Please help me choose a suitable vacuum cleaner

cpbackhouse

We recently bought a Shark having had a Dyson for several years. Its like night and day. The suction is great, its really easy to manoeuvre around tight spaces and it feels so much better put together. I love the lift away bit for doing the stairs etc and its really easy to switch from using it as an upright to using hand tools (which was our biggest issue with the Dyson). The only things against it (so far) are that its quite narrow so have to do more 'hoovering' and the collection box is really small, but is so easy to empty I'm not sure that's going to be a problem.
We got ours in the recent prime day event for a great price at amazon. I would be surprised if it wasn't on deal again for black Friday.

daveyjp

Annie1612 said:

daveyjp said:

 No complaints about our Vax airlift. Bagless, adjustable height for different floors, bag and motor lift off the wheels for stairs, excellent value too at £100-120.

Thanks for your suggestion. Does it have adjustable suction? I have looked at it on Argos website but it’s not clear.

Not adjustable suction, adjustable floor type slider which sets the height of the brush bar.  High for hard floors, low for carpets.

If you set it for thick carpet and use it on lino you can barely push it as it seals to the floor.

JJ_Egan

Vax PWR 4 is my latest

Annie1612

Thanks for all comments- I am looking at all your suggestions online and comparing them. I am still searching for that elusive vacuum that ticks all the boxes ie. easy to store, great for all floor types, built to last, doesn’t stick to the carpet or suck rugs up, adjustable suction, easy to manoeuvre round the furniture and under beds, and inexpensive. Like everything, I think I will have to compromise on at least one of these...

neilmcl

Had my Shark Duoclean upright for a number of years now and can't fault it's cleaning ability. One slight niggle is when you want to use an attachment you have to fit it to the handle rather than directly to the hose which can sometimes make it a bit awkward trying to reach in behind things or get into tight spaces. Also, you need to make sure you lift up any stray cables, shoes etc before using because the way the duoclean is designed it'll gobble any cables/laces etc.

kdotdotdotdot

I swear by my robo vacuum - roomba.  Bought mine online for £150.  It trundles round by itself and takes away all the headache of vacuuming.

The only thing you need to know: roombas don't have the most amazing suction in the world, but that doesn't matter because you're not the one doing the vacuuming.  You can let the roomba do its thing - daily if you want - while you get on with other, more interesting things, and you're not going to care that it takes maybe 20 minutes to do a room that you can do in 10.  

floppydisk1

Best vacuum cleaners are Sebo and Miele - in that order. If those are too expensive ( esp. Miele does some reasonably priced, not much more than  £ 150 on a promotion ) Henry is cheap and cheerful . Every cleaner that can't or won't pay for a Sebo has one of them, so can't be that bad. Spending over £ 100 on a Shark or Vax - every cleaner would go for Henry instead....

troffasky

My mum gave me her old Henry nearly 15 years ago. She's had [at least] two Dysons and a Miele in that time. Henry is still working just fine for me. He's had a new set of winder contacts in that time but that took me less than hour to fit and cost about a fiver. I am confident that I will still be able to buy parts for decades to come.

I get what you mean about storage, Henry is not particularly neat or compact.

I don't understand the appeal of a Dyson. Everyone I know with one thinks they're rubbish.

ElephantBoy57

I have had Dysons for around 20 years, I have still got a DC07, which is an older one and can be bought on ebay for around £50

I find the DC04/DC07 are great for carpets, but I bought a cylinder vac, ebay(£100) quite a lot bigger than a Henry, thats great for the stairs and car.

Ditzy_Mitzy

We've had a Sebo upright in the family for over fifteen years.  It's got an automatic brush roller height adjustment mechanism, which works on the fly so cleaning different flooring types is as simple as putting the cleaner down and switching it on.  There's no trouble moving from deep to short pile carpet to hard floors, suction is good and bag replacement is straightforward.  Most importantly it's not a cheaply made throwaway cleaner; it comes to pieces, completely, and can be serviced.  Components can be replaced fairly simply and spare parts are available from the factory and retailers.  Owing to this it's more of an investment than a cheap one and lasts far better.  We've replaced the odd thing on ours, here and there, but doing so has kept it going.  I don't see why it won't last another ten years.