More domestic polls [Matthew's Journal]

We've been very happy with our Dyson which we've had for about 13 years now. You do have to keep the filters changed regularly, but I guess that's the same with any other vacuum cleaner.

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I have a Dyson mainly because it is light enough to cart upstairs. My cleaner moans about it and says that her fav is a Henry and that's the one that she got for herself.

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Have you got one of the little ones, then?

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Yep - one of the original cylinder ones - I have to say it has been going strong for 10 years.

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We've also got a non-Dyson cyclonic upright with powered brush (and turbo-powered hose attachment) for dealing with cat hair. It works well, and the big win that pretty much any upright has for me is that using a cylinder's floor-cleaning attachment wrecks my back after half a room. But it is heavy and has a disturbing habit of breaking in the hands of anyone but ourselves or the vacuum cleaner repairers. Which makes diagnosing any underlying fault there may be tricky.

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dyson, or knock-off vortex-filtering cleaner. anything with a bag is just dumb (impo)

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Yes; from what I remember ours is a fake-Dyson and works pretty well. The Dyson-type does seem to work a lot better, though.

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We've fairly recently replaced a cheap bagless unbranded machine with a Dyson. It works a *lot* better. Hopefully it will also last longer. I'm sure the Henry would be fine too though.

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I got a second-hand DC01 for 50 quid from an ebayer calling themselves the Dyson Recycling Centre. It was in decent enough nick; I've needed to change the belt but that wasn't difficult (manual and spares available online).

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I've had a Henry for a year or so now, been very happy with it. Major plus point is that it's quiet, especially in low-power mode. If I were getting it again I might get the model with motorised head brushes for severe cat-hair infestation of the downstairs rug, but it's no big deal. I've heard tell that Henries don't mind omitting the bag, but I'm not sure I trust that, and the bags are big and common.

I've never used a Dyson, but the ones I've encountered seemed loud.

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Get a roomba!

(courtesy of my Mum we have a Dyson knock-off; it's not as nice as a Dyson because it doesn't have the cool ball thing so it's a pig to steer, also it falls over if you use the hose attachment. But it does clean the floor which is The Point Of Vacuum Cleaners after all)

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Oh yes, roomba FTW! A friend has one. It's useless at cleaning but it is so much fun to watch in action!

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Roomba is good when you have a big vacuum cleaner. We used to do a big clean every few weeks and the Roomba every other day or so.

Roomba not good with new carpets.

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My aunt gave her Dyson away after a couple of months due to it making repeated attempts to devour the carpet. She is however the only person I've known to have this problem.

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I do find ours can be quite hard to move sometimes, due to it sucking so strongly. With poorly fixed carpets this could be an issue.

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We have both. I like the Dyson for the attachments and end result but it copes less well with rubble and brick dust than the Henry.

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The henry is MUCH better than the dyson, but we may be peculiar in our bunny-hay, long hair, and building rubble hoovering needs. I gave the dyson a go, and was disappointed. And all the millions of attachements are annoying, rather than plug in and go. And the the thing needs emptying before it's got round our house once (ok we don't hoover often, and there is the hay/fluff)...

Henry easily wins for me.

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I am very fond of my Roomba, and thoroughly recommend one.

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You think they are worth the money? I have wondered...

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I've been very happy with ours, although I type this in the middle of a stuck-bumper problem (first major issue since we bought it, and apparently a good squirt of compressed air should do the trick - although this meant going out to buy compressed air, which I have yet to apply). We've got wooden floors, which it's very happy with, and it's generally a lot easier to set it around the apartment a couple of days a week rather than drag an upright out once a month. We've got a couple of tricky corners it doesn't get into, like under our strange built-in radiators, but using the nozzle from the upright on those once every six months or so is hardly a major PITA.

The other major advantage is that it actually makes you keep your floors clean and tidy, else it zooms around eating your paperclips and getting upset by bumping into books!

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I deem baglessness actively disadvantageous: why faff around emptying the vacuum cleaner into a bin liner amid billowing clouds of dust when you can just pull a tab to seal the bag?

Also, I'm not convinced Dysons are very sturdy: certainly, ones I've seen used in office environments never last the year without something snapping off them - often something important.

Personally, I bought a Bosch cylinder vacuum cleaner back in 1995. Though I don't use it nearly as often as it should, nonetheless it counts for something that it's still as good as the day I bought it.

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I find the baglessness advantageous because I can empty my Dyson into the compost heap and don't have the extra waste of the vacuum bag.

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Hmm. I wouldn't dare try to compost half the stuff I vacuum up!

In the same way that they now sell multi-comparment kitchen bins, perhaps we need vacuum cleaners with a big compostable/recyclable/general-waste selector on it? (-8

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I empty the Dyson straight into the black wheelie bin, because not convinced it is all compostable, but the same principle applies.

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Although ours are a lot older (I use the plural as there have been 3 in our family, all the same model though) possibly because they are not used as often as office ones would be, but anyway we have still had snappy-off problems. Although you can get the replacements quite easily usually, so maybe this isn't SUCH a problem.

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Why faff around emptying the vacuum cleaner into a bin liner when you can just tip the cylinder into the outside bin?

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I deem bags actively disadvantageous because of their interaction with my ability to breathe[1] (in the case of all bagged vacuum cleaners I have known).

I personally have not had trouble emptying cylinders.

[1] in the sense of asthma etc.

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yeah the clouds of smoke from bagless is really nasty/annoying.

Henrys can be used bagless (but less conveniently) so it's not necessarily a distinguishing feature.

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Bagless cyclonic cleaners are definitely the way too go. I noticed a huge difference when I got one. The are plenty of non-Dyson versions which are cheaper and as effective around.

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We have a Dyson, but Alec got it from Emmaus on their solidarity sale day so it was only about £15. We like it, but I'm not sure we'd pay full whack for one new. (Though we don't tend to buy household items new anyway because we are ~~misers~~tree hugging hippies.)

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An Electrolux Ergorapido vacuum cleaner. It takes up little space, is light and maneuvers easily. I used to have a Dyson, but I prefer this one.

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I have a Sebo with extra allergy filter goodness. When I bought it the shop assistant advised against bagless vacuum cleaners for those with allergies, as emptying a bagless object is a much sneezier wheezier task than dumping a bag in the bin.

(S)

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Ah interesting point.

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We've not been too enamoured with our Dyson, but it is an older model. I find it very heavy too.

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May I borrow a corner of your thread? Because I'd like to know from your clearly knowledgeable friends what they would recommend as a lightweight, small, but still powerful/reliable/easy-to-use vacuum for a small space and someone who can't lift/push something heavy.

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If you mean very small, I've been really impressed with a rechargeable Dustbuster. It's extremely good for when there's a localised mess to clear up (e.g. brick dust, spilled dry food, walked-in mud) and it feels like too much effort to get the big vacuum cleaner out, drag it down the stairs, unwind its cord to plug it in, and reverse the process ten seconds later.

It sounds like you mean for whole rooms rather than localised spills, but I don't see why it couldn't cope with those if they're not huge.

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Some of the smaller Electrolux ones are very good for that. I have a thing called Ergospace (I think), and it's tiny, the main body being about football sized and not much heavier. Despite this, it is impressively powerful, and I find it very easy to use. Electrolux bags are slightly less easy to find in mainstream shops than other brands, but there's the internet.

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Henry's go forever, faithfully serving you in their bland, good-enough kind of way. A Dyson will be wonderful, until it breaks. Which it will.

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We have a Dyson. It's pretty good. It's much better than our previous one (old Electrolux, I think, BICBW). It occasionally leaves some bits of carpet looking like they still need cleaning, but I think that's because (a) we have cats, (b) we don't hoover as often as we ought and (c) some of the carpets are cream. I quite like the idea of a Henry because they're light, and you don't have to drag the heaviest bit around as often, but I've never actually used one.

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Very happy with our Dyson - been going about 7 years so far. Not needing bags is a bonus as it's one less thing to run out of; plus being able to see the dirt as it goes in is v.satisfying. Their website & customer service is excellent too - I lost one of the attachments, and got a replacement delivered in 2 days.

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来週、東京に来るの？

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When we had a bagged vacuum cleaner from Freecycle, we had trouble getting bags for it. Only get a bagged vacuum cleaner if you're sure of where you're going to find a supply of bags - they are getting harder to source as bagless cleaners become more popular.

I would not recommend a cheap knock off of a Dyson - we tried that twice and they both broke after about six months, so we decided that this was one appliance where you get what you pay for. We've had our current real Dyson around that length of time now and are very happy with it - other people I know with Dysons can vouch for their reliability.

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Clean a room using your old cleaner. Get hold of a Dyson, and vacuum it again straight away. This will show you why a Dyson is A Good Thing.

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I did a lot of research when buying a new vacuum cleaner at the start of the year. Being slightly allergenic and all that, I was after decent performance but I didn't need fancy bells and whistles. (Never understood the point of having bells on a vacuum cleaner - I suppose it warns the cat that you're coming.)

I spoke to several people who have a Dyson and not a single one of them could emphatically recommend it to me. I have also experienced emptying a Dyson and it's not pleasant if you're allergy-prone as you get a fine film of dust flung up as the cover is opened. (I'm generally unconvinced by the bagless model; better to have the dust kept in a bag!)

I was very tempted by Henry (because, think about it, whenever you see professional cleaners in your office, school, wherever - it's nearly always a Henry that they have) but they're a little too large to get round my house.

After many positive reviews, I went for a Miele S5281 from Argos, and I've been very pleased with it. I even took out the 10-year warranty for an extra £30. (This included a free pack of dust bags - these weren't sent promptly, so I phoned up to complain, and a set arrived shortly afterwards. Then just last week, the original set turned up, having been lost in the post.)

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I have found that a Roomba AND a Dyson is a fantastic combination.

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I have an upright bagged Panasonic, which replaced the upright bagged something else. Both lasted for years. The bags are easy to fit and remove without hurling dust all over everywhere.

Ma purchased a bagless something or other last year. It has been nothing but a PITA. I emptied it last time I was up there and ended up covered in crap. I also rinsed out the filter, which was so crammed with crap it took 10 minutes of brushing to get it to a state where I could actually wash it out and swill another bucket load of crap down the sink.

A Dyson would have to be pretty damn AWESOME for me to a) fork out the money and b) be convinced to go bagless.

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As you may remember, I worked for Dyson in my year out, so I have been using Dysons for approx 15 years (eek!) and personally carried out some of their comparison testing against competitors and some destructive testing attempting to break the plastic.

We have a DC04 that I bought in the January sales in 2003. It spent some time living with Rosie until Keith moved out of this house, taking his even older DC01 with him. It gets used weekly by the cleaner, and occasionally at other times by us. When the cleaner destroyed the cable by running over it with the brushbar, we got a really good service visit, on a weekend. The service engineer replaced the cable, tweaked a couple of other bits, and ordered us a new footplate that was a new design to help prevent cables getting sucked into the brushbar. All for a one-off callout fee.

We occasionally destroy the belt that drives the brushbar, but this is home-replaceable and as

crazyscot says, manuals and parts can be bought online.

We also have a small handheld Dyson (DC16, I think) which I bought second-hand. I don't think I'd have bought it at the RRP but it's very handy for picking up small spills and removing cat hair from sofas.

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I love Dysons! When I first bought one I hoovered and it just amazed me how much cleaner things got. I would definitely advocate for them.

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I have a Siemens- which I think might be about ten years old, and was also inherited.

I don't like upright vacuums, which is why I went for the Henry as I find this type easier to use. I'd go for a nice light non-upright.

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Matthew's Journal

October