What vacum cleaner to buy?

cambsno

cambsno

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Losing the will to live with our Dyson cordless. Got about 18mths ago but getting worse. Basically it has 3 settings, turbo rarely works as the filter is 'blocked', replace it with the spare and 5 mins later the same. 2nd setting is better but still have issues and the base setting hardly sucks anything.

So, rather than spend £400+ on a new Dyson and have the same what do you have and recommend?

  1. Appreciate cordless will not be as powerful but that is the preference, easier for car, and the small localised pickups
  2. House is 3/4 bed but on 3 floors so no huge rooms and 2 sets of stairs. Needs to do them easily and not weigh a ton
  3. Storage - the smaller the better (thats why cordless works)
Is Shark any good? They seem to be the main competitor, otherwise who else is good? Important that it works on the full power mode (even though I know it drains battery)

No real budget, anything above £400 seems to be a lot to pay for a hoover but would probably go up to that rather than get something costing £100 which does not meet requirements
 
We have a Shark (as does my son) which replaced a corded dyson. Much better, lighter and gets a lot of use. We also have a cordless Dyson (not sure which model but a cheaper one) and the Shark is used most of the time.
 
Shark for us to ( corded one though ) gave a year old dyson cordless away , total waste of money .. . Not what you want to hear but corded are superior
 
We bought a cordless Dyson a couple of years ago, refurbished. After 18 months the battery failed, now there are other problems with attachments. It's wonderfully light, but poor quality.
We also have a relatively small and light Meile that's probably 15 years old and very functional. The one downside is it needs bags.
 
For that £400 budget, I'd go for a Henry on each floor!
 
the black fox said:
Shark for us to ( corded one though ) gave a year old dyson cordless away , total waste of money .. . Not what you want to hear but corded are superior
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+1
 
Yes, we have had several cordless handheld dysons for the last 10 years, the batteries seem to become virtually useless after a couple of years. We have two that are almost useless now. This thread is helpful, looks like a Shark is on the shopping list.
 
We have an Oreck corded, very light and efficient if a bit noisy.
 
We stopped buying Dyson a few years ago. They cost a fortune and last a couple of years at best.
We currently have 2 sharks. Corded only. I’ll never buy a cordless. They were much cheaper than the Dyson and work much better than the Dyson ever did, although one of them has just broken at the base. It’s is 3 years old and is used regularly so hopefully we can find spares and fix it.
 
We have two old corded Dysons they weigh a ton (two because we combined households). My one IIRC I bought in the late 1980's and SWMBO bought hers IIRC in the late 90's. NB one upstairs and the other downstairs.

Both have had some servicing by a local shop and on mine the handle fractured and I did the surgery and still going strong/holding together >10 years on.

We have been tempted by a cordless so the Shark recommendations are interesting.
 
The wife got fed up lugging the shark up stairs ,it’s a big unit .. so I think last week ? Bought a beldray for upstairs but just asked and she said if anything it is to powerfull ..
We also have a g.tec cordless but that’s only slightly better than the dyson was . Top vote still goes with the corded shark
 
Well, I'll rock the boat we had a Dyson DC15 animal bought it in 2005 and it worked great, in 2016 we did a complete house renovation and I used it to clean up after all the various jobs over the 3-4 months of the renovation thinking that it was getting old and we'd get a new one after, I thought I had killed it on numerous occasions but a clean out of dust and rubble and a wash of the filter it was good as new. We did eventually replace it with a Dyson V8 Carbon Fiber 4 years ago, the corded was getting a bit heavy for SWMBO to lug upstairs, and four years on we have had no problems with it and nothing has broken or needed replacing, my daughter is still using the DC15.
 
I have had 2 upright Dysons corded. Dc15 lasted about 9 yrs and was excellent. After that went downhill. Bought Shark. And its way better.. corded purely for cost.
 
Milo King said:
I got a Henry 12 odd years ago and it still going strong.
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I have a dustpan and brush that to is still going strong after 20+ years and also doesn't clean carpets very well at all as well.
Don't get me wrong Henry is a fine vacuum for wooden floors, DIY, the garage that sort of thing, it's almost useless on carpets.
 
tarric said:
Well, I'll rock the boat we had a Dyson DC15 animal bought it in 2005 and it worked great, in 2016 we did a complete house renovation and I used it to clean up after all the various jobs over the 3-4 months of the renovation thinking that it was getting old and we'd get a new one after, I thought I had killed it on numerous occasions but a clean out of dust and rubble and a wash of the filter it was good as new. We did eventually replace it with a Dyson V8 Carbon Fiber 4 years ago, the corded was getting a bit heavy for SWMBO to lug upstairs, and four years on we have had no problems with it and nothing has broken or needed replacing, my daughter is still using the DC15.
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Not just you. We bought a Dyson Animal in 2000, had it for 20 years!
 
ecoleman said:
I have a Henry for the garage, cars, diy stuff and I love it.
Doubt very much it would be any good for carpets indoors though.
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Works very well on carpets IME. No clogging of the brushes either! The one at Mrs Nod's yoga studio (carpeted throughout) gets used every day and is 10m years old - still going strong. The upright she had before got killed by long hair clogs after 18 months.
 
Wouldn't use anything but a Henry - superb bit of kit.
 
robj20 said:
I have a dustpan and brush that to is still going strong after 20+ years and also doesn't clean carpets very well at all as well.
Don't get me wrong Henry is a fine vacuum for wooden floors, DIY, the garage that sort of thing, it's almost useless on carpets.
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Not sure what was up with your Henry but mine works perfectly on carpets
 
Milo King said:
Not sure what was up with your Henry but mine works perfectly on carpets
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Nothing up with it, they're just rubbish for carpets, as the comment above without a motorised brush they don't pick the deep stuff up.
 
They are not rubbish for carpets - we have used them for years.

Which model Henry are you talking about?
 
Our Henry did have a motorised brush option. It's demoted to the garage now (bit of a beast) but still gets brought in when doing DIY or decorating. A bit unwieldly for SWMBO, so she has a cordless G Tech air ram (plus the "free" hand-held small one) which is great, now there are just the two of us. Even my four year old grandson can (and loves to volunteer to) use it! (with the handle in the lowered position!).
 
In our 57 years together we have never had a vacuum cleaner with a revolving/beater brush. Never found a problem. We (I) used to vac the whole of the downstairs every day - every other day now!
 
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Al1944 said:
In our 57 years together we have never had a vacuum cleaner with a revolving/beater brush. Never found a problem. We (I) used to vac the whole of the downstairs every day - every other day now!
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I imagine you'd be disgusted in what a decent carpet vacuum would pick up.
My mother was the same for years, got her a Dyson when they first came out and it filled up in each room.
 
robj20 said:
I imagine you'd be disgusted in what a decent carpet vacuum would pick up.
My mother was the same for years, got her a Dyson when they first came out and it filled up in each room.
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That is exactly how I ended up with a Dyson!

I had hoovered before a friend brought her Dyson round and was appalled by how much more the Dyson got out! Did a bit of research and bought a refurbished DC40 Animal, still the best model they made. Have used many different vacuums in other peoples houses and would still prefer mine over all of them.

Cordless of all sorts are a gimmick which may suit some people for different reasons but long term corded will outlast them all, just my own opinion.
 
the wife has a Shark, the one with the pet hair removal in it. She loves it.
Me I have a black and decker for the car :D
 
Used a few Henrys in car valeting, almost every car has carpets, work fine, even with daily use.
 
We have a Shark and a Henry

Don't use the Henry much any more, because the Shark does the job just as well and is a lot more convenient
 
We have a Vax AirStretch Pet Max. It's not quite the same build quality as Dyson (which we've also owned) but just as good, if not actually better.
 
Use a Vax upright for big areas and then go round with a Henry for the corners etc
our Henry does have a special head for carpets it’s only because we have 4 cats that we need something that’s better at getting the cats fluff up
have had a Dyson in the past and it wasn’t any better that anything else , my wife wanted another Dyson but I couldn’t bring myself to pay that much for a vacuum :oops: :$
 
We have a Shark as well, corded though, and it's brilliant...
 
We are still using our twenty year old Dyson DC4, which needs a new hose and filters, may even treat it to a new, uprated motor for £14.99.
 
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Just bought a Dyson v10 on the Black Friday deal to replace our elderly DC08. JL are delivering tomorrow. Based on comments here I'm starting to worry. But I bet it's actually great.
 
It's probably great to begin, but in 3 or 4 years may no longer be so.
 
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