Decent hoover / vacuum? Dyson gone for a second time in 12 months.

Doozergirl

Hoovers are the bane of my life. 

H complains that none of our hoovers work, yet on a regular basis I'll be hunting for the thing, text the family and get the reply 'it's on site'.   Sucking up plaster dust.  🤦🏼‍♀️

Cue me then spending every effort to hoover trying to clean out filters and take the things apart.  When I finally get them working again, they disappear, only to arrive back full of plaster.   Like ash, I'm sure, there's barely a vacuum that can cope with it.  If you can find one, it's luck more than judgement, I'm pretty sure.  

We had four hoovers in this house a few weeks ago.    The only one that doesn't disappear is our Roomba robot that roams the house randomly, but it is really handy for keeping on top of the hard floor.  

I bought a Shark yesterday.  Not
entirely sure why I bother, but it will be nice to have one that works for a while.  

Apodemus

As suggested above, you need to stop using the fancy/expensive house-hoover for the ash.  I've got a Wickes Wet & Dry vacuum for all the dirty jobs.  It blows as well as sucks, tough as old boots and at £39 is less than half the price of a Henry (https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Wet+Dry-Vacuum-Cleaner-With-Blower-20L---1250W/p/215735).  The ability to use it as a wet vacuum is great for these emergency occasions when you get a dishwasher leak or similar. 

GDB2222

One of the great things about Henry is that it is pretty easy to work on, and the parts are cheap. 

JustAnotherSaver

Apodemus said:

As suggested above, you need to stop using the fancy/expensive house-hoover for the ash.  I've got a Wickes Wet & Dry vacuum for all the dirty jobs.  It blows as well as sucks, tough as old boots and at £39 is less than half the price of a Henry (https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Wet+Dry-Vacuum-Cleaner-With-Blower-20L---1250W/p/215735).  The ability to use it as a wet vacuum is great for these emergency occasions when you get a dishwasher leak or similar. 

If I start leaking I don't think it'll be a hoover I'll be needing  

onthebench

We bought a Shark last year and the performance is great - our bedroom carpet is fairly deep pile, and cream coloured, and the previous vacuum always struggled to get hair and dark coloured fluff out of it. The Shark made it look and feel like a new carpet.

I also use it to suck the ash out of the door of the woodburner and from underneath the stove. The filters are easy to clean and it hasn't been killed by it yet. But having read this thread maybe I should stop!

On the downside it is a large and heavy bit of kit - but it is versatile in that you can remove the floor brush part and attach it the the end of the hose, or use it as a handheld by lifting off the dust compartment.

GrumpyDil

Another one for a Henry type vacuum. I use a wet n dry screwfix vacuum I picked up a couple of years ago because it is designed to handle heavy duty crud etc. 

Ganga

My late father in law chucked out a cylinder vac ,a BVC make ,complete with a cloth type bag that was easy to clean ,took it to work so the lads could clean out the cab interiors of the company vans ,lasted years till one bloke sucked up all the broken glass of a smashed windscreen ,filter bag ripped to bits and since the vac was about 40 years old could not get a replacement ,then another fool used it with no bag/ filter and the motor gave up.

DPR87

I recently brought a Shark. 
It is fairly bulky and partner finds it a little heavy to difficult but the thing is almost bigger than her. 

I really like it. Picks up a lot of stuff but the anti hair wrap isn't that great. Comes apart to make it easy to vacuum the stairs and sofas etc. The dust bin is fairly small though.

onthebench

DPR87 said:

I recently brought a Shark. 
It is fairly bulky and partner finds it a little heavy to difficult but the thing is almost bigger than her. 

I really like it. Picks up a lot of stuff but the anti hair wrap isn't that great. Comes apart to make it easy to vacuum the stairs and sofas etc. The dust bin is fairly small though.

Pretty much my thoughts on the Shark but the anti hair wrap seems to work pretty well for me. I have a wife and daughter both with long hair and the only times I have had to take the roller out to clean it has been when I’ve sucked up one of their hair grips and it’s got stuck between the roller and the brush head. 

They are heavy but they do a good job. 

JustAnotherSaver

Henry purchased.

A lot smaller, lighter and quieter than the one my mother has (which would've been bought somewhere around 2005 maybe at a guess. I'm likely to be way out though. It's pretty old).

First run on it and it seemed to do the job. Not bad for £100. Will have to use a fair few bags before it comes to the price of what a Dyson or whatever would've been.