Who needs a $500 Dyson? An reluctant repairman
Dec 05 '04
The Bottom Line A quality bagless vacuum will save you time and effort, if you can afford the money.
Our Hoover Wind Tunnel retired, and I couldnā€™t wait to buy a Dyson, even though my wife asked me to change just the Hoover motor. But of course she is more happy with a new Dyson. While a top of the range vacuum wouldnā€™t go much wrong, it isnā€™t for everyone, and that if I were to use a vacuum myself, I can get away with a much cheaper one.
Iā€™m writing about general recommendations, with the Dyson DC07 as a reference. Itā€™s easier to write about each of the Dyson features rather than making a list on my own. DC07's are all the same with different colors and accessaries. The basic package sells about $400, while the ā€˜Animalā€™ package sells about $500 with all the accessaries.
You can get away with a lower cost vacuum if you:
1. Do not vacuum in a bad mood..
2. Know when to stop, and change bags !
3. Donā€™t have any compulsive behavior.
4. Donā€™t have animals.
Unfortunately, our household (excluding me) qualified very much for a Dyson. When our Hoover was pretty new, the base broke, probably because of (1). It was many years ago. We took it to a repair shop. The repair cost including labor wasnā€™t worth it when the Hoover cost was about $300. The shop recommended a top of the line model about $500, based on the fact that somebody can break a pretty new Hoover. I drove 30 miles to a Hoover partā€™s shop and got the base for about $30 and changed it myself.
The Dyson is made of liquid steel - a very tough form of plastic. In the package there is a thin piece of sample like a biscuit. I tried to get tough with the sample and I was impressed. So when I saw reviews about that the Dyson isnā€™t tough enough, I donā€™t believe it. Compared to the rounded, box like base of the Hoover, the Dyson looked vulnerable with sharper angles and thinner edges. But I donā€™t think you can break it easily. For $400, I donā€™t expect a bullet proof vacuum, but the Dyson will be as tough as any vacuum, if not tougher.
With animals (4) and because of (2), at first use, the brush of the Dyson was tangled with long dog hairs as any other brush will do. Surprisingly, the Dyson was designed so that you can open the bottom of the base with ease to clean the brush and other things. You just use a quarter to unlock the 4 screws at the base with a quarter turn. The cover come off easily and just as easy to put it back. The Hoover has 4 very long normal metal screws that you have to use a long stem screw driver every time. The screws screw into plastic. After repeated use, the plastic threads wears down and donā€™t hold the screws anymore. Now we have lost 3 of the 4 screws.
Easy to clean inside the bottom cover is important because the tangled hair made our Hoover overheat. Many belts melted. The bush roller became disfigured. Even the part at the base holding the roller became disfigured. What saved us is that these parts are easily available, and even the base can be changed at low cost (but high labor cost). The Dyson has about the same design with belt driven brushes. But I think the Hoover drives the belt directly while the Dyson has some gears in between. (So you can also switch off the brush for bare floors.) In the Hoover the belt hold the brush tight so that itā€™s hard to turn the brush to clean it. In the Dyson, I can turn the brush with my fingers easily with the bare floor setting. Also, the whole assembly in the Dyson is more agile.
Under the base cover, the Hoover has many funny spaces and sharp corners that collect dust. Once you clean that up, they start to collect again, making the vacuum smelly all the time. The Dyson looked just like a funnel so itā€™s promising that the vacuum will not be smelly again.
Bag or bagless is not the question. The question is not to lose suction. You can see the graph on the Dyson package that it boost constant suction. All bagged vacuum will lose suction when the bag collect dust. Surprisingly, many bagless vacuum lose suction. I think these vacuum jump on the bagless bandwagon. They replace the bag with filters instead. They sell on the idea to save bag cost, but the issue is constant suction. Next to the Dyson I saw a Hoover with a flimsy paper filter inside the dirt container. The Dyson do have filters but they are permanent, HEPA (UK), and you only need to wash every 6 month.
Dyson is the guy who started it all. I just wondered why it takes so long for him to arrive. When I saw his picture on the package in Target, a bit more white hairs then I last saw him, but he finally arrived after so many years. The story that came with the package goes like this: in UK he was involved in patent wars and lawsuits against him not to compare suction with other companies in advertising, namely Hoover. I brought Dyson with confidence. He is the first and he got all the patents. The patent wars and lawsuits confirm. With design like that, you have to buy his patents, kill his company, or delay his products as much as possible. They did just that and almost bankrupt the guy. If Dyson survives, some other will not. Many years ago, Hoover UK give away airline tickets if you buy a vacuum. The offer was too popular that Hoover cannot keep their promise, using dirty tricks like black outs to delay. At last Hoover honors their promise with heavy cost, and many heads rolled.
The Dyson isnā€™t small and light, but not bad for an upright. Itā€™s tall for an upright to accommodate itā€™s bagless technology. It doesnā€™t make any difference when you vacuum with the handle at an angle. Itā€™s footprint is about the same as our old Hoover, and the Dyson took itā€™s storage spot. Itā€™s weight is not a lot of difference compared to our old Hoover. In comparison, the current Hoover bagless looked fat and heavy. The Dyson is easier to maneuver than our old Hoover. The heavier motor is right between the larger wheels, the ideal position. The motor is at the body, above the base, for the old Hoover. In the Dyson, thereā€™s not much weight other than the motor, the hollow cyclones, hollow dirt container. We also have handheld vacuums so the size and weight of the Dyson isnā€™t a big issue.
Somebody complained that the Dyson needed assembly ! What doesnā€™t? Well if you got it in a Vacuum and Sewing shop, probably they are happy to do it for you. Some vacuum needed to attach the body to the base. For the Dyson, you just need to attach the flexible hose, and the rigid wand. Itā€™s the same when you add some attachment to any upright. But the Dyson do it slightly differently, easier and secure. The joints come with spring locks and guiding tracks. They do the same thing slightly differently, but you canā€™t go wrong.
The ā€˜assemblyā€™ comes with advantages. You can take most parts to wash. Thereā€™s little space left for blockage by long animal hairs. One possible place is the middle of the base. But you can take out a little section and clear any clog. Itā€™s easy for the old Hoover to clear the blockage. But the Hoover design is easier to clog in the first place, and that dust is easier to accumulate at sharp turns and unnecessary spaces.
Itā€™s just as easy to assemble the Dyson into a super canister ! The box shows a diagram that you can leave the body at the bottom the stairs, and you vacuum at the top of the stair holding a handle exactly like that of a canister, with an extremely long extremely extendable flexible hose in between. The only difference is that in the canister mode, the basic model offers only standard attachments as in other vacuum. If you want a true canister, you can add the low floor accessary, which behavior exactly as a canister would. There is also a turbo version for the Animal model. The Dyson cannot go under furniture because the motor is close to the floor, but I wonder if any upright can go too far under furniture. In the canister mode, you can reach further than other canisters, because the wand is long. One design I like about the flexible hose is that itā€™s transparent made of smooth plastic. Even for people who (2) donā€™t know when to stop, if they see the dirt in the hose itā€™s time to give it a wash. For typical black flexible hose I guess the inside is very difficult to wash because it takes a long time to rinse until the water is clear of dirt.
The Dyson performs better on bare floors than the old Hoover. Firstly you can turn off the brush in the Dyson. In the Hoover, you can set the brush high up without touching the floor. But that still leave a fan effect blowing the fine dirt around. Secondly the base of the Dyson is a streamlined funnel while the Hoover just has a hole in it.
The basic DC07 comes with 3 standard simple attachments as in the Hoover. One advantage is that they attach securely into holes in the Dyson body. They are not as easy to attach to the wand when new, perhaps because the attachments are plastic while the wand is metal. But itā€™s just slightly more difficult than plastic to plastic attachments, just tighter. For the more expensive accessaries, I guess they have the typical spring action easy and secure locks. The accessaries can be attached to both ends of the wand. At the handle end, the wand is plastic and itā€™s easier to attach. Even though the accessaries are simple, they are of better design. Say the floor accessary can be rotated so you can do the floor with different angles of the wand.
There is a funny and convenient way to attach the accessaries. The normal way is attach to one end of the wand, while the other end of the wand attach to the hose, exactly like a canister. The other way is almost like attaching the attachments to the hose directly, with the wand hidden inside the hose. The hidden wand gets in the way a bit for close cleaning but this is the fastest way to attach as the wand is normally hidden in the hose in the upright mode. Some reviewers complain that you cannot get close enough. That isnā€™t the case, just that you need to leave some space behind you for the one piece wand. The old Hoover has two short wands stored in the body. The clips holding one of the wands broke so I often use only one. There is a long extension hose but I rarely use it. So I am rather happy with the Dyson design where there is only one long wand and one very long hose, which are there all the time.
The Hoover has a noticeable noisier motor as it relies on a powerful motor to overcome the suction problem with bagged vacuums. Itā€™s also shakes on bare floors. The Dyson has a quieter motor. But because of this you hear something else in the Dyson. Sometimes some high pitch noise in the cyclones or the centrifuge in the dirt container. All these are not as overwhelming as the motor of the Hoover. When the air flow in the Dyson is obstructed suddenly, the noise can be loud. Some rugs has long threads at the edge for decoration. At some particular angles when the Dyson pass over, a loud noise can be heard. But this is not too alarming and does not always occurs. Because of this and the powerful suction, I donā€™t think the Dyson is suitable for some carpet with long animal hair like texture. Other than bare floors, the Dyson adjusts to the carpet height automatically. It means the brush hugs the ground like a sports car with the help of suction. However, with low ground clearance like a sports car, itā€™s inconvenient to go from carpet to rugs on top of it. The Hoover can climb over thicker rugs. But it doesnā€™t matter that much. You can lock to the upright position as in any other vacuum, roll over, and then unlock to the vacuum position. The Dyson is easier to unlock by stepping on the base, rather than stepping on a switch.
Bagless mean mess, or so they claimed. A bagless is no more messy than a bagged vacuum. I wouldnā€™t change bag indoors if I donā€™t have to. When changing bags, thereā€™s no easy way to prevent the dust leaking from the bag, especially when itā€™s full. For the Dyson, one press of a button you take out the sealed container. Another pull of a trigger, the bottom of the container opens and the dirt fall out. You can cover the container lower half with a plastic bag when the bottom opens. This way you almost never expose the dirt if you are careful. Another way is to empty the dirt into an outdoor bin. This way itā€™s much easier than changing a bag and you never touch the dirty parts.
With a bagless you can empty the dirt whenever you want, say during weekly trash collection. With a bagged, the bag is always far from full capacity when you have time to change the bag. The Hoover has a bag capacity indicator. It is a simple and effective design but somebody never bother to look at it. They rely on zero suction to tell them that itā€™s time to change bags. Very often I have to change bag when the bag is absolutely full and disgusting. With a see-through dirt container, I bet that everybody will know (2) when to stop.
The filters in the Dyson are HEPA, the highest quality, although itā€™s only UK approved, not yet US. There is only a permanent filter that you need to wash every 6 month. The bags of Hoover are not that far from HEPA according to consumer reports. But when the vacuum is old enough, enough dirt pass through the bag and the filters to reach the motor. Thereā€™s no way you can take out the smell other than hide it with fragrance. (Maybe thatā€™s not true, but I donā€™t think thereā€™s many things you can replace in the body other than the whole body.) Time will tell for the Dyson. Probably because of the accumulated dirt in the motor, the Hoover lost suction and have to retire.
The cord is very long for you to work the stairs. Oh yes, it doesnā€™t recoil automatically. I never worked with one that recoils automatically. But doing that well is no easy achievement. The added cost, size and weight do not seem worth it. Imagine a circular wheel to hold all that long cord, and having enough strength to recoil. As I have mentioned in the steam vac recommendations, thereā€™s two things that you need for the cord. Firstly, you can wound the cord up and down the upright, and at the turn of a knob, the whole cord came loose. Secondly, the electrical plug has a little clip that locks to the cord. Both the old Hoover and the Dyson have these.
In previous reviews, I mentioned the benefit of an established company, providing an extensive network of replacement parts retailers. Hoover is one and I used their parts a lot, indeed too much. If I changed the motor this time, the vacuum will be like new again. But nowadays we have the internet for ordering parts. I donā€™t expect the Dyson to break, but with kids I donā€™t know what they will do to the hose and the wand.
The Dyson doesnā€™t have a pair of head lights nor dirt finder. The old Hoover has both. But I doubt if I need to watch when I vacuum dark corners. And that the dirt finder sometimes force me to do one more pass than I am happy to. And for somebody with (3) compulsive behavior, they donā€™t care what the dirt finder tell them. They will vacuum until they feel happy.
An upright is of course easier to topple than a canister. The Dyson is not any worse with large wheels and heavy motor in between. You cannot topple the Dyson by pulling the hose when you use attachments. Though you can pull the Dyson towards you by the hose. For the old Hoover thereā€™s no way you can leave the vacuum to stand on itā€™s own when you use the accessaries. Any pull on the hose will topple it. I always hold the vacuum handle when I use the attachments. For the Dyson you cannot hold the vacuum body while using the attachments because the one piece wand is long. But you donā€™t need to because you can leave the body behind standing on itā€™s own.
One complain is perfectly logical but read most like a conspiracy theory. When locked upright, the Dyson is in accessary mode, and the wand sucks air in via the handle, the highest point of the body. Since nobody will aware of it the first time, there is a plastic guard with fine mesh to prevent anything from being sucked inside. The reviewer has long hair, and she manage to break the plastic guard, which would be a rather difficult thing to do. She said the guard cannot be replaced. (But you can always replace the wand.) So itā€™s a disaster when she go near the Dyson. But even if all those are true, one can always unlock the Dyson in the vacuuming position first, and then switch it on, which is the natural thing to do.
Robots could be the answer. Dyson designed one too. But with small kids and animals I doubt if they can live together peacefully. I donā€™t think robots can handle accumulation of animal hairs. As for someone with (3) compulsive behavior, itā€™s useful to give them something to do (1), and take it all out on the vacuum.
I have a very realistic expectation of the Dyson. For $400 compared to $300 for the Hoover Wind Tunnel many years ago, I donā€™t expect the Dyson to solve everything. We have animal so we have all leather sofas. Even the Hoover is too heavy so we have two hand-helds to pick things up after the kids. And we donā€™t have long hairs ! Since Iā€™m the one who change bags, the easy of dumping the dirt out of the Dyson alone worth the extra money over that many years. On top of that I had to change melted brushes and belts, take the base apart to wash the accumulated dirt, and even changed the whole base once. Itā€™s worth it if I need to do these things less often, and if HEPA means a less smelly vacuum over time.
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