vacuum cleaners that suck (literally)

My house is currently mostly carpet.  The kitchen has linoleum and the bathroom has laminate, but the rest is carpet.  So, 80% carpet, 20% hard surface.  I will be installing hardwood flooring soon in the living room, dining room, and hallway, which means I'll be reversing that ratio to 80% hard, 20% carpet.  (the bedrooms will be the only place with carpet)

My current vacuum cleaner (hoover windtunnel) is great on the carpets and, although I sometimes use it on the hard surfaces for dust bunnies and coffee beans, it is not a good hard surface vacuum.  What I have is a carpet vacuum.  What I will need is a vacuum that works equally well on both.

Can you folks recommend something that kicks butt on hard surfaces and is still really good on carpet?  It just needs to suck.  It doesn't need to also do wet cleaning, or be robotic with bluetooth speakers, or come with a fancy name.  Cordless would be nice, but I don't really mind cords.  My house is so small that I can vacuum the entire floor of the house without moving the plug to another outlet, so cords aren't a terrible thing.  I might use it more often if it were cordless, though.

We had an Orick for 20 years - worked great, easy to fix.   Lightweight.  I use the little one too - always on home improvement projects.  

Now the wife has the rechargeable pricey Dyson one but vacuums a lot.  She feels it's powerful.  

I believe in getting my lady whatever vacuum, washer, or dryer she wants.  

I'll get a picture of it when I get out of the pool, but the 150$ hoover I think pet extreme max works great with and without pets, hard floors and carpet, without breaking the bank. 

 This one. Usually $150 at home depot. 

Bought a Dyson Ball Animal, or some such, a few years back.  It's still working, but honestly, some of the materials seem cheap and underdesigned.  I'm surprised we haven't broken it yet, so perhaps my perceptions are inaccurate.  Performance wise, it does what it's supposed to do.  Honestly, with our wool rug in the living room and a dog both shedding, it fills up the sizeable dirt cup in a hurry.  It's not light, but it is maneuverable.

So, a tentative recommendation for Dyson from a fairly skeptical customer?

We have a "shark" navigator deluxe. It was pretty cheap on sale and has been great. Its similar to dyson but like 400$ cheaper. Bagless, easy to do a full cleanup on it. You can turn off the brushes and just have it literally suck. I use it like that on the tile when i dont feel like sweeping.  It does a disgustingly good job on the carpets. Start with the crap can empty, vac one room and be grossed out by the amount of crap it picks up.

We got ours at lowes around black friday or some other sale. I think it was about 100$. 
 

im also a huge fan of my little shop vac with the dust bags. It gets used a lot where the shark vac cant go. 

Dyson animal user for 20 years. Got a new one just last summer. Works great as usual. 

Another shark navigator owner here. We're similar to you after plan but about five times the size. (80/20 hard/carpet floor, 6300sf) We've been very happy with the shark. 

My wife bought a Miele vacuum. We've had an ancient Kirby that was a real workhorse, and a Dyson that died after about 10 years. I don't know what she paid for it, and probably better that I don't. I was pretty skeptical, since it's German made. I was thinking of BMW, nice while under warranty.

It's an amazingly well designed tool, and has been reliable for about ten years.

We always had one of those small Shark rechargable jobs for quickies and big canister thing that slept in the closet.  We recently bough a Shark one or two models up and it sucks better than the big canister!  Also rechargable and weighs nothing.

Upright Shark.

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

My wife bought a Miele vacuum. We've had an ancient Kirby that was a real workhorse, and a Dyson that died after about 10 years. I don't know what she paid for it, and probably better that I don't. I was pretty skeptical, since it's German made. I was thinking of BMW, nice while under warranty.

It's an amazingly well designed tool, and has been reliable for about ten years.

I was trying to remember the name!

Yeah, Dysons seem to work real well but any chunk of dust bigger than pollen/dander/flakes of skin can't be sucked up thanks to how they work- if you need the big SUCC for people with serious allergies, you get a Miele.

RevRico said:

I'll get a picture of it when I get out of the pool, but the 150$ hoover I think pet extreme max works great with and without pets, hard floors and carpet, without breaking the bank. 

 

 This one. Usually $150 at home depot. 

I have the Hoover similar to that.  It's a pet max or something but it looks slightly different.

I find mine to be really terrible on hard floors.  It rocks my socks on carpet, though.  You can't turn off the brush, so half the time it just flings things across the hard floors before it can suck them up.

TJL (Forum Supporter) said:

 

im also a huge fan of my little shop vac with the dust bags. It gets used a lot where the shark vac cant go. 

This brings up a good point.  I do like the hose on my Hoover for those hard-to-get baseboard corners and getting cobwebs out of the ceiling corners.  Maybe I should have one with a hose as well if possible?

I'm seeing a lot of Shark recommendations.  I'll start more research.  I've been looking at reviews online and it seems they are all selling something so their reviews are biased toward one or the other.  Cnet seems to have the best unbiased reviews.

914Driver said:

We always had one of those small Shark rechargable jobs for quickies and big canister thing that slept in the closet.  We recently bough a Shark one or two models up and it sucks better than the big canister!  Also rechargable and weighs nothing.

Upright Shark.

One of the things I'm reading about the cordless vacuums is that the batteries are hit or miss, and replacements are almost as much as the vacuum.  Have you had any trouble with your battery?

Wife bought one of those battery vacuums and had major problems with batteries and the charger.  As I recall it had a good warranty but getting replacement batteries and charger took way too many phone calls and weeks before they showed up. She finally gave up.

Now have a Shark - not battery - and they do seriously suck (which is good). Amazing how much dog hair they can pull out of a relatively small area rug. Had it for 3 years or so with no problems. Of course the filters need to be replaced occasionally but two of them are washable. No bags thank goodness. Works great on rugs and so so on bare wood floor. But the trick is you have to keep the rotary brush in the head clean - not full of dog hair - then it doesn't suck so great on bare floors.

Of course there is Kirby - works great,  lasts forever but BIG expensive.

Don't get a Rainbow.  Overpriced and while they do 'suck' well on carpet, they 'don't suck' worth a darn on hardwood. 

I'd be leery of a Hoover, but actually it was carpet shampooer that I had.  I had the pet one and the gasket on the front housing broke.  Hoover does not sell just the gasket, you have to get the whole assembly for $70 or so.   Left a bad taste in my mouth for Hoover products.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

The shark has the hose you can pull out and do odd jobs with, its just does not have the power of the shop vac though. Shorter hose too. I use the shop vac for getting the dust cakes off the ceiling fans, cleaning up around the cat box, etc.  the dust bags really do work well. I thought they were a gimmick until i tried the samples that came with my new shop vac. 

You don't need to sell me on the bags for shop vacs.  When I did rentals for HD, we rented shop vacs to go with our floor sanders and required the customers to use the bags.  I don't ever recall cleaning a shop vac when it came back.  They're nice.

So maybe I'll stick with corded.  I like the idea of cordless, but a cord isn't really a bother for me in this house.

So now you've helped me narrow it down.... leaning toward corded, must have hose, must do equally well on hard and carpet.

We have a Great Pyrenees, and when we bought our vac, also had a Samoyed. If you don't know what I'm talking about, between the two of them they shed enough fur in a week to knit a king sized blanket. About 20% carpet, but a lot of rugs. 

For us, the answer was a good corded (Shark in this case, it was a Christmas gift and it works very well) AND a cordless (Dyson, also a Christmas gift). The Dyson is our second cordless. Our first was a cheap Hoover that I bought on a whim; it wasn't worth much but it did open my eyes to how much I wanted a cordless.

Here is the thing... Any of the cordless vacs are not going to be good enough for a deep clean. That may or may not be a problem in your house, but it is in ours - so we need a good one. That being said, we vacuum every day now with the cordless. It may be for literally 30 seconds a day, it may be for 5 minutes, it is almost never more than 5 minutes, but we use it every single day. We used to have to use the corded about twice a week, and it would take about 10-15 minutes. Now, we use the corded maybe once a month. 

I wouldn't say I have a need for a really deep clean.  I share custody of a Pit Bull for half of the year, but she is short haired and doesn't shed much.  I also keep her super clean.  She one of those weird dogs that loves baths.

However, having said that... I don't see the point in buying a vacuum cleaner that doesn't do a good job of vacuuming.  I haven't chosen new carpet for the bedrooms yet, but I'm a big fan of microfiber and low-pile carpets.  It will likely be a quality/color/price choice, so who knows what I'll end up with.

We use a Kirby Sentria which we have had for a least a dozen years.  It's a workhorse and works great on carpet and wood floors.  Try to find a used one to mitigate the crazy cost.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

One of the things I'm reading about the cordless vacuums is that the batteries are hit or miss, and replacements are almost as much as the vacuum.  Have you had any trouble with your battery?

Not with the white one pictured yet, it's only been here a few months.  You are correct as far as the little guys went, batteries were 2/3 the cost of a new machine, but the machines were so plentiful the price dropped to ~$25.  Disposable.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

I wouldn't say I have a need for a really deep clean.  I share custody of a Pit Bull for half of the year, but she is short haired and doesn't shed much.  I also keep her super clean.  She one of those weird dogs that loves baths.

However, having said that... I don't see the point in buying a vacuum cleaner that doesn't do a good job of vacuuming.  I haven't chosen new carpet for the bedrooms yet, but I'm a big fan of microfiber and low-pile carpets.  It will likely be a quality/color/price choice, so who knows what I'll end up with.

I wouldn't say it does a bad job vacuuming, by any stretch. It just isn't as good as our corded shark. 

Also, on the battery part... This is not really a solution for you, Curtis, but for others... My mom LOVES her Makita for her hardwood floors. Uses Dads batteries from his Makita drill/other random tools. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Makita-XLC02ZB-18V-LXT-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-Vacuum-Tool-Only/447341973?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101005196&adid=22222222227000000000&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=42423897272&wl4=pla-51320962143&wl5=9021511&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=141609952&wl11=online&wl12=447341973&veh=sem&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsNztgvTR6QIVUtbACh1rqAXpEAQYBSABEgLdkPD_BwE

I recently went with a Dyson V8 (on sale) and am immensely impressed. It is so light and convenient compared to lugging out my old WindTunnel, and performs even better. It goes from hard floors to carpet seamlessly, and can quickly convert for stairs and furniture too. It is revolutionary IMHO, the house gets vacuumed regularly now! The newer models are $400+, but you can get these for $250

Just googled GRM forums to find some recommendations for a new vac...after vacillating back and forth on a few, I asked Mrs. VCH, who said, "Just buy the damn Bissell". 

So we got this.  Will let you know how it works. 

Just for posterity, I'm throwing another vote for a miele.  They're pricey, but ours has survived with no maintenance for almost 10 years now against 5 kids, 2 dogs, and 2 cats.  Mix of hardwood and carpet.