Thread Number: 39978
/ Tag: Recent Vacuum Cleaners from past 20 years
Suppose You Discovered That Your Favorite Vacuum |
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Post# 424393   4/28/2020 at 16:50 (1,455 days old) by vaclab (Pickerington, Ohio)   |   | |
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Or your daily driver, etc., wasn't very good. Say for example, you obtained measurable proof that your longtime "go-to" machine actually performed no better than average (or possibly worse) in your home.
1) Would you care? 2) Would you change to a better machine? Twice a week, I grab a vacuum to clean and before I do, I consult my extensive testing database. On many an occasion, I have found it increasingly difficult to use any machine that is below average even though I might really prefer/enjoy using it. And the worst part is that if I do indeed choose a poor performer, I always keep in the back of my mind that I'm knowingly leaving extra dirt for the next machine to pick up at a later date. Bill |
Post# 424404 , Reply# 2   4/28/2020 at 22:03 (1,455 days old) by Blackheart (North Dakota)   |   | |
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I hate to say it but all the research and knowledge has taken some of the "fun" out of collecting.
It is a bit harder to use certain machines when you know they're not great cleaners. I've always had an idea of how my machines "ranked" against one another, but your testing is far more precise than anything I've done. It's really allowed me to get a better feel for the performance of machines i've owned that are similar or the same. |
Post# 424421 , Reply# 3   4/29/2020 at 04:52 (1,455 days old) by huskyvacs (Gnaw Bone, Indiana)   |   | |
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The joy of vacuums for me is bringing the most worthless heaps I can find for under $50 (eBay prices - real world is cheaper) back to museum condition again and then using them to clean my house and also make showoff videos for collectors. I could care less how they clean - the joy is in using them around my house and having fun with them. A few of them I use just because I love the way the motor whirrs or the brushroll beats the carpet. I have a lot of memories with Electrolux PN...3? nozzles and the sound of an Olympia One canister. The Electrolux Epic also has a nostalgic sound to it too even though I never seen or owned one before - it just has "that noise" to it.
I have a brand new Hoover something or other - it's the dark blue pet vac - that I bought for my new daily driver upright ($200 at menards right now and I got it for $40 from a store salvage liquidator on a risky gamble - has absolutely no issues). I love how it cleans and it does not eat up throw rugs thanks to its suction relief feature. If I was not a collector it would be the only vacuum I use. However, when you are using a 80 year old vacuum from the 1920's that you restored yourself to clean your house that had its entire life up to that point being sitting in a barn loft out in Wisconsin since who knows when - there's something special about that. Every time I enter a beam of sunlight shining through the window and see the dust poofing out of the bag it gives me a laugh at picturing those 1920s housewives trying to vacuum road dust from their rugs just to put it back into the air again - like those old silent movies. I'm not a germophobe either - there's about 5 spiders living in my basement right now, and its full of cobwebs and my upstairs is just all layers of dust and tumbleweeds of dog and cat fur balled up in corners and heaped on anything sitting on the floor that hasn't been touched in 2 weeks or longer. I keep the house clean as best I can but having dirt and stuff all over doesn't make me lose sleep at night at all. Life is too short for that. I'm always happy to find a new vacuum in Goodwill for $10-$15 that I've seen on eBay that someone is trying to get $60-$100+ for and figuring out what's wrong with it and how to make it sparkle again (and also seeing what kind of dumb crap people vacuumed up in the bag - one time I found 4 alkaline batteries from the 1980s all beat up and corroded and mangled - how did they do that?) But yeah the whole facts and figures scenario - this is what dooms a lot of college people and technical people with their hobbies or whatever activity they do (you see it a lot with car people too). They all want everything to be a numerical formula and have all these statistics laid out - and that's just not what life is about. If you're doing it for a fun little informational spec sheet to print out and keep with the vacuum or to do testing comparisons a-la consumer reports - go for it - but do not live and worship by it. You are the best vacuum tester that I have seen that isn't locked behind company secrecy and unable to disclose their testing methods, and you definitely know what you're doing - but I just have to say, enjoy your vacuums, have fun with them, the statistics do not matter. Happy collecting! :) |
Post# 424425 , Reply# 4   4/29/2020 at 08:19 (1,455 days old) by suckolux (Yuba City, CA)   |   | |
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Post# 424427 , Reply# 5   4/29/2020 at 08:38 (1,455 days old) by jfalberti (Visalia, CA)   |   | |
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Post# 424470 , Reply# 6   4/29/2020 at 21:27 (1,454 days old) by ralph123 (Little Rock, AR)   |   | |
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I would keep in mind that none of them is going to remove all of the dirt, and not worry too much. Given that many of us have tile and wood floors, there's really not that much concern. |
Post# 424538 , Reply# 7   4/30/2020 at 20:18 (1,453 days old) by vacuumdevil (Vacuum Hell )   |   | |
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Post# 424627 , Reply# 13   5/1/2020 at 21:46 (1,452 days old) by MadMan (Chicago, IL, USA)   |   | |
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Well, if a machine performs poorly, that's one thing. But good enough is good enough. Yeah there's always a machine that can do better, but there are diminishing returns with these kinds of things, and price starts becoming an issue.
As for my other vacs, I often vac my room with my Eureka model 10. It has no brush so it can't pick up my sock lint, but I don't care because it's fun to use. |
Post# 424698 , Reply# 16   5/2/2020 at 21:22 (1,451 days old) by luxlife (Under a Pecan Tree)   |   | |
This post has been removed by the member who posted it. |
Post# 424759 , Reply# 18   5/3/2020 at 13:22 (1,451 days old) by gottahaveahoove (Pittston, Pennsylvania, 18640)   |   | |
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I'm just a "HOOVER Snob". kinda like that, too.
Our tenant vacuums everyday with her Hoover Convertible, model 1070. EVERYDAY! Actually, it never bothered me, except Christmas night, when our house was full of people. My mother swore one day she'd see brushes coming through the ceiling. That apartment, now, in once again part of the house. The tenant is 100. I'll bet that 1070 still works. |
Post# 424766 , Reply# 19   5/3/2020 at 16:06 (1,450 days old) by MadMan (Chicago, IL, USA)   |   | |
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35-50 cents per bag? That's a steal compared to shop vac bags at $5 each! Honestly I'm guilty of using shop vacs 'dry,' but mainly because A, I didn't even know you could get bags for them, and B, I've never had a nice shop vac. 8 or 9 months ago, I started remodeling my friend's kitchen, and he had a cheap crap, but brand new little shop vac and it had bags with it. I love the bags, and I gladly paid HIS money for many replacement bags. Luckily, it's a small unit, so the crappy paper bags from Harbor Freight work just fine.
Now I've got my super duper Fein shop vac, it's much bigger so the Harbor Freight bags are not big enough. So $15 for a 3 pack from Home Depot is what I'm stuck with. Probably can get them cheaper online for the next big dusty project I undertake. But being a nice piece of equipment, I intend to keep it that way. And not to vacuum up so much plaster dust with no bag or filter that it cakes up the fan blades and unbalances them... As for bagless house vacs, it's a very different story, because they're cyclonic. The filters don't become choked with dust after 5 minutes. And if you have the right vacuum, the filters are washable foam... not like a shop vac's $20 pleated paper filter that you have to beat the dust out of inside a garbage can outdoors, or blow out using compressed air, also outdoors, and then have to wash your clothes and take a shower afterwards. Not really apples to apples, I think. |