vacuum cleaners

[Andy Hall]

Which is fortunate

[Dave Baker]

The pleated paper filters should clean out easily enough with a soft toothbrush and a bit of tapping. However a trick I use on my Goblin wet and dry in the workshop is to cut the end off an old cotton pillow case and put that round the filter with a big elastic band. It stops most of the muck getting into the pleats of the filter and doesn't seem to reduce the suction to a noticeable degree. It increases filter life by an order of magnitude and saves having to brush out the pleats every time you empty the container.

What really kills those paper element filters is using them wet though. Any dust in them then dries like concrete and they're pretty much buggered after that. I resort back to sponges and buckets for cleaning up spills rather than kill the vacuum cleaner for the sake of saving a few seconds work.

[Bob Eager]

Not really. You don't actually have to use the bags at all on a Henry.

[newshound]

Your "relatively cheap" differs from mine. B-) Cheapest Henry I've seen is just over £60 mark, I've also seen 'em over £120!

For about half that you can get an Earlex bigger tub, wet 'n dry, (Don't think Henry likes water...), built down to the price but mines OK for DIY from dust collection to rubble picking up and the odd bit of drain emptying. I've got the one with the power take off which switches the vac on when a power tool connected there powers up, great fro dust collection.

I've got a spare filter for it but a stiff brush and tapping unclogs the ribs easily. Even with slightly damp plaster dust.

[Dave Liquorice]

Dry enough to still be dust but wet enough to set when properly dry...

[Dave Liquorice]

The only thing that niggles me about our DC04 is the small canister. A good session round a room or two and you need to empty it. I suspect it'= s still sucking muck out of the carpets that previous conventional vacs le= ft behind.

Or the =A365 inc VAT inc parts fixed fee, in home, service. Treated our = DC04 to one of them recently, very satisfied.

[Andy Hall]

It's a cyclone device?

[The Medway Handyman]

Not for nomral household use, but for sucking up plaster dust they are essencial.

[The Medway Handyman]

All vacuum cleaners with round tubs are cyclones. Notice the inlet is not at 90 degrees but to one side - in the same direction the motor blades rotate.

[The Medway Handyman]

It has been done several times. None of the major producers ever launched it, a few fringe manufacturers did & charged well OTT prices for the machines. It never really caught on.

[Andy Hall]

OK, but comparing to a conical arrangement as used on a dust extractor not as efficient.

[Bob Eager]

No, it has a permanent filter too.

[Andy Hall]

OK, but that will also clog.

[Bob Eager]

Yes...but it's pretty quick to clear. It's loose fabric (mesh) mounted on a ring the same diameter as the tub.

[<me9]

My VAX has a round tub, inlet at 90deg bag inside, definitely non cyclonic (unless it's the weather).

[Andy Hall]

Ah OK.

I suppose it depends on what you want.

I'm not particularly a fan of Dyson in that their products could do with beefing up - a decent workshop grade cyclone cleaner would be an interesting product because the cyclone technology certainly works.

My wall mounted workshop dust extractor has a cylinder with cone below and bin below that. The fan is on the top on the exit path and is followed by a large polyester pleated cartridge filter. This filter gets cleaned periodically but very little dust finds its way past the cyclone.

For a workshop cleaner and with certain hand tools I have a Bosch GAS

1. The filters on this are also polyester and can be washed or there is a mechanical shaker. It will suck up any old crap very well, wet or dry. However I'm not sure that I would trust it with really fine dust.

The same firm, Oneida, who supplied my large extractor make a small cyclone in two versions to use as a front end to a workshop cleaner.

interesting way to maintain high suction without clogging filters in a conventional cleaner.

[Bruce]

Having owned two Henrys, I find that they emit a colossal amount of fine dust whether used with or without the bag. The permanent filter has a large mesh which allows a lot of dust into the air. The bags themselves release a lot of fine dust.

You can get what I think NuMatic claim is a HEPA filter for the Henry, but the casing and filter ring joint is far from airtight in my experience and so the fine dust still escapes.

The Henry is a good, powerful vacuum cleaner which works well for normal domestic tasks and cleaning up after DIY jobs. It is also excellent value; I gladly paid £117 for my first one in 1989 and they are much cheaper now in real terms. However, if you object to, or are allergic to dust, you are probably better choosing another brand.

I now use a Miele 1500W cylinder cleaner which has genuine HEPA filtration and doesn't leak dust from its joints. There is even a clever bag system that prevents dust escaping when you change bags. It is every bit as robust and reliable as a Henry - mine looks battered but still works as well as when it was new, and it is ten years old now.

[Rick Hughes]

I consigned all vacuum's to the skip ... and have a built in vacuum in my house ... A Beam Serenity Plus .... a whole level of magnitude more powerful than standard domestic vacs (and I include Kirby & Henry in that list)

No heavy machine to lug about, very quiet (at hose end anyway) ... only needs emptying twice a year ... no bags, and exhaust air goes outside the building.

Also provides me with vacuum points in garage for power tools ... all in all a great bit of kit.

Surprised that developers are not putting them in as standard ... suppose it will come, but typical UK building industry always 10 years behind.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I really struggle to imagine what people do to them. Counting up around my family, I can think of 5 Dysons. They're all at least

3 years old, and many much older. None have ever gone wrong. One of the old ones started cutting out, but that's because it's probably about 9 years old (predates the washable filters), and its HEPA "replace annually" filter has never been changed in its life. The vacuums we had before -- I don't think any of them lasted 8 years. I recall a couple of Hoovers burning out quite spectacularly, and nothing else has come close to the Dysons in terms of continuous suck and the effectiveness with which the exhaust air is actually cleaned. None of the Dysons has ever needed its post motor filter changing and they're all still bright white with only the tiniest traces of dust from the motor brushes in one of the oldest ones. One of these (a DC04) has been used all its life for DIY -- mostly plaster and brick dust, because it works so much better than anything else I can find. As I said before, a Henry was completely useless in comparison; this type of material has to be filtered out by cyclone as a bag either quickly clogs, or passes the dust straight through.

It's been and gone, in the late 1950's and 1960's a number of houses were built with them. They lasted into the 1970's in some commercial buildings. Wembley conference centre managed to keep its one working until the mid 1980's before having to give up on it.

[Lobster]

What on earth does it cost though? Is it something only practical to install in new-builds? David