Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Ive have been researching vacuums the past couple weeks or so. I came across this AMA (Reddit) where the gentleman REALLY suggested Miele canisters for carpet AND bare floor. The apartment I live in now has mostly carpets, but eventually I will be moving into a house. I like carpet, but my girlfriend likes hardwood flooring more. You can probably guess what our next house will have :(. So, I need something that is great on carpets and barefloors (our lease isnt up for 16mo, and just in case the next house does have more carpet than wood flooring.) Two weeks ago, I was absolutely set on some sort of Miele S8 (I was sure I needed the 12 billion step filtration system). Last week I was set on the Sebo D4 (Better warranty, cheaper consumables). Now I am looking at the Riccar Brilliance models. I saw that they have two motors in them; one for floors and one for tools, basically. Since the Riccar doesnt need to compromise suction powered between tools and floors (Bypass vs Direct), wouldnt it be possible to hook a turbo brush up to to hose and just use it as a canister (getting under furniture, cleaning couches, vacuuming hardwood, etc)? I saw some youtube videos of the Riccar vs a Dyson. It highlighted how much agitation the Riccar had vs how little the Dyson has. Ive been reading, and the general consensus is that Agitation + Air flow = cleanest carpets. I have yet to see a video that shows any canister that shakes the floor as much as the Riccar.

shanel92 wrote:

So I totally put breaks in my chunk of text. Apparently this website doesn't like that. Sorry.

you need a Kirby. Theres more leasiure time for you.Or a rexair the machine of tomorrow today........

Any of the machines you mentioned would serve you well. I would not hesitate going with a Riccar/Simplicity Tandem air machine. They are awesome. Taconey (the maker of Riccar/Simplicity) also makes some very nice cannister machines. All of Taconey's uprights are made in America if that makes any difference to you. Some but not all the canisters are made here, their larger cans are American Made their Mid-sized to Small machines are made in Asia. Weird thing, at least to me, others feel it is quality assurance. The Asian made machines are brought to the states and then they totally tear them down and re-assemble them. I am not convenienced that this extra step increases quality any, but in reality the Taconey twins are very difficult to beat. Their top of the line machines are up there, and I have found Riccar/Simplicity dealers are difficult to negotiate with price wise. With their premium machines fetching a premium price, it would be nice to feel you had some wiggle room to deal. I am from the old school and I never pay retail, Ebay is my friend in finding good deals on vacuums. Just remember with these deals you often don't have the warranty backing you. Kirby, Rainbow, Tri-star, Aerus, all caution you that they will not honor a warranty for a machine sold on the internet. I take my chances there because these are all very reliable machines. I would have no problem taking a chance on a Taconey machine either as they are not only reliable, but easy to service. Good luck with your vacuum search, please come back to let us know what you decided on.

PS. And I to did paragraph breaks. The formatting on this site must be off.

Good grief don't waste your hard earned on any vacuum sold door to door. In every case they are grotesquely over priced. The sales pitch is inherently dishonest. They get you in private and try to make your existing vacuum look bad. The "test" they use is rigged. No matter how good your vacuum, the machine that goes first "loses". Want to make the sales puke uncomfortable? Tell him his machine goes first. He will pack up his junk and leave if you do because he will know you are on to his game. No vacuum made gets everything out of a carpet, so whatever machine the sales puke is selling will always find a bit more dirt to "convince" you your vacuum is inadequate. His brand new Kirby/Rainbow/Patriot/Aerus Lux or what have you will likewise fail against your vacuum if his machine goes first. The game is rigged. Don't fall for their sales pitch because those sales people are paid commission only and will starve if they cannot fool enough gullible souls and sell them a $2000-$3500 vacuum and a pile of cheap plastic attachments worth at most $50.

I would not waste money on Miele or Sebo either. Europeans do not have American style thick wall to wall carpets in their homes. Their vacuums are not suited to some carpets common in the US, even some apartment carpets. I spent a pile of money on a high end Sebo upright. It has all kinds of nice features for an upright, including a belt sensor that is supposed to protect the two belts driving the brush roll from breaking if something jams the brush roll. Guess what? Even on the highest setting, the drag of my carpet, which is only a mid grade deep pile carpet, is enough to trip the belt sensor and shut the vacuum down. There is no fix for this, no adjustment. That machine is retired to the garage (almost brand new) where the indoor/outdoor carpet doesn't overwork it's tender Teutonic belt sensor. Complete garbage, a waste of $500 (floor demo, bought at a good discount but still ...). Neither Sebo or Miele provide full sized attachments. Their attachments are kids toys, cheap and nasty ( but wait till you price a replacement! ). Miele has altogether too small dust bags and they cost a small fortune. Do you throw $5 bills in the trash? Didn't think so. Same thing for Sebo bags, worse so for their HEPA bags. Both brands have very expensive filters too, Sebo in particular. I would find a vacuum shop selling Panasonic vacuums. Take a look at the MC-CG937 canister vacuum. 500 air watts, adjustable motor speed with a slide switch on the hose handle, telescopic wand, full sized attachments (and their combo dusting/fabric brush is much easier to use on closely spaced shelves or dusting the tops of books than the Aerus Lux equivalent ). They are durable, as durable as anything from the expensive manufacturers, caveat that like any vacuum you have to change the bag before it's full and change filters regularly to keep it running well. If you let filters go and clog the motor with dirt and hair, or vacuum something wet you will kill even the best vacuum, and I have seen plenty of nice vacuums ruined that way. Panasonic makes most Sears Kenmore vacuums and they use the same filters and dust bags. You can buy cloth HEPA Q bags from Sears, a bag of six for $20.95. They are twice as large as a Miele bag and a bit larger than Sebo bags. You are only throwing three bucks in the trash and less often than you would with either European brand, or Aerus which also has a small dust bag. Filters are likewise shared with Kenmore products and reasonably priced at Sears or on-line. While there take a look at the MC-CG902. Last of the old school canisters, a real bargain for what you get. Same 500 air watt motor as the other Panasonic mentioned, but single speed. Four full sized old fashioned attachments that are carry overs from 1980s Kenmore vacuums. There are no computers or pc boards, just a simple hard wired circuit and a universal relay that dates to mid 1980's Whirlpool built Kenmores. Nothing in there to fail. This is a durable machine. Same huge bag chamber as the MC-CG937, uses the same inexpensive Kenmore dust bags and filters. Another machine to consider is the current King Kong of vacuums, the Kenmore Elite canister. It has more suction and airflow than any other machine on the market. Period. It is made by Panasonic and has their same excellent durability, though the finish on the lid and on the floor brush seems a bit fragile. The motor is special however and nothing, even my Kirbys or my Electrolux Guardian can touch it for cleaning power. It is also exceptionally quiet. The floor brush is almost silent in use. Quieter than my Sebo or Lux, and the Kirby sounds like an old Harley next to the new Kenmore. Don't waste your hard earned on the over priced door to door vacuums or the nearly as over priced German iron, er, plastic. You are not getting your money's worth.

For the door to door models, they can be overpriced; this where a good consumer remember to never pay retail, and everything is negotiable. The Panasonic mentioned by the Count is a good machine. Well built, long hose, effective power nozzle. One caveat-the bag system has complaints from some for not sealing well at the collar and leaking dust. It's a pitty to pay $10 a bag for a HEPA medium bag and have it leak.

Buy Kenmore cloth HEPA Q bags, six to a package for $20.95. They have a thick cardboard end and seem to seal better than other bags. No dust gets past them. In addition, Kenmore style hoses Panasonic uses (Panasonic makes most Kenmore vacuums) require a serious shove to seat fully. You should hear a loud snap when they seat. If you don't hear that the hose may not be seated (it will still have electrical contact btw) and leak dust like crazy. Mine is dust free, as are all my similar Kenmore canister vacuums that use the same Q bag.

As discussed in previous comments a huge variety of vacuum cleaners are available these days with different capacities or different features. You need to choose according your needs and budget. Research is a good method to take right decision. I always prefer to check user reviews, compare prices on different stores etc.Now i have Black and Decker vacuum cleaner which provides best cleaning services to me.

Everyone prefers vacuum cleaners as it helps us to clean our house very fast. There are a variety of vacuum cleaners available in the market with different capacities, features and also at different rates.

The best Agitation & air flow doesn't automatically mean a vacuum cleaner will clean better, because some uprights and canisters with PNs have rough bristles which can take out more carpet pile than actually clean it. Im a bit concerned on CountVacula's comment regarding SEBO, or his disregard for thick pile carpets in Europe and the UK. Actually Europe and UK have very similar thick carpeting to the U.S So the nonsense regarding that we don’t have the same carpet is a lie. Secondly the SEBO D4 is cheaper to run consumable wise than Miele’ s S8 - I know. I had both. The D4 uses the same floor head as the SEBO Felix upright which has 4 manual height adjustments and a brush roll on/off switch. Not like the auto sensor on the X. Dependent on markets, the D4 comes with a hard floor tool as an included tool. The brush roll is a lot kinder to carpets and the PN has already seen use commercially in the Windsor Flexamatic, the commercial version of the SEBO Felix. Infact the X series has already been on sale in the U.S under the Windsor Sensor tag since 1979 too, when SEBO and Windsor signed a deal in the U.S The SEBO D4 also has TWO motors, suction motor in the vacuum canister and brush roll motor in the PN.

Be careful when you buy one. Do not fall into the trap of Cordless and Super Amp functionalities.

Sebo recently began to offer a different brush roll with a softer bristle than before. It is intended for plush carpets. The obvious visual difference is the use of green bristles instead of blue. They are slightly softer. I just bought one and with that brush roll the resistance of the carpet against the bristles is lessened and it no longer trips the belt sensor. I can use the vacuum on my carpets but it tells me Sebo did not design this machine with such carpets in mind. The softer brush is a Band-Aid overcoming a poor design. By comparison decades old Kenmores, Panasonics and Hoovers I have seem to clean the very same carpet without some silly belt sensor shutting them off with no apparent damage to the carpet. One finds no carpet material in the brush roll or any other evidence that the carpet is shedding material into the vacuum. My other Sebo is starting to show the first signs of the connection between the bag chamber and floor brush working loose. It shuts off momentarily when I pull it back towards me on occasion. This is a normal problem they have, so I remain unimpressed with the high priced Germans. Don't let the brand snobs talk you into paying more than you need to. Much past $500-$600 for a vacuum you are paying for a name. It isn't cleaning your home better and won't necessarily be more durable either. I also have to wonder why anyone would buy carpet so fragile it cannot be vacuumed. We'll see how long that trend lasts. I saw a post on another vacuum site advocating using a non powered suction only carpet attachment for such carpets. Ooof. I remember those days. Vacuuming carpet that way was hard physical work. Btw, beater bar brush rolls are older than most modern vacuum buyers. Nothing new at all. They fell out of favor probably because they are comparatively loud but I have a few and they definitely beat the carpet. You can see dirt dance in the air before the powered brush rolls over it.

Electrolux discovery2 upright/ eureka or sanitaire mighty mite. under 2 beans problem solved. Spend the extra money on something else that you really need......

The Mighty Mite doesn't have a powered floor brush for carpet and is poorly filtered. The upright won't do well on hard floors. A good canister with a powered floor brush is what the original poster probably needs. Two beans will buy you a Panasonic MC-CG902, a much better vacuum than either the Electrolux or the Mighty Mite. $150 will get you a Kenmore Lime Green canister, not as good as the Panasonic but still better than the Electrolux and the Mighty Mite. Use a Kenmore cloth HEPA Q bag in either the Kenmore or the Panasonic and change the pre motor and exhaust filters every six bags and it will stay clean inside and last a decade or more if you don't abuse it. Treat it like a mega buck Miele and it will last every bit as long.

CountVacula wrote:

I bought an Electrolux bagless vacuum for $250 and the best I had used till date. Its so simple to use and does really well on hard floors though an upright one. Considering the use on hard floors and upright used this is a good choice to buy.

Bagless vacuums are junk. They are never clean nor do they filter as well as a good bagged vacuum using cloth HEPA bags. They are awful to empty. For under $200 you can buy the Panasonic MC-CG902, use the cloth HEPA Q bag from Kenmore which fits perfectly, a Kenmore CF-1 HEPA pre-motor filter and have a much better vacuum. Likewise for under $200 you could buy a Kenmore Orange Canister and have the same features and build quality as the Panasonic but not quite as nice attachments. Same Q HEPA bags, same HEPA filters. Nice and clean. Do you really like dumping out that dust bin?

Hi, we are moving to our newly bought home the next month and on half the way of purchasing some accessories for our new heaven :). Me and my boyfriend had an argument about the flooring option. I liked to have wood flooring and he was interested to choose carpet over there :(. Finally I decided to go on with my darling’s decision :). I need advice on choosing a vacuum cleaner now. I do not mind spending a little more on quality product but I want the result. A closed system design to collect and remove 100% of contacted pollutants and allergens will be a good one I think. A central vacuum cleaner will be more suitable for me and I am planning to get it from the Vacmaster. Can anyone suggest me some good brands which you have experienced with? Thanks in advance

A vacuum cleaner is an inevitable one among the home appliances . Different types and models are available now in markets. So , selecting the best is very important. We should select the one which is suitable for our house. suction and cyclonic action are the main factors that we have to think while buying a vacuum cleaner.A versatile canister vac might be the best one for a house full of hardwoods and tile. We have hardwood throughout our house and we use canister vacuum pumps.

Well you are gonna have a bad time if you buy Panasonic. When was the last time they made anything good. A vacuum cleaner is one with a powerful motor and Panasonic has no specialized industrial division for improving those. You are supposed to buy something more specialised like Eureka. I bought this one: skusky.com/ProductDetail/air-speedr-one-as2113a-10-amp-light-weight-up . Just $59 and it is crazy good. Or if you can really shell out the money,you should go for a hoover. But seriously why would you buy Panasonic. If it was an air conditioner, I would agree that you can give it a chance, but nothing else. The phones are the biggest jokes out there.

Panasonic is the current name used by Matsu$#%*a Electric Industrial Co Ltd of Japan. The Panasonic name was originally only used for consumer electronics sold in the US and Canada but the Panasonic name has such a great reputation they re-named the entire company Panasonic. Matsu$#%*a (pronounced Mat-shoos-ta) was founded in 1918. They have been making electric motors since the early 1940s and began selling vacuums manufactured in Japan to the US market in the 1960s. They also made high fidelity turntables, meaning they made electric motors with very fine rpm control, not as easy to do as making a motor for a vacuum or a blender. Panasonic also manufactured microwave ovens, refrigerators, stereo equipment including speakers and microchips in the US. They have produced home appliances for other brand names as well. If you ever used one of their Jet Flo series vacuums from the 1970s and 1980s you know Panasonic knows how to make a fine vacuum cleaner. They make a very refined and durable product and all of the motors were made in-house, a rarity in the vacuum business. The design of their Jet Flo uprights were shamelessly copied for the first Riccar uprights and Panasonic built Riccar's first canister vacuum for them based on the old Kenmore Whispertone tooling. Today Panasonic provides vacuum motors for the whole industry, not just their own products. You will find Panasonic vacuum motors in most Dyson vacuums (Dyson never made a vacuum motor, all of their vacuums use motors from either Panasonic, YDK or Cinderson). Panasonic also makes most Kenmore vacuums, having bought Whirlpools vacuum making business in 1995 after a five year joint venture with them. If you do not think Panasonic knows how to innovate in the vacuum motor world, find out what makes the Inducer Motor in a Kenmore Elite so special. It was a very clever change that makes that motor so powerful compared to others.

I use Dyson DC46 Motorhead Canister Vacuum Cleaner. It works well!

I used Dyson V6 vacuum cleaner.It works well.

panasonic now out of vac business, Miele best can vac period

I can’t say for sure what the best vacuum cleaner out there is for sure, but in my experience the best vacuum I ever had was a Panasonic MC-CG301. Super cheap and gets the job done. You don’t have to break the bank to get a great vacuum. I got my vacuum for under $80 and it stores really nicely in my closet without taking up hardly any space. I was super sad when the motor stopped working a few months ago.

Panasonic sold the Kenmore side of their vacuum business to Cleva Industrial, maker of Vacmaster shop vacs and Lawnmaster lawn mowers and chain saws. Kenmore just introduced three new canister vacuums. The 600 Series replaces the Progressive line and the 400 and 200 Series replace the Orange and Lime Green vacuums respectively. I had a chance to test a 600 Series at Sears and measured 77 inches of sealed suction at the end of the hose, and it pulled my BAIRD meter out to 7.5. Both numbers, measured at the end of the hose, are very high. The attachments are much better than anything Sears has sold in quite a few years, more like what they sold in the 1980s. The hard floor brush is mounted so you can step on a pedal on the canister and it pops up for you to slide the wand into. When done using it you can return it to the spot on the canister, step on a pedal on the brush to release it from the wand and fold it back flat into the canister with your toe. Very slick. The new Powermate has axels through the wheels, eliminating the wear point that used to allow wheels to fall off. The carry over parts looked and felt exactly like those made by Panasonic. Very nice vacuum and a much better value than anything from Europe. I also tested a new Kenmore Elite. 90 inches of water lift at the hose end, which is outstanding, highest I have ever measured on any vacuum, and it slammed my BAIRD meter to the stop past ten, meaning the Elite has more airflow than a Kirby or any other vacuum for that matter. Very impressive. Miele is cute, but the big Kenny is the King Kong of vacuums today and a much better value. You can find internet returns under $200 pretty much all the time on ebay.

I am using Kent Cyclonic Vacuum Cleaner and it clean dust from floor and carpet very well. With Its powerful motor and brush, it scoops dust and debris from all corners giving you a spot less, dust free environment.

Kent isn't available in the US.

I would recommend you to go with dyson v8 cordless vac or else miele canister vacuum cleaner. 1. Dyson V8 Animal Cord Free Vacuum, Iron/Titanium 2. Miele Complete C2 Hard Floor Canister Vacuum Cleaner with SBD285-3 Combination Rug and Floor Tool + SBB300-3 Parquet Floor Brush.

For as much money as a Miele costs, they do not have the raw cleaning power of a Kenmore Elite. I measure vacuum suction with a suction guage marked in inches of water lift, which is how the vacuum industry measure suction. To measure airflow I use this thing called a BAIRD meter that is marked from 0 to 10. It is what Kirby sales people use to compare their machines to what you have in your home so it is biased in that 0 on a BAIRD meter isn't really zero airflow and 10 is around 120 cubic feet per minute (cfm) airflow. A Miele C3 has the same "Vortek" suction motor used in other Miele vacuums for the last several years. Miele only makes the one suction motor for all their vacuums. A brand new C3 generates 82 inches of suction before the bag indicator pops open and releases suction. It pulls my BAIRD meter out to 6.0. The same day I tested a Kenmore budget model Orange canister (now out of production) floor demo on clearance. It pulled 82 inches of suction and 6.5 on my BAIRD. I later bought one from a local K-Mart and it pulls 84 inches of suction and 7.5 on the BAIRD meter. A Kenmore Elite 800 Series canister I tested the same day pulled 92 inches of suction and pegged my BAIRD meter right past 10, so more than 120 cfm. All of these measurements were taken at the end of each canister's hose. It is the most powerful vacuum I have tested. A new Kirby demoed in my home could only pull 9.0 on the BAIRD meter on the end of its hose. You are spending a lot more than you need to buying a Miele. Btw, Miele power nozzles are notoriously poor on American style deep pile carpets. They are fine if you have a shorter pile carpet but they bog down on deep carpets. Same thing for Wessel-Werk power nozzles. As for filtration, Kenmore has an excellent cloth HEPA dust bag for their canisters called the Q bag that can be bought in a package of six for $20.99 from Sears. They have a two stage pre-motor filter with activated charcoal on the back side (something Miele does not have) called the CF-1 filter and they all have HEPA exhaust filters with those on the new 600 series and the Elite 700 and 800 series having a layer of activated charcoal on them. The activated charcoal eliminates exhaust odors.

I vacuum quite a bit with corded vacuums/bagless and bagged ones. It's really awesome to have a cordless one. Get it asap. Make sure it's light to hold and suction is strong. As long as it can last about 30mins, it's good. Cheaper vacuum cleaners will have some drawbacks like battery do not last as long or it's a little heavier to hold, less warranty etc. But they all do the same thing - vacuum. So it's up to you. However, if you still want corded, please don't get bagless. It's so irritating to dispose of and clean. Much easier to take the bag and throw. Look for easy ways to buy the bags before you get the vacuum. Using shell points can exchange a simple light vacuum cleaner... and you can buy the bags from Taobao easily. Very cheap too.

Different types of vacuum work best depending on the size and layout of your home, and your lifestyle.

As the OP said already there are different vaccum avaible on the Internet. Just search on google for a good one.