Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

I'm not very impressed with the design, but there's a guy who offers a way to convert Kirbys from bag to dirt canister.  Unfortunately, it doesn't offer dual cyclone or better technology.  It looks like you clean the pleated filter after every use.  I think I'd rather pay for bags than this gimmick.

http://www.kirbybagsneveragain.com/

Carmine,

Sorry, just didn't think about it that way

Trebor

I am with Carmine on this one.  Kirby's bags, though expensive, do a excellent job of filtering.  They are very large and hold a lot of dog hair before they have to be changed.  I do not see a bagless design being able to filter to the same level as the Micron-Magic bags, I do not see the bagless allowing Kirby to have the air-flow that they are capable of producing.  In the scope of things, is $3.99 per bag any more expensive than the bags for a Meile or Sebo?  Are they more expensive than a filter that has to be replaced every few months?

What I see is that this is a design to make someone some quick bucks, much like the paper bag conversion that were offered with the Eureka F&G bags back in the 70's.  I don't see it as a mainstream adaption, more of a niche market for a short time.  I predict that users will tire of it quickly and go back to the convenience of the bag once again.  BTW--Up until the G series you could still get a shake out bag for Kirby that allowed you a "bagless" dust cloud, but the convenience of not having to buy bags.

Now I am going to agree with Trebor for a minute.

Kirby up until the G series did have an Sani-emptor that produced a swirl to pull heavier dirt to the bottom to be emptied and allowed the lighter stuff to be forced into the bag.  This system did have some inefficiencies, however,  With the G series by straightening out the air flow, you will notice the exhaust is now pointed upwards instead of backwards.  This reduces the turbulance and allows the Kirby to generate a greater air-flow.  They redesigned the mini-emptor, I think about the G-6 to current model to further reduce the turbulance.  In any case it doesn't appear that Kirby is relying on the swirl anylonger.

Whether anyone here is impressed with the Keeler conversion is totally and utterly irrelevant. Check out the feedback on his E-bay store. He has 100.00% positive feedback. He has been selling these in high numbers for well over a year now, and Mr. Keeler has not had one returned.

One thing that has been omitted from this discussion is filtration vs.cleaning power. As Kirby (and others) have increased filtration, the retention of smaller particles has been increased significantly while the pickup of heavier dirt and sand has been significantly DECREASED. Try a G-3 bag in any successive model Kirby. Pickup power is greater by far. When we did the salt test in the demo, we always used the standard filter pads as opposed to the micron magic, because it picked up the salt a lot faster. The very hardest vacuum to kill was an older KIrby with the cloth bag where the owner not only used it regularly, and emptied the bag, but also regularly changed the belt and cleaned and adjusted the brushroll. (That and an old,old, OLD  hoover) I remember having to go back to customer's homes with a CLOTH bag on a mini-emptor to pull up ridiculous amounts of carpet fresh with their recently purchased Kirby vacuum. If your vacuum can't pick it up, it can't filter it. If the dirt is really removed there is less of an allergen problem to be concerned about. Open a window and you have let in TRILLIONS of particles like the few million you just filtered with you HEPA vacuum.

Dual cyclonic action and Hepa filtration would only complicate the design and manufacture of the bagless conversion, to say nothing of the maintenance of the unit. Einstein said "There are only two things which are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity, and I'm not positive about the former" Murphy's law "If anything can go wrong, it will. " And as someone said, "If you make it idiot proof, they just built a better idiot." What is the remedy? K.I.S.S. keep it simple stupid. 1)Vacuum, 2)dump the container, 3)clean the filter.

The fact that this design does not work well on a clean fan upright with MAYBE 60 cfm when the filter is new, and multiple seals along the air path has no bearing in this application. Dirt removing ability and filtration work against each other, always have, it's simple physics. We all know that many factors affect dirt removing ability. The distance of the air path is a big one, positive agitation, which is dependent on proper carpet height adjustment, is another. On those two principles alone the Kirby vacuum with any bag outclasses every bagless vacuum. LONG after the plastic bagless vacs have been consigned to the landfill or, hopefully, the recycling shredder, 40 year old Kirbys will still be sucking up sand the others left behind.

The filter in the bagless conversion IS susceptible to clogging if large amounts of fine power are picked up, such as drywall dust, carpet fresh, even mattress debris, so there is still a use for the bag. If you look at the USEABLE capacity of a Kirby vacuum bag, you are looking at a rectangle of approximately 11" x 6" (I'm being generous) that expands into something approximating a cylinder. The warning on the bag says "Do Not Fill Above This Line", because the filtration is blocked and insufficient air is passing through. No matter what bagless design you create, the fine dust will glom onto the filter, so simply clean the filter when the container is dumped, instead of trying to engineer around the laws of physics. Dyson has only slowed the inevitable fine dust clogging problem, but he sacrificed a great deal for it: reliability, ease of repair, and removal of heavy, deeply imbedded dirt and sand. Hmm, let's see, 1) vacuum the house, 2) dump the canister, 3) clean the filter. K.I.S.S.

As I have stated here before I vacuum daily, sometimes two or three times a day because I live with a White Eskimo Dog "Eskie".  The people at Kirby love me because I buy bags quite often. 

I have always felt the bag to see if dirt were up to the line, with Eskie hair you can't feel wher it is in the bag so I change the bags when I feel suction dropping off.  I can usually tell this by haveing to set the nozzle one click further down.  Last week when I was changing the bag, I thought.   "Gee, I'm throwing it away anyhow."  "I wonder what it looks like inside?"  So I cut the bag open with the sissors.  The bag that still had pretty good airflow, but not as good as new was packed everywhere but about three inches in diamater from the fill tube.  I wished I had taken a picture, but didn't think of it.    These bags hold a lot, though as I said most of my gatherings are dog hair, there is some sand and dirt mixed in. 

I personally wouldn't go bagless.  I don't see where this contraption would harm a Kirby as it would only increase resistance and reduce cleaning ability.  I don't see that there would be any damage as the motor cools itself via a fan in the motor case.  

Just wrote:

Hello Just:

I agree in theory.  In practice I would add the usual manufacturer and profressional's caveat:  If the user follows the inventor's instructions: Dumps after each use and cleans/replaces the filter frequently.  Something, not all consumers do, especially consistently.  While the KIRBY uses a top fan for armature balance and cooling the motor, the KIRBY inner/outer bags also serve a dual purpose, i.e. to contain the dust/dirt and assist the motor from overheating/running hot by allowing exhaust air out. 

I suspect if the invention's users do not follow directions carefully, there will be two immediate short term negative results:  (1)Motor running hot; and (2) build up of dirt on the fan and in the motor compartment of the KIRBY.  Both these conditions have adverse impacts.  Both [hot temp and dirt contamination] can be measured w/o the KIRBY vacuum being dissassemble.  At an absolute minimum, if I were so inclined to go KIRBY bagless and buy this invention for usage, [and I'm not], I would want to see independent test results for these two measurements by an ASTM, or some such recognized entity, to attest to the findings under normal and usual household conditions.  Short of this, I would be highly suspect of the affects of the bagless invention on the longevity of the KIRBY's operations and KIRBY's warranty.

Carmine D.

Just wrote:
Sorry Just --

There was no swirl. It's quite natural for heavier stuff to stay at the bottom of the bag. The Sani-Emtor was merely a collection bin meant to allow for easier emptying of Kirby's cloth bag. It got you around having to detach the whole bag for emptying and also undoing top clamps ala Hoover. Most cloth bag uprights had small inlets and a large, usually slide on in type, clamp had to be removed for thorough emptying. Older Hoovers however, prior disposable bags, had large openings for dirt entry that also allowed you not to have to empty them by way of the top opening. In regard to emptying, Kirby was the most innovative.

When ready to empty, you shook the Kirby bag from the top and ideally everything within fell into the Sani-Emtor. Later down the line around the early 1960's the Sani-Emtor was still in use but an internal sleeve was added to the bag and there was some kind of scraper on the end of it. You inserted a hand into the sleeve and brushed the inside bag wall free of cling lint and dirt. That done you put the cleaner on spread out newspaper and opened the Sani-Emtor. No cyclonics or swirl at all.

Venson

Ahh, Venson your bringing me back in time, the sani-emptor, omegas and classic3, with the zipper on the bag and the scraper to shed the dirt from the inside of the outer bag, If the customer had pets or did not clean the bag everytime it was used, the already heavy weight machine looked like the outer bag was giving birth. I use to really enjoy stuffing my arm up the bag through the emptor and trying to get it free from lodged pet hair[NOT]. It took longer to do this than to change the front bearing,fan, and the safety switch,But heck it was my job. After going through this nonsense i firmly believe that no fan first upright should use a dirt cup or bagless dirt bin. Bagless set ups are ok for electric brooms and black and decker dustbusters.............

MOLE

Venson wrote:

That damn lying Kirby salesman.  What exactally did the air do while it was being forced into the fill tube?  Yea, it swirled.  Not saying cyclonic, G-d forbid anyting should have a cyclone.  Just look at the way the sand drops into the sani-emptor of a Tradition, Heritage, Legend It piles to one end, and usually underneath the air exaust port not to the back as would be suspected.  Tradition especially used a smaller fill tube and restricted the airflow more than the later machines, you can see the effect.

I will have to admit the only time I used my Kirby as a truely bagless machine is when I was out of bags so I hooked the hose up to the blower end and hung it out the bedroom window.

Being a gadget freak I decided to buy one of the upright tornado cyclonic bagless conversion kits for my Sentria. It took Jim keeler exactly a month from the time I paid ($79.00) for it to the time it was delivered to my doorstep. Upon opening the box it was readily apparent to me that this thing was slapped together in a hurry. There are gobs of excess glue around the hole where the pipe was fitted to the canister, very low quality black paint on the PVC pipe and black magic marker used to fill in the spots where the paint didn't stick. The pipe on my unit was attached near the top of the unit almost touching the green cap which is not how it was pictured in his ad on ebay. BTW, he is no longer selling on ebay and has deleted his account. With the tube attached so high up on the chamber/cup it blows directly onto the filter which will cause it to clog faster IMHO. Since this bagless canister was designed for the Eureka it has a rectangular hole near the top opposite where Jim drilled the hole for the PVC pipe to be inserted. This rectangular hole was covered with a piece of cut out plastic and super glued into place. The glue holding this plastic patch in place was not very good and when I gently rubbed it with my finger it promptly fell off. I had to get some super glue and re-attach the patch to the hole before I could even try out the bagless conversion. When I attached it to my Sentria I observed that it rides about 2 inches off the floor at the most. The exhaust blows straight down onto the floor which is why this model isn't recommended for bare floors as it would just blow all the dirt around before the Kirby could suck it up. Another thing I noticed is that the green cap has no seal at all and air was blowing out around the cap. It was also escaping from the square patch area where it was glued because I didn't seem to get it sealed any better than Jim had. I ran the vacuum over my entire house and the thing that I don't like about this bagless conversion is that it allowed small amounts of dirt to escape through the leaky lid and patch. I know this to be the case because cat hair from my 2 cats was sticking halfway out in several spots on the patch and around the lid. Overall, I think my money would have been better spent on a 2 years supply of genuine Kirby bags. Now that I've seen Jim's idea in action I think I may tinker around and see if I can come up with something better using a root cyclone canister from a Dyson or Hoover. Sometimes keeping it simple as Jim Keeler proudly exclaims is NOT the best way to go, stupid.

Hello jhannah:

Thanks for the review and comments.  We know now thanks to you in large part how and why Jim Keeler got the price down from $150 to $79.  So much for the outstanding ebay reviews, and choruses of applause for a man who beats to his own drum and owes noone, KIRBY and/or his bagless converter customers, anything in the process. 

Carmine D.