Are vacuums worth fixing?

100th post! woo hoo!

sorry, I had to

"New" reader no more!

Fail, still says new reader for maddabe. From one new reader to another.

To get back on topic, having no vacuum at the current time and have been seriously considering just getting a shop vac for the two rugs in the house, as it should do wood floors just fine. Keeping it manly and all. Anyone else go this route?

Damn! my profile dropped the "new"

EastCoastMojo wrote: Once you fix it, borrow a friends' Dyson. Vacuum your floor with your old vac and then immediately vacuum it again with the Dyson. .

thats the old sales pitch for ANY vac salesman... the key here is to then after you've gone over it with the SUPER SUCK 3000 go back over it with yours (assuming yours is bagless)... and you will STILL suck stuff up even if yours is pretty close to gone (the bagless just means that you can see it... the bag won't let you see it doh.)... a vac is never going to get 100% out of the carpet... so there will always be SOME left to get out.

I was doing carpet care a few years ago... one of the forums I was on did a test between vacs ranging from a cheap $60 bagless bissell, the conquest (high end commercial), kirby, orick, and of course dyson...

after they ran it though their testing the results where obvious... the bissell was the best of the bunch... no it won't last as long... no it doesn't have the most SUCK (the dyson did) but it got the most dirt... and when it comes to a vac that's what counts...

the one thing I do recall of note was that the dyson doesn't clog easily... important if you are vacing mildly wet carpet but not a big issue with dry carpet.

if money is a consideration... go with the inexpensive bagless bissell... you'll replace it in a year or 2... but it'll still cost less then the "good" vacs in the long run.

all said and done the best vac is a vac that gets used regularly... a cheap vac that gets used regularly will do MUCH more to keeping your carpets in good condition then a $1200 vac that sits in the closet (which is not uncommon... lugging around a 50# vac is a pain... even with the new fangled self driven tranmission thingie ;-)

GhiaMonster wrote: Fail, still says new reader for maddabe. From one new reader to another. To get back on topic, having no vacuum at the current time and have been seriously considering just getting a shop vac for the two rugs in the house, as it should do wood floors just fine. Keeping it manly and all. Anyone else go this route?

how big?... hang it outside and use a rug beater...

biggest loss with something like that is that you don't get a beater bar which is what actually does most of the work... it vibrates/beats the dirt to the surface so the air can suck it up... it's not going to do much moving of dirt with just suck... but the suck would get the big stuff on the surface... and be nice to have in the shop ;-)

donalson wrote: thats the old sales pitch for ANY vac salesman...

I know what it sounds like, just do it once and tell me if you aren't impressed.

I have a Dirt Devil with the same problem.. lack of sucking. It's got the little cone filter in it and clear flexible hose. It won't even pick up styrofoam now.

My bookkeeper was bitching about her vaccuum. No suckpower. She brought it over, I opened it up and found the tubes clogged with most of a dog. Almost filled a grocery bag with it. Back together, works like new. Maybe 15 minutes to make my bookkeeper very happy. I like a happy bookkeeper.