rugs won't get sucked up), and it's not noisy. I always thought canisters were bulky but this doesn't seem to be, and you can clip the hose/head part to the body in a " park" mode when you stop vacuuming or carry it upstairs. As our rugs are all low pile, I hope the combination floor/carpet tool will be sufficient with just the suction, no brushroll.

The clincher was that the shop gave us $100 off for trading in our old broken Dirt Devil and there was a sale as well, so end price was $269 (plus tax) which we thought excellent.

Thanks again for all your help.

Christine

My requirements are different from those of the original poster-in my first post i explained that lightweight is my first requirement.
Also not $#%*bersome and easy to manouever.

I've always felt canisters were a bit $#%*bersome to use and difficult to store. But everyone says canisters are better than uprights for a mainly-bare-floors situation like mine. And now i have been to the vac shop, i might change my mind.

There's a tiny miele canister--carina (seems same as the antares, recommended here earlier) --which seems very light (14 lb) and easy to use, doesn't have brushroll at all but good enough suction (and variable suction level and motor speed) for my low-pile rugs.

So after all my anti-canister protestations, I am seriously considering it!

They only had the 3300 and 3500 Simplicity Freedoms--wonderfully light weight. But no squeegee--so some dirt did fall back at one's feet but a couple of passes seemed sufficient to deal with it on bare floor.

I didn't bring baking soda though as recommended by someone here! actually the salesperson says this would clog the machine (any vacuum) anyway...

The caveat mentioned by the salesperson is that if you vaccum up a coin or screw or similar object--which could so EASILY happen in my house!!--it could get sucked into the works and damage fan and/or motor. What do people think about this?
Same danger with an Oreck, apparently.


They don't yet have the dyson 24 or 25, I'll have to look at those elsewhere.

C.

OK my question about riccar supralite/simplicity freedom has been partially answered by my discovery that the Riccar RSL4 model has a "SQUEEGEE for bare floors."

The Riccar RLS3 doesn't seem to, not does the Simplicity Freedom as far as I can ascertain.

So: does this squeegee improve performance on bare floors, even if you still can't shut off the brushroll?

C