Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

We recently purchased a Sebo Felix from Costco.com and my wife does not like it at all.  It runs hot and was heavy/akward to carry as a canister.  Luckily Costco has a great return policy!  The most important feature for her is light weight and she really likes our 10-year old Oreck.  I've gone to both the Oreck store and an independent vacuum store to look and compare.  The Oreck and Simplicty Freedom seem very similar.  I like the high end Simplicity Freedom model F3700 [priced at $399] without the companion canister and $499 with the canister because it has a metal brush roll.  The lower end freedom models don't have two speeds and frankly don't seem as good as the Oreck to me.  At the Oreck Store I tested the Magnesium, which was interesting, but costs $399 as well [$499 with canister].  Also, not sure about buying this new and unproven model although it was incredibly light.  Costco is running a special thru January 15th, where I can purchase the Oreck XL & Canister companion for $248 [$50 off costco price].  At the end of the day this seems like the best value to me, but I'm curious as tot he opinions on this forum.  Thanks very much!  

Hi fletch173,

I think you already answered the question yourself but here's my two cents.  The Oreck's not a bad deal.  Would Costco include the 12 disposable bags it supplies with an online sale? The bags are big in size, eight quarts, and you can clean a long time between bag changes. A package of eight HEPA filtraton bags sells for about $35.00 but because of size that amount of bags could carry you into the next year. There is also the option to use less expensive plain paper bags that run at about $25.00 per pack of eight.

Never having owned one, I'd wondered about Orecks for a good while and then got the chance to do public demos of the two-speed XL Insight and the XL Platinum Pilot at Sears during early spring 2011.  First the weight, about 9 and 10 pounds, is so cool.  They both perform well on rugs and bare floors.  The Magnesium is a newbie that I have not tried and if I were to I'd wait 'til I could find some reviews AND land it at a better price.

I liked the Oreck XL Pilot model especially because of the added pivot feature that makes the machine quite maneuverable for not only getting around things but under as well.

My only misgiving would be that the Costco version does not appear to use the new belt sold with the cleaners I demoed last year.  Called the Endurolife it was made of made of more durable material than rubber and didn't stretch.  To work with this new belt, the motors on the machines I demoed were designed to shut off if the brushroll jammed.  You just had to unplug and plug again to reset.  Bag changing is easy and the bags for the models I used sealed automatically when you removed them. 

Shop around as best you can to get the best price.  Sears didn't offer the best prices but was a lot better than the Oreck stores.  Has your wife seen the Oreck XL Pilot? Since she's already used an Oreck she might really like it.

The Ultimate Oreck Hand Vacuum is a neat little machine with HEPA.  It's bags sell for around 15 bucks for 12.  However the bags are small and the cleaner serves best for household duty only.

The URL for the Oreck XL Platinum Pilot's user guide is here http://www.oreck.com/PUG/79052-01_REV_A_PILOT_manual.pdf

Happy hunting,

Venson

 

What about the Hoover Platinum bagged upright? Is it really that bad?

vacmanuk wrote:
I have tried Oreck twice in my home.  Returned them each time.  The only positive for Oreck is the light weight.  Vacuum performance was little better than a Bissell sweeper (non electric).  I settled on the Hoover Platinum.  No way Oreck can touch it.  Also it has not had the belt/brush roll problem associated with Oreck.
My main dislike is having to have a hand held since it has no hose.  The Platinum hand held is noisy and the exhaust will blow away anything in its path.  However, it has tremendous suction.  I thought the Oreck hand held had very poor suction.

Just thought I would let everyone know that I purchased the Oreck XL ProPower Plus from Costco and we love it!  The vacuum is very light weight and cleans well enough for us and the handheld is light weight and has plenty of suction.  Sure, I wish I could find something this light with a brush roll that turns off, but no comparable model provides this.  I think the value/price Costco provides with their sale price of $248 is tremendous.  Included:  

Adjustable and padded shoulder strap

60" Flexible hose

Crevice tool

Circular Dusting brush

Large floor tool

Upholstery tool

Telescoping extension wand

Turbo brush (ideal for removing embedded pet hair)

2 - HEPA filters (one installed and one additional in the box)

2 - tune-ups on the upright

8 - HEPA odor fighting Upright bags 

12 - hypo-allergenic, double-wall Handheld Vacuum bags)

Accessory storage bag 

Also, my parents have the hoover light weight platinum being refereced above and we tried it and it is not bad.  I'm sure it cleans fine.  However, it is heavier than the Oreck and we prefered the Oreck's feel.  In fact, my parents even said they regret not purchasing an Oreck.  Also, the Hoover is priced at approx. $209 and for all you get with the Oreck at $248 from Costco with their excellent return policy if needed, the deal was too good to pass up.  Thanks to everyone for your input.   

Hi fletch,

Great to hear you found something you like.  Actually all that matter's is the indiviual owner purchasing the cleaner he or she LIKES to use.

Best,

Venson

HARDSELL wrote:

My God, Hardsell where have you been all this time?  How are you? Hope all is going great for the new year.  Anyway . . .

I had my misgivings but I've gained a bit of respect for the Oreck through use.  Mind you, I haven't gone out to buy one for myself but I do think they do the job and fit the bill for many now that there is this new phenomina come to light -- ask anybody to lift more than ten pounds and they look at you as though you're asking them to committ suicide.  (To think I took a liking to a 22-pound LG upright.  What was I thinking?)

While i doing demo duty, many longtime owners walking by would proudly step over just to say the Oreck they'd bought ten or more yeas ago was still running and cleaning well. 

As for the call for high power, it's a myth and not everybody needs it.  Besides which, big power is usually used to compensate for bad design.  All depends on the individual household and the kind of traffic it's subject to.  The needs in a home with kids and lots of company and the requirements of a home where life moves slowly are different.  The Ultimate Handheld didn't seem to lack much and a hurricane isn't neccessary just to clean a bathroom or kitchen floor, go over furniture or do window sills unless we're talking maybe about a houseful of pets. The upright's meant to handle bare floor as well as carpeting and did so well when I was showing them. There shouldn't be any real above the floor cleaning challenges for the handheld to meet but buyers should be made aware that the handheld is meant only for the most general household duty.  We did have have one customer come back to complain that it couldn't handle cleaning the several halls and stairways of the apartment building he owned; really a job for a full-sized vac.

My only beef about Oreck is pricing. The Oreck stores and some chain stores really go off the chart pricewise regarding the simple machine an Oreck actually is. The Hoover Platinum upright and handheld canister hold the trump card here due to not only good cleaning but usual price point advantage.

Venson wrote:
Hi Venson, I still read the forum.  I sort of lost desire to comment without Carmine around to dispute my statements  I really miss him. You and Carmine are two people that I really would like to meet.  All has been well for me and my family.  You have a great year also and may you always remain the gentleman that you are.

Venson wrote:
I sincerely hope you never have to own and run an Oreck XL - unless all you do all day is clean carpets and hard floors- hotels love them because they are so fast and lightweight but in the UK, most hotels use Sebo uprights or Henry canister vacs - even if they have suction only floor heads - the hoses and smaller tools cope better for detail cleaning, especially around the air conditioner vents in the rooms and of course crucial to keep standards up met by the hotel and quality assurance organisations. Of course if the Oreck in the UK was priced cheaper than the prices we have to endure currently (base model costs $309-42 from £199-99) which is the same price as a Sebo X1.1, then I'm sure British buyers would probably flock more to Oreck but the lack of a hose and on board cleaning tools is a major downside in my book and having to use an additional machine at the same time, is nothing more than a token gesture and one that would annoy me having to fish it out each time I want to clean dust out of radiator and heater vents.

I wouldn't agree with "big power is usually used to compensate for bad design," however. Look at our Miele vacuums where high power is a welcomed requisite. Maybe that's me though. Having tried bagged vacuums with low motors and especially in the case of the Oreck where the 10.3 litre capacity dust bags never filled right to the top in my experience, therefore being a bit of a waste of money on the bags alone, I'd say high/big power is welcomed - especially in the last stages of a bag when it's about to be replaced and when it's full as a brick. The only exception to the high power, justified full dust bag routine I've found is with the Sebo X1 Automatic/Sebo uprights - the bags fill right to the top, but that's another debate for another day!

Last night I watched an Oreck XL Power Team demo on idealshopping.TV (UK cable channel shopping channel) and wasn't particularly impressed with the still, too noisy motor. When I compared my old Oreck XL to our British Hoover Junior that had the same motor rating, the 23 year old Junior is much quieter when running and its a pity Hoover UK don't still sell the Junior model for stalwarts of what has gone on before. On the channel demo they did a pick up test with the XL on hard floors using bird seed, tea, garden soil and feathers. The woman claimed that the Oreck would pick it all up and it duly did - but beforehand when the bag flared up, the feathers and soil went running for their lives - a big downside with any outer soft bagged vacuum like the Oreck. Then they discovered that the Oreck XL wasn't picking up - it had clogged up. I was beside myself!

vacmanuk wrote:

Hi vacmanuk,

Sorry, but there is actually such a thing as overkill and so I maintain my feeling that gargantuan power is not always necessary to do good work come time to clean.  Despite our living in a "more's better" pushed society of consumers I continue to base vacuuming ability on all those American Electroluxes sold that ran for years on about 535 watts of power and did well in cleaning.  They did do well because of tool design.  Electrolux was not the only brand that used good design to promote good cleaning either.

Roiling the waters as it were by those looking to sell is one of the main drivers of our discontented cries for more and more worldwide.  The power thing is more often about moving product by leading consumers to think they'll somehow end up ahead of the game though they never do.  Not a great example, but offer a car with four, six or eight cylinder engines and ask what people what they'd like to have and the eight-cylinder will probably be their choice.  Most however, will opt otherwise not becuase the idea doesn't strike them as a nice one but due to the cost to run the biggest one.  (By the way, talk about the discontented, I just got an alert for an article where it's being claimed that vacuuming is harmful to our health.)   The end assessment was more or less that central vacuums that exhaust outside are "the answer".  So, you see the debate over which vacuum and what type could go on forever. 

This happens with everything.  I've been recently faced with having to research and think on buying either a 1,000-watt food processor or one that runs on 700 watts.  (My last machine was actually used slightly less power draw.) Did the idea of a thousand watts of juice prove -- pardon the pun -- a turn-on?  Oh yeah, but I decided to use a little common sense.  I of course used my previous food processor for everything and will do the same with its replacement.  But, after careful thought, I decided 1,000 watts of power might be fine for a household larger than mine and that I can live without it.  I'm not running a restaurant.  If I have any reason to require handling amounts of food larger than I ordinarily do I can just split a big  recipe into batches and do just fine.

As far as vacuums in general go, there are any number of machines that I'll not be buying that someone else will find suits their need -- and likes -- to a tee.  I think Riccar's and Simplcity's lightweight uprights are more noisy than Oreck but Riccar/Simplicity apparently hasn't gone broke yet.

Whatever we choose, I can most assuredly say we do not need diswashers or washing machines that go to the max by way of power and water consumption.  This also applies to vacuum cleaners and any number of the appliances we're being encouraged to use.  As for my Miele, I don't always switch to high or really need to all the time.  As I've stated before, I give the floors a quick going over two to three times a week -- more to have something to do than because of real need.  If the Marines stop here during maneuvers, yes, I prepared but I have had no such worry thus far. I only worry about switching to top speed if there's been an inordinant amount of sandy stuff from outside tracked in on a given day.  That doesn't happen here often as I also have mats inside and out to catch most of that stuff.  A $30 stick vac can serve here just as well in between regualr cleanings.

The  problem here in America and other parts of the world where we still have the option to indulge ourselves is that we've yet to come to a true understanding of what "enough" is.   I think if we did we could better define the difference between that which is luxury and that which is "cheap" and possibly save ourselve a dollar or two here and there by knowing the good stuff at the middle line.

Venson wrote:
Indulging is a good word to use, but not where all appliances are concerned. In the UK eco friendly appliances like large ones - dishwashers and washing machines aren't expensive when they use up little water compared to Miele and expensive to buy brands. The shoe as it were, is turned on the other foot where efficiency and running cost is concerned. What we seem to do in the UK is have machines that are eco-friendly but are then limited on the specs, forcing the buyer to indulge in extra wash programs, even if they will never use them. But then, large appliances run up electricity bills - vacuum cleaners do not even though some brands go to extra lengths to produce Eco branded models.

Although I've preached to how good our old Hoover Junior is that used a 400 watt motor, it's suction through the hose was feeble and not of much use. It got so bad that at one point Which UK in the 1980s put a public warning about Hoover tool kits that just weren't worth the money when the power was so low and suction through the hose was pretty weak. You may not always switch to high or low power on your Miele - but at least you have the opportunity to - the Oreck doesn't have an onboard tool system - and it wouldn't saddle the machine with extra weight if Oreck actually researched what other brands are doing - with light rubber hoses and lightweight plastic tools - look at Sebo's K series where the tubing is lighter than Miele.  This would make the vacuum cleaner a much more versatile machine than it is - instead of saddling owners to whip out an extra canister vacuum when they want to clean above the floor line.

Busy parents, young couples with daily time limits and professional singletons who work long hours just won't put up with having to use two vacuums for dry dirt collection in a daily cleaning session. You've mentioned that life is slower - but not as far as I'm concerned, or the amount of buyers I've met who want something instant to do the job of vacuuming dirt up and if they choose an upright they'll usually go for models with on board tools and hoses, even if some are too short. Many who can't be bothered to clean manually go for the Roomba option but then discover they can't clean the boots/ you guys call it "trunk" I think/ of their cars or for that matter, getting under car seats and areas they used to access with a hose.