Unreliability of upright vacuum cleaners

Yes, and I've got two hoses* for mine, so it can suck and blow at the same time!

Actually, that used to be really useful when I cleaned out my parents old Ideal Standard boiler. Soot is really nasty stuff to suck up, because it's sticky, and the particle size is way too small to be trapped (often only a few hundred atoms). I found the best way was to use a bag full of carpet dust (the carpet fibres trap much of the soot by sticking). The bag paper will only trap the large clumps, with much of the soot passing straight through as it's orders of magnitude smaller than the paper bag pores. (Soot particles are small enough to go into the surface of many solid materials, which is why it stains so readily.) This is where a 2nd 'blow' tube comes in handy. You connect it up to the bottom, and dangle the end out of a window. Then you haven't got the really fine soot particles being blown into the air in the house. If you use the vacuum for long enough, the fine sticky soot will eventially clog the bag pores, and this can cause the bag to burst. The only time this happened, I had the blow hose out of the window, and the thud sound as the bag burst was accompanied by a thick black cloud billowing from the hose end. That would have been a disaster indoors. Glad to say we haven't had any appliances which collect soot like that for a decade now.

  • The hose split at the end and someone bought a new one, and then I repaired the old one.
Reply to
Andrew Gabriel
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Quick calculation... My Hitachi 14" portable TV is now 26 years old. It will be chucked out when analogue signal is switched off though, if it's still going at that point. (It was £250 when I bought it;-)

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

And consume how many bags over its lifetime?

Not saying its a bad machine (I have no experience of it) but I've got years of good experience with Dysons and haven't bought a bag for 20 years.

Tim

Reply to
Tim Downie

iF ITS THE hOOVER dm4523...the dealer saw you coming....and Comet saw me coming. I recently learned that this model has a design fault that loads of people have had bother with. There is a dealer on ebay that sells a conversion kit to turn it into a bagged cleaner to byass the hoover balls up filter.

Arthur

Reply to
Arthur 51

And worth every penny. Over 20 years thats 30p a week. And you can buy them for much less than that.

You have clearly no concept of just how good such a machine really is.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Whereas for areas with lots of furniture etc. I prefer a cylinder as I find it easier to get around and under things etc. compared to manoeuvring an upright.

Uprights are probably better for big areas of carpet though.

Reply to
chris French

SWMBO insisted on a Dyson (Henry still lives on in the garage) and I can understand its attractions, but I have to say that for stairs it is a complete pain. Maybe I'm a weakling, but I find that the magic hose exerts such a pull that it is a real struggle to use. I don't know what force their testing deemed reasonable, but I can imagine that anybody less than robust could find themselves in difficulty.

Perhaps there is an opportunity to market a non-retracting additional hose.

Chris

Reply to
Chris J Dixon

In message , Adrian writes

Having used them lots, I'd say yes they are tough, but their performance is so-so - comparing them to our Dyson and Miele machines anyway

Reply to
chris French

Unusually, I find myself in full agreement with TMH. We have a Sebo X1, and after years of blockages and failures of lesser machines, this thing is excellent.

Reply to
Huge

It was only a matter of time .....

:-)

I though we agreed about world wide words as well?

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

That's true, also.

Reply to
Huge

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

Yup, I've found them great for that sort of thing, though the filters do clog up fairy quickly. Which is fina as long as you know to check them before it gets too bad and it cuts out.

We've had two Dysons and liked them, an early cylinder one ( DC02?) and an upright - DC07. The DC02 was fine (it was stolen) though the having to buy filters always seemed to cancel out the benefits a of no bags a bit. It did seem to be a bit tougher than newer ones, having had it go down the stairs a couple of time times.

The DC07 was much better performance wise, used it happily for years, and washable filters. Though I do find it heavy and it's acquired a few bits of broken off plastic here and there, I do think it could be a bit tougher in that respect. Currently it is out of action though as the bin emptying function has jammed up somehow that I can't fathom and I just can't get it open. Also it's performance had certainly gone down a lot recently. I can't see any blockages or leakages, I'm guessing maybe some thing clogging up inside the cyclone?

I am considering the Dyson service option, since there are a few things like hoses that have spilt and been repaired that could do with replacing.

Anyway, we also have a recently bought Miele (S5 series, cat and dog model or somesuch, so the Dyson is awaiting a round tuit.

Was looking for an cylinder (something lighter, more manoeuvrable, better for our longer stairs (Victorian house - higher ceilings) rather than upright, and didn't like the look of any of the Dyson ones anyway - seem a bit too fussy for their own good. If I was looking for an upright may well have got another Dyson.

Miele always seem to get good reports so went for one. Have to say I'm very pleased with it. Performance is excellent, build quality also, much quieter than the Dyson, much lighter as well. Using the turbo brushes it does a good job of picking up cat hairs etc.

Reply to
chris French

I'm going to see whether I can get by with a set-top box. Down to 14 quid in ASDA now.

MM

Reply to
MM

And how do I know that they are, really, just another upright that will fail within two to three years?

MM

Reply to
MM

If it was just a matter of a set-top box, I'd consider it. But it's the two remotes, and lack of integration which blows it for me. 26 year old set has no SCART, so there would be no automatic switching that way. If someone made a set-top box, which could be programmed to relay different infrared commands through to the TV, for £20 which is already more than the TV is worth, I'd consider it. The TV is too old to recognise most of the preprogrammed Hitachi codes that third party remotes have nowadays, so the set top box would need to learn directly from the Hitachi's remote.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Set top boxes I've had take care of channel + volume as well as all the obvious digital thing, so no need for the TV remote. Leave TV on one channel, tuned to the RF output of the STB, the end.

Reply to
Clive George

Yes, all you need is to make sure that the set-top box outputs to RF (to avoid the added expense of an RF modulator).

Kostas

Reply to
Kostas Kavoussanakis
Reply to
Kostas Kavoussanakis

Please don't. Usenet is a plain text medium.

Reply to
Huge

Yeah, that's our setup too, although the STB's remote does know enough to turn the TV on and off (rather than relying on it waking up when there's a signal and going into standby when there isn't).

We've got one STB sitting in the office (so not really ST at all :) which feeds two TVs via co-ax, then on the back of the TV where the co-ax plugs in is a little (unpowered) module with a rabbit ear antenna. I assume what happens is that the STB remotes also send out an RF signal which is picked up via the closest module - communication than happens back down the co-ax to the STB so that it can switch that particular line to the requested channel.

First time I've ever had any kind of digital TV setup, so maybe they're pretty much all like that these days - but it's nice that I don't need one STB per TV, and nice that the STB remote doesn't need to control the TV (other than hard power control, but if needed then physically hitting the power switch on the front of the set isn't exactly a hardship :-)

Reply to
Jules

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