Do Bagless Vacuum Cleaners Live Up To The Hype?
Apr 28th, 2010 Posted in technology | no comment »It used to be easy to choose a new vacuum cleaner, they all used bags and did their job well, so you just picked the one you liked the look of or one from a brand name you liked, and you were happy with that. Since Dyson launched the bagless cleaner though then the market has had an overhaul as other companies strived to compete with them. Now there are a huge range of designs and new technology to wade through when you are shopping.
So the once humble vacuum cleaner has been given a facelift and you can find them in all sorts of colours and shapes now, with hyped up names and odd looking attachments to do all sorts of jobs. Yet do we need all this new technology? I think most of us were quite happy with the simple older cleaners. Well below we look at the main choices you have when buying a modern vacuum cleaner:
Bagless: The original design by Dyson to do away with the bag in a vacuum cleaner was supposed to solve the problem of a your unit with a bag losing power as the bag fills up with dirt, and it turned the industry on its head when it launched. The jury is still out though as to whether there is any significant benefit to the technology, and if there is one then if it outweighs the drawbacks. For instance if you have allergies then the fact you have to empty all the dust and dirt out into a bag or bin when it is full is a lot messier than just throwing away a full bag like with a normal model.
Upright: This is the normal design for a vacuum cleaner, with the mechanics of it being upright with a handle at the top so you can push and pull the unit easily. The big advantage of this design is that as you can push and pull it while the head at the bottom does the cleaning, then you can quickly and easily cover large areas of open floor.
Canister vacuum: The canister design is the smaller vacuum that is on the floor with a long hose attachment coming out of it. This is better for houses and rooms that have a lot of furniture and not much open floor space. With an upright then you can quickly do large areas, but you struggle when you need to get under tables and chairs etc. With a canister model then you can easily get under furniture as the hose is a lot longer and the unit is smaller and easier to drag around, but doing large areas with them is a chore.
Carpet cleaner: If your carpets are a bit grubby after years of use then sometimes a normal vacuum cleaner won’t help because they just suck the top layer of dirt off. Instead you could go for a ‘carpet cleaner’ which uses shampoo instead (this should only be used every so often though, so it is in addition to, not instead of, your normal vacuum cleaner). You put water and shampoo into the machine, and then it injects that into the carpet and works it deep down into the pile with brushes as you move about the room. Then you go back over the area on a different setting and it will suck all the dirty water back out of the carpet so they end up looking almost like they did when you first bought them!
The Hoover U5140-900 is one of the top selling models on the market that uses a bag, but it costs less than 70 dollars.
