What sets vacuums apart?

..................there's people out there stupid enough to pay it!

I paid $1200 for a Kirby. Its been reliable from day one til now 10 years later. The art of Vaccumming is how the Unit makes contact with the Floor/Carpet. No one does that better then the Self-propelled Kirby.

Thanks. I was considering Electrolux, which is in the same price range.

But why does it take that kind of money to make contact with the floor? I'm trying to understand why the best value is the best value, considering the wide disparity.

I'm quite happy with my Hoover commercial vacuum that I bought for $10 at a bankruptcy sale.

I bought a Hoover Elite upright around 14 years ago for $79.00 and I've changed the belt twice for a couple bucks each. It vacuums just as well as the Kirby my mom got suckered into buying. She doesn't even use it these days, she went out and bought a Hoover Elite 4 years ago.

Or, more than my first car? :-)

(And, a person gets A LOT more use from either a car or an A/C.)

Build quality and marketing. You don't always get what you pay for, some cheap vacuums are fine, a lot of them are poorly made though. If you want a high end vacuum, look for a used one. Years ago I had a Kirby I picked up used for $50, it was very well made and I never had a problem with it, but it was very heavy and cumbersome, and connecting the hose attachment to get corners was a hassle. I eventually got rid of it and picked up a newer plastic Eureka for free, which once I tore it down and cleaned out the clog has been a great vacuum. It's light enough that I don't break my back lugging it up and down stairs, the hose is already attached and just has a lever to engage it, and it picks up dirt as well if not better than the Kirby I had. Probably won't last 100 years but it's at least 15 years old and still working fine. I don't think I'd ever buy a brand new vacuum anyway, it's so easy to find them secondhand for free or nearly so, and often they're discarded simply because they get clogged up or need a new belt.

Because people will pay for the name. Electrolux is like a Rolls Royce or Harley Davidson, it's a status symbol, and while not necessarily a bad product, it's certainly not the best value if you just want something to do the job.

Why do people pay too much for anything?

Thanks. I don't want to clean up a used one though. The low-end Electrolux model EL7020A is $320 and the low-end Hoovers and Sanyos (et al) about $150. Consumer Reports says that Electrolux model is better on carpet than any other at any price and I have thick carpet everywhere. (That's the reason for getting a new one anyway.)

I am not defending the pricing of Kirby cleaners, since they are obscenely over-priced, however:

• They are manufactured in a first world nation. The costs of labour would be many times higher than in (say) China).

• Most cheap air cons are made in China.

• They do employ some rather nifty features, such as a completely separate motor and impeller. This ensures the motor never has to pass dust particles, which can damage bearings and other stuff.

• Kirby sucks. It really pulls a very impressive vacuum.

• The Kirby bag system ensures that full vacuum occurs, regardless of how full the bag becomes.

• The thing is substantially manufactured from (fairly expensive) aluminium alloy, rather than plastic.

• Kirby is sold in a way which prevents discounts from being easily obtained (here in Australia).

I owned a really nifty and quite powerful cleaner (2kW). A mate brought his Kirby 'round and showed me just how inefficient my cleaner was. I waited for a used Kirby to come my way and purchased it (for about 10% of the cost of a new one). It is noisy, but it sure cleans crap off the floor.

I've got a Kirby out in the garage someplace. It's not that good, IMHO.

As far as I can tell the main thing Kirby vacuums have going for them is reliability. They last forever. They're bulky and heavy, though.

I have a cheap Dirt Devil upright vacuum and I wouldn't recommend it, at least not to anyone with long hair. Stray hairs get wedged between the plastic beater bar and its plastic bearings, jamming it. Then the belt burns in half.

If I have to put up with that smell, I might as well go to the racetrack. ;-)

Electrolux was sold and are now made in China = stay away!

I just picked up a Danish made $1,825.00 NILFisk cleanroom 4 gallon, 4 stage filters with HEPA filter (all clean & new) vacuum without attachments for a sweet price on eBay. Very nice unit, all metal like the old Electrolux canister units. None of this cheap plastic crap made in China now a days for me.

HEPA filters make the difference, the bigger the better and the more expensive, and 4 stages of filtration means that the vacuum will keep sucking at maximum cfm for a longer period.

Talk to someone who repairs them . When working right they are all the same . Cheap ones are made of cheap plastic that can crack or break .

Bagless vacs fill your house with dust . I know some of you dont believe this .. go ahead & dont .

Expensive vacs have better plastics & casings but not 3 and 4 hundred dollars worth .

After owning a few upright vacuums i like the Oreck because it uses a bag and has gobs of power and its small light and very easy to use in general . It is easy to repair . I got one at a yard sale for 35$ and replaced the fan blade in it .

Try a local vacuum repair shop if you dont want to clean up a used one as they usually have good rstored used ones at a savings .

This topic ``sucks``

Then look at the Dyson. We have a DC-14 animal. It's an upright vacuum clean that is designed to suck up animal hair and dander and NOT return it. It also comes with a special unit that looks like a small upright vacuum for for doing furniture.

It works very well, is very strong (about 1500 watts), does not use bags, and comes apart easily to clean or remove obstructions. The only tool I've needed in over a year was a coin to open the carpet/floor brush on the bottom to remove junk that had collected there.

The other parts where things have gotten stuck, including a disposable plastic knife and many Legos, have come off with a push of a button.

It empties by pusing a button which allows you to lift off the collection container. You put it over a trash can and push another button. Two or three times it has gotten long things, such as string etc caught in it and I had to reach in an pull them out. The collection unit when placed over a trash can is far away from anything that moves, so although I was careful, is very safe.

The time we got the knife stuck in it, it got caught in a bend. We noticed it because the motor shut off. I unplugged it, removed the bends until I found the knife, cleaned it out and let it sit for a while. No damage.

If for some reason I were to move back to the U.S., I would have 240 volt outlets installed so I could take it with me. I know they are sold in the U.S. (Costco has a "cheaper" version made for them by Dyson), but still....

BTW the other thing I would want to bring with me is my Kenwood mixer. It makes a Kitchen Aide look like underpowered cheap junk.

Geoff.

A friend's shop has a Nilfisk vacuum cleaner, that thing is amazing. It's about 4' tall and has a 3 phase induction motor of I think 2 horsepower. It's extremely quiet and very well made. Wish I could get a smaller version of it for my garage at home, I hate those noisy universal motors.

I forgot about those bagless things. I had one for a while, didn't have too much of a dust problem but it would clog very easily and the suction went way down long before the cannister was full. I had to empty it about 30 times more often than I change the bag on my current vacuum so it was no savings in convenience. Neat idea, but poor performance in practice.

I had a roommate once with an Oreck, that was in fact very good, light weight, powerful, not too noisy, felt solidly made and it never broke.