Be Excellent To Each Other

I will soon have cause to replace my Dyson DC07. I had a quick scouting trip around Comet and although my first instinct was to buy the equivalent current Dyson model (DC14, I think) it seems everyone and his brother has knocked off Dyson's bagless cyclone design now. Are they all as good, or should I just get a Dyson? I seem to remember loads of people on here think Dysons are rubbish, although I've always been happy with the DC07.

Note that I have two very hairy dogs, so I want a real badass vacuum. I don't care if a Henry will last me fifteen years if I have to spend five of those years going over and over the same spot of carpet.

The early Dysons are brilliant. The more recent ones, IME, are much poorer quality. They lose power really easily. Ours is a Vax, and it massively outperforms our previous Dyson.

EDIT - Cheaper, too.

What model is it, Cras? You have cats, right?

We had the Dyson Animal, specifically designed for pet hair and the like. We have two Labradors (not especially bad hair-wise), and it lasted a year. We've got some industrial strength thing now, the type the janitor used at school. It's ace.

Hey, Grim..., you have a Which? subscription, right? Can you peek at their last vacuum test?

Men buying vacuum cleaners generally results in hilarious "ride-on" type ones being purchased. Or one of the horse drawn varieties that makes a sound like Krakatoa.

I'll find out when doing so wouldn't involve clambering over the wife to reach the bedside cupboard and me getting a bollocking. It does a grand job of getting black cat hair out of light coloured carpet.

We got a DC24 "The Ball" recently. It's awesome, and survived Charl immediately hoovering a mobile phone charger up it.

I hope the charger was destroyed though. That's the sort of hoover I want. One that wrecks great spinning bladed vengeance on all loose objects within a ten foot radius.

This is the one we have... The animal version.

I like it, had to replace our old dyson, that only lasted 7 years. Should have been longer but we had a lot of building prjects when we first moved in and plaster kills vacuums.

I'm impatient, so I paid a £1 for a Which? trial. Their top five Best Buy uprights are:

Miele S7210 (£229)
Miele S7260 Cat&Dog (£270)
Dyson DC25 Ball Animal (£241)
Sebo Felix 1 Premium (£195)
Dyson DC14 All Floors (£180)
... more Dysons ...

The Miele and Sebo models are bagged designs, which I can't be arsed with. So the Which? advice is "get a Dyson".

Motherfucking Henry.

Our Dyson, which we've had for about 7-8 years now, burned it's motor out about 4 years ago and we bought a Miele Cat&Dog while I hemmed and hawwed about what to do with it. After a few calls to local companies to fix it, we called Dyson and they came out and completely overhauled the machine (new motor, new belt, new filters, new cyclone) and didn't charge us. We kept the Miele as a back up - well, literally to do the upstairs ;-) It lasted a year and was fucked.

Our Dyson is still soldiering on - granted, with our three doogles it needs stripping down and cleaning every 2-3 months, but it's still working fine. Point is, it's a pretty open system and I can't fault Dyson customer service - hell, they gave us a date with a 2 hour time slot and hit it smack in the middle and still didn't fucking charge us.

Buy the Dyson.

We've got two cats so lots of hair, getting a Henry and ditching the ridiculously over-designed Dyson pile of crap we had was a good decision. They're just a massive motor in a plastic tub with a bag in it, they work really well and have loads more suction than our DC07 ever did.

Wait, maybe I meant DC25...

Either way, yes - the charger was destroyed, the cable was pulled a good inch out of the main unit. Quite a resilient charger, really.

edit: Yes, DC25 Allfloors, says my Amazon history.

Best hoover I've ever used. It weighs fuck all (we're talking obsene lightness) and has enough power to pick up anything. It picked up the cable for my headphones and ripped it clean out of the phones. Only one niggle with it, it doesn't have any attatchments. Kinda is what it is. Amazing cleaner tho. IIRC it weighs about 7lbs. Or half a stone. Fuck all.

http://www.homevac.co.uk/products.asp?urx=cd:XL2005HH;

I just got myself a DC14 for £45 on ebay/ Re-serviced and all is well so far and it was an Animal version!

Sell dogs, coat house in plastic, live in tent in back yard.

No need for hoover

flippancy aside, I also have a Vax cyclone doobery, and it sucks hard (in a good way, its doesn't suck, it SUCKS). It feels like it could attach itself to the ceiling

Dyson, like what I've got.

I've got a £30 one from Tesco, and a cleaner, so I don't care if it's shit or not.

Buy a Henry. I like them so much I have one in the office and one for home.

Yes they have a bag but they cost pennies and the good thing about a Henry is they last forever because they are so simple and every part can be purchased widely. The Henry is pretty much unchanging so none of this "sorry guv that's the 2006 model and we no longer have any parts".

Also they have a smiling face.

I don't care about this. Seriously. I'd rather get a badass hoover that halves my hoovering time and replace it in 5-10 years than buy one optimised for reliability that'll last the rest of my life but make the hoovering take longer. My feelings on this are strongest at this time of year, when my dogs are shedding like mad.

Which? on the Numatic Henry HVR200:

Why are you replacing it, out of interest? Most parts are available pretty cheaply and they're very easy to work on.

I would say "just get a dyson" - at the recon price you can't really beat it.

If you get something else make sure it's an upright with rotating brush and bagless collector - this is essential for dog or cat hair.

One day, someone will ask a question about an electrical appliance that Kalmar knows nothing about. I predict it won't be soon, however.

Where can I look at recons? Ebay?

What makes you say that, certainly it hasn't been my experience? The Henry I bought has so much suction that it just doesn't seem to need the rotating brushes. If it does lose suction as it ingests hair then it is only negligible because I've never noticed any difference having only ever changed the bag when it seems full. Also the fact that it isn't an upright and I can get under all the furniture without moving it makes the whole thing loads quicker.

Get a roomba. I got one for my mother and it keeps the living-room carpet clean.

[/quote]

Oddly enough I've found it easier on stairs than any other vacuum I've used as it is light and small. The nozzle also has a really long reach. The previous uprights we've had didn't reach as far and the other wheely vacuums we've had were heavier. I was doing our new stairs on Saturday and was balancing the Henry with my knee or carrying it.

But it is optimised for longevity rather than being bad ass. There's a reason all the office cleaning companies use Henrys and it's because they are an all rounder than will take knocks and last for years. The problem with our previous Dyson was that bits were always falling off and it was knackered after a few years. It also ended up looking shite.

As always, reviews are subjective and I don't think they are as bad as Which? make out. I personally award 849 Bananas as it's not quite as good as the badass Hitatchi we had in the 80's that was so powerful it actually sucked up time itself.

Because I also have a big "Vax", the type that does carpet washing too, it's similar to the Henry, and very powerful. But after going over the carpet with that, and then (as an experiment) with the Dyson, it managed to pick up an entire cylinder full of fluff that the Vax hadn't. It was a fine day for science.

I find uprights are a lot quicker to zoom around with too, but it depends on the areas you have to vacuum, what's appropriate.

And I just can't use those stupid disposable bags, even if they were free it's just objectionable

Yes, there's at least one seller specialising in them. I can't really suggest a particular model, as I've only used the '01 myself

I think you'd need to go some in small bags made from recycled materials to waste as much resources as is in the pile of discarded Dysons you see at every tip.

Get a Dyson. You don't want a Henry, like all the other mac owners. I have no idea how much our Dyson was but it's ace.

Now you mention it, that's where I got my DC01. Still going strong 6 years later.

We bought a Dyson because I liked the design and the idea of it but I ended up expending far too much effort cleaning and replacing the internal filters and changing broken parts, in practice I much prefer the simplicity of the Henry. I've a friend who fixes vacuums and other stuff for a living and he absolutely loves Dysons just because they go wrong so much.

I don't think they go wrong on their own very often, but I'll accept they might be a bit fragile. I haven't broken mine yet though.

The DC01 is also prone to getting blocked if you hoover up rubbish, but it's only a two minute job to take the foot plate off and un-block it. The later ones probably improve this anyway.

This happens a lot to my DC07, but only because I'm too lazy to pick stuff up so I play the "will this block the pipe" game.

We've got an Electrolux Velocity Pet Lover 1800W. It does the job nicely and gives you a satisfying pull forward when you switch it on. Cheap, too.

Millie moults like fuck this time of year, so it's a godsend; the carpet comes up as new every time.

It's a good hoover, too.

We got a few parts from the dyson doctor on ebay..

Extended the life of our Dyson by 18 months, but in the end we wanted an 'animal' one so we got the one with the ball.. it is really really ace at cornering.

Have you nicknamed it 'Ayrton' in an ironic fashion?

I am considering the DC25 (ball) and DC14 (non-ball). The DC14 is a £70 or so cheaper and a bit more powerful. I'll probably go for that one. Which? like it a little better.

Edit -- scratch that, Which? prefer the DC25, and it seems to be more heavily discounted online so it's about a £20 premium. Hmmm.

We got a DC15/ball/animal (no pets yet, but future-proofing, I figured) when we moved, and then got a cleaner. This slightly left me feeling like I'd given away my new toy, so I now take every opportunity to use it. And when I do, it works a treat. Only real faults are that it's a bit on the heavy side, and it doesn't have one of those buttons that sucks the cable back in.

Looking at DC08 or DC11 now. DC11 seems cheaper, dunno why. Anyone got one?

Just picked up a DC07 on Freecycle. The owner reckoned it needed a new motor and sure enough it made a horrible noise when switched on. But it turned out to be something jammed behind the brush, so a good clean out and a wash of the filter and the thing is good as new. It's stupidly powerful, lifts the carpet tiles in the hall if you're not careful.

Ace. My DC01 is still working so it will go onto Freecycle in return.

I think we have one of them.

It'll be a cold day in hell before I buy another Dyson. Cheap, unreliable, expensive plastic crap is about the best I can say for old James and his shit-ware.

Roombas, on the other hand, are awesome.

H4t3rz.