Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Carmine,

This will probably fall under your area of expertise and experience, but all are welcome to contribute. As I transition from being unemployed to being self-employed, I am looking for more specialized services to offer my clients.

There are specialized 'rug dusters' for sale which tap the accumulated dirt, dust, sand, and grit out of Oriental rugs by laying them face down over a grid which gives the debris room to fall. These cost upwards of 4,000.00! These have been developed as an alternative to the huge stationary 240 volt dusting machines. All of this to replace regular vacuuming with a Hoover 300, 700, or 150, the ones with the dual divergent agitator bars, with shorter agitator bars and bristle strips in between on each side.

The magic of the Hoover was that the 5,000 taps per minute during slow motion vacuuming set up a wave pattern that  vibrated the rug, dislodging the dirt, sand, and grit. It was not accomplished with tremendous suction, though the airflow was good, it was the balance of enough suction to keep snapping the rug up after each tap. The sand was not actually beaten out of the rug as much as the rug was pushed down leaving the sand in mid-air to be caught by the airflow generated by the fan, as explained by the laws of Newtonian physics.

My question is this: Short of finding and restoring a few 150 Hoovers, is there any alternative? Would any later model Hoovers accept the dual divergent agitator? How late? A current Guardsman, maybe, with some alteration perhaps?

A Kirby with a cloth bag has been suggested to me. A G series will not accept a full-fledged sani-emptor, and probably is too powerful to sustain the tap/snap action. A cloth bag would yield too much airflow, and a hepa bag too little as it fills. A Heritage I with a cloth bag seems the only other possibility. The Sanitaire Vibra-Groomer I is not sufficient, about the same as the standard Hoover agitator with just one strip of beater bar per side.

The idea of being able to restore neglected Oriental rugs with simple thorough vacuuming for good pay is very appealing. As I understand it, Hoover abandoned this configuration of agitator because as area rugs gave way to wal to wall carpet, it did not grab and hold the wall-to-wall carpet as well as the newer, less expensive to produce version, which had just the one spiral strip per side. Hoover could have ruled if they had stuck to being a status symbol. Imagine being able to switch out the roller and bottom plate to adapt the vacuum to whatever carpet/rug/floor needed to be cleaned. The mind boggles, while the Hoover just beats, as it sweeps, as it cleans...

Trebor

Hoover was not the first to copy Oreck,

Panasonic/Kenmore

Bissell dual fan, now offered as Tacony Powerflight and Tornado

Good Housekeeper/ElectraPure

Royal and Hoover with their commercial lightweights

Simplicity and Riccar, which clean far better than Oreck, and are more properly identified as the vacuums Hoover copied with their Platinum lightweight bagged model, which by all accounts, presently rules the category.

Trebor

Trebor wrote:
I'll say this...  it is hard watching this Chinese giant walk all over American corporations and potentially harm American workers and/or corporations who belly up and deliver answers and creativity.        DIB

DysonInventsBig wrote:

You'll be in for a harder time when the Chinese buy Volvo and Saturn just to name a few likely brands they are honing in on as we post here.  Business is business.  Only the strong survive.  That usually means those with the deepest pockets when money is in short supply.

Carmine D.

mole wrote:

I'd probably, if still in business, carry both canns and put the HOOVER and MIELE right along side each other and let customers pick and choose.  That's how free enterprise and freedom of choice work here.

Carmine D.

Hi Carmine,

I'd probably do the same if I were in a position to. However, what I notice in my local vac shops is that less expensive vacuums and "disposable" machines get lumped together in one area and the "stars" Miele, Riccar/Simplicity, Bosch, etc., usually have their own spots on the shop floor. This appears to be done with a purpose in mind. Is this a recommendation or requirement by company sales reps. I haven't been directly "sold" anything in quite a while and pay less attention regarding how a customer can be steered to the more costly item.

Big box stores in my area are far less discriminate as they merely line up stock all in a row and let the customers simply go for it with little attendance by sales staff.

Venson

Hi Venson:

I always gave my premier store display space [complete with oak shelves bottom to top] to my rebuilts, which I displayed together in groups as uprights, tanks, and canisters by price ranges.  As a warranty dealer for several vacuum brands, I gave the remaining space equally to them.  Usually the reps put together the displays for their brands and I let them carve out the space they wanted.  If I didn't like what they did, I rearranged or let another rep do it with theirs.  It was always a fight among them for the best space [after the rebuilts which always got my best store space].  Rebuilts were my bread and butter.  New vacuums were an accomodation for customers.  I was a warranty dealer for most of the brands that at the time sold in the big box stores.   I couldn't compete with them on price.  I mentioned that I started a consortium of about a dozen vacuum stores in Northern Jersey so we could buy in volume and at least compete closely with the big box stores on price.  They always undercut the MSRP which often underpriced us.  I had the slight advantage since I was a warranty dealer for these brands.  That counted for something with vacuum customers and the other Mom and Pop vacuum stores in the consortium.  No legal agreement, just handshakes. 

Back to the HOOVER/TTI & MIELE canister match off.  Regardless of one's personal perspective, this is a perfect time for a match off of the two similar models on price and performance.  Why?  Economic malaise.  A $300 copy of a $900 vacuum that performs as good if not better on rugs is a great selling feature.  Sells itself.

And as MOLE cogently pointed out with MIELE and HOOVER/TTI, there is more than meets the eye at play behind the scenes.   Is there a business partnership of the two brands in future?  In lean times, brands across all industries consolidate forces.  I expect to see some joint ventures of various brands.

Carmine D.

Hi Carmine,

I think the rebuilt/pre-owned vacuums are about as green as you can get. Not a bad idea at all and we have a good amount of vacs still in existence that are repairable and that may even be upgradable in regard to emission levels and PNs for "better than new" efficiency. In the not too distant past, there was a company producing high-filtration bags for Hoover Convertibles. The Convertible was not overly heavy and a good, easy to maintain machine. And of course, metal Luxes are still a good investment. However, I wonder if people especially younger shoppers would see the value.

Yes, I have always liked fancy-schmancy vacuums but what the world needs most are moderately priced good-performing vacuums that more of us can avail ourselves of.

The Hoover S3670 generally runs as low as $260 and as high as $325 online. With the boost it got by way of CR's Best Buy rating its going to be attractive to lots of shoppers. Attached is an epinions.com link with two customer reviews so far.

http://www.epinions.com/reviews/Hoover_S3670_Vacuum

High or low it prices below a third of the Miele Capricorn's price and comes with a three-year warranty. Also to be considered are some of the better Kenmore canisters though the rise in pricing on top-of-the-line models surprises me a bit.

Bottom line, put any price on on 'em you feel like -- the trick is finding buyers willing to pay it.

Venson

DIB wrote:

I'll say this...  it is hard watching this Chinese giant walk all over American corporations and potentially harm American workers and/or corporations who belly up and deliver answers and creativity.

Agreed, DIB, but if you examine the past you can see the chain of decisions that led to TTI owning Hoover actually began with Hoover. The introduction of product to the store shelves with the Hoover name, the steam iron, the floor polisher, the tank vacuum led to the elimination of the salesforce. The personal relationships those men had with their customers, along with their livelihood, were blinked out of existence by the decision of the Hoover company. I recently learned that until the introduction of the Convertible Hoover uprights were still sold door-to-door, primarily off of referrals and leads from the Hoover departments in better department and appliance stores and they were the most expensive vacuum cleaner on the market, bar none, more than Kirby, Rexair, Electrolux, and Airway. They cared about being the best. It was a status symbol to own a Hoover.  Hoover still had a decent run, until the sale to Maytag, but the machines were nowhere near the quality of the older Hoovers. I regret the sale of Hoover to TTI as much as anyone, but if they had not purchased Hoover, the famous red circle logo with the white letters would have faded into history...

Carmine wrote:

I'd probably, if still in business, carry both canns and put the HOOVER and MIELE right along side each other and let customers pick and choose.  That's how free enterprise and freedom of choice work here.

To an extent Carmine, but the manfacturer can choose to allow you to vend their product or not.  Miele does not like to see their product compete with other quality vacuums. Their kitchen appliances are seen in exclusively Miele showrooms for the most part. Some vac shops can sell the dishwashers and Laundry equipment. (The ones that sell nothing but Miele and BB vacuums.) I have yet to find a brick and mortar or online vac shop which sells the full line of Miele and the full line of Sebo AND the full line of Lindhaus AND the full line of either Riccar or Simplicity. Miele has put 25 years into building its brand name recognition, and do not want to see their European competitors going toe to toe with them. For one thing, witness Catlady's statements that she has not heard of Lindhaus, nor was she able to compare a Riccar Radiance to the S7 in the same shop. If you have not heard of Lindhaus or Sebo, Miele would rather you didn't. They would rather you compare them to a BB Hoover, Bissell, Eureka, or Dirt Devil. Will Miele tolerate their canisters on the shelf next to a Hoover bagged canister which looks like its twin? We'll have to wait to see. If anyone takes issue with my assertions, please just list the vac shops you find with COMPLETE lines of Miele, AND either Sebo OR Lindhaus, AND the full line of EITHER Riccar OR Simplicity.

Trebor

Trebor wrote:

Conversely, the vacuum store owner/operator can choose to sell and service the vacuum brand or not !   

Carmine D.

Absolutely, Carmine,

But there are dealers caving and dropping lines in order to keep Mieles in their store. Maybe it's time to let Miele know they are not the 2,000 lb Gorilla they think they are!

Trebor