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14 INSIDER TIPS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN SHOPPING FOR OR REPAIRING A VACUUM CLENAER
YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT VACUUM RETAILER has a wealth of first-hand expertise and knowledge about every vacuum brand & manufacturer on the market today and from years past. . The average vacuum store not only sells hundreds of vacuum cleaners a year, more importantly, they FIX and SERVICE thousands of vacuum cleaners annually. They interact with dozens of people, talking about vacuum cleaners every day. They attend industry and manufacturers trade shows. Your local independant vacuum dealer has a unique perspective on just about every vacuum model, brand and manufacturer. They are a wonderful resource for you to begin your search for a new vacuum cleaner.
My name is Bernie Holmstock, and I am a third generation Independent Vacuum Store Owner/Retailer. I've grown up in the vacuum cleaner business. The vacuum cleaner business paid for my college education in the marketing and advertising field before I decided to go into business with my Father, who 50 years ago went into the vacuum cleaner business with my Grandfather. I am active in the National Vacuum Dealers Trade Association. I am the past president of the South Florida Vacuum Dealers Association. I enjoy learning about and educating others about vacuum cleaners.
Here are some things that I've learned from my years in the vacuum cleaner business that may help you when you are considering purchasing a new vacuum cleaner or getting your old vacuum cleaner repaired.

#1. Bagless Vacuums, Reguardless of Price are Consistently More Problematic than their Bagged Counter Parts.
The "Bagless Vacuum Fad" is over! Consumers and consumer oriented manufacturers are realizing that bagless vacuums are the filthiest home appliance that you could own. Emptying these types of vacuums releases an unacceptable amount of dust and contamination back into the air you breath. I advise people who currently own a bagless vacuum to, "ALWAYS EMPTY THEM OUTSIDE AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE DOWN WIND SO YOU DON'T GET A FACE FULL OF DUST."

Dust and filth seems to get into every conceivable interior part of bagless vacuums, no matter how good the filtration systems are. When dust gets into the motor and other mechanical parts it causes friction, heat build and leads to premature mechanical failure of your vacuum. Repairing thousands of vacuums every year, we see more disapointed and unhappy owners of bagless vacuums than we should.

Contrary to what the commercials tell you, bagless vacuums do loose cleaning power just like every other vacuum. If you believe the manufacturer of some of these bagless machines, you'll never have to replace filters. However, according to the nations largest manufacturer and distributor of vacuum cleaner replacement parts Buckey Vacuum Cleaner Supply, one of their top selling replacement filters is the "lifetime filter" found in best known bagless machine on the market today.

Curious about what the most repaired vacuum brand that we see in our business is? It is the largest producer of bagless vacuums today, Bissell.

#2. Manufacturers That Spend the Most on Advertising and Marketing, Ususally Produce Poorer Quality Vacuums.
The experience on the front lines of the vacuum repair industry shows that claims made by the manufacturers of the MOST ADVERTISED, well known brands as to quality and durability are FALSE. It is the opinion of most individuals directly involved in retail sales and repair of vacuum cleaners that half of the price you pay for the MOST ADVERTISED brands, goes directly to Advertising, and a very small percentage goes back into quality control.

In contrast, manufacturers of high quality, lesser advertised brands, ones that you may not have heard of (Miele, Riccar, Sebo, Lindhaus) invest a disporportionate of time and effort into quality control.

Riccar, which manufacters vacuums right here, in the United States, purchases some of their components from over seas. Rather than trust that these imported components are built to Riccar's specifications and high quality standards, Riccar tests, disassembles and reassembles every component that they receive before passing it on to their distribution channels for sale.

Miele Incorporated, another manufacturer that you often don't hear about, tests 100% of their vacuums off of the assembly line before they are boxed and shipped.

#3. Lightweight Vacuums are Easy to Pick Up and Carry, but not always easy to push on your carpets.
That well known "8 pound" vacuum (it actually weighs more than 9 pounds) is sometimes harder to push on carpeting than vacuums weighing more than 3 times as much. Make sure if you are looking to purchase a "lightweight" vacuum that it has a stiff/aggressive brush-roll. This will ensure that the machine will push easy and clean better. Soft brushes on a light vacuum tend not to dig into the nap of the carpeting and don't produce good cleaning results. Always make sure you are able to test a vacuum cleaner on your carpets before you're committed to purchasing. If you're purchasing online or from an 800 number - consider the inconvenience of having to box up your vacuum cleaner and mail it back for the refund.

Lightweight vacuums sacrifice power for smaller, lighter, less efficient motors. If you have the opportunity to stop into your local independent vacuum retailer ask to see the motor that goes into a lightweight vacuum compared to the motor from a standard vacuum cleaner. You'll be surprised by the difference in size, power and construction.
#4. NEVER Borrow Vacuums From Neighbors or Allow Cleaning Companies Bring Their Vacuums Into Your Home .

ALL vacuums (except central vacuum systems) leak dust into your home. Household vacuum dust is composed of some pretty nasty stuff, including dead skin cells, dirt and filth from the bottom of your shoes, Bacteria, Viruses, Dust Mite feces and dozens of other contaminants and allergens of microscopic size that easily pass through your vacuum's bag and filtration systems. Even the world's best filtering vacuum cleaner leaks some amount of dust back into your environment.

Do you really know how clean your neighbors home is? Do you know what your cleaning service picked up in the previous 5 homes that were cleaned before using the vacuum in your home? Do any of those homes have pets that soil the yard where the owners inadvertantly walk through the yard and into their homes without taking off their shoes? Get the picture?

#5. Canister vacuums out-clean compairable upright vacuums on all surfaces.
Well made, properly designed canister vacuums, outclean upright vacuums by a considerable measure. A canister vacuum, which is composed of a power unit that rolls along on the floor, and a lightweight hose and cleaning head has a unique advantage over uprights. Canisters are able to accommodate a much larger and powerful suction motor by their design and function. Canister power-heads can get to places an upright never will; under beds, behind furniture, in between hard to reach and out of the way places.

A lot of consumers who have traditionally stayed away from canister vacuums because of the outdated notion that canister vacuums are difficult pull along and tip easily, are finding some of today's designs make them easier than ever before to maneuver around furniture and around corners.

When looking at canister vacuums, check to see that the canister rides on 3 to 4 swivel casters instead of one swivel caster and two fixed wheels.

#6. People Who Use a Quality Canister Vacuum are Rarely Happy Switching to an Upright Vacuum.
Housekeepers in North America overwhelmingly use upright vacuums, however we are in the minority. The rest of the world prefers cleaning with a canister vacuum. In Europe housekeepers wouldn't use an upright if you gave them one for free. Although the perception people have of canister vacuums is that they are cumbersome to use, getting stuck on furnishings and tipping when going around walls, better brands, such as Miele, Riccar, Sebo, Lindhaus and a few others have solved this problem by engineering their vacuums not to tip over (see example in #5 above) or get stuck when you go turn corners. Vacuums designed with swivel casters instead of wheels, follow the user with much greater efficiency, gliding around corners effortlessly.

#7. Consumers That Try a Quality Upright Vacuum and a Quality Canister Vacuum in Side-by-Side Tests, Prefer the Canister 10 to 1.

In our business, we let customers take two vacuums home at a time, a canister and an upright and let themdecide for themselves which is better. An amazing 9 out of 10 people that said they would never like using a canister, return the upright. My favorite was a gentleman that had sold Kirby vacuums for over 20 years and thought that no vacuum cleaner could ever out-clean a Kirby, especially not a canister vacuum. When he returned the next day and reluctantly admitted the Miele canister vacuum outperformed the Kirby and was considerably easy to use, he couldn't get over how profoundly wrong he was all those years.

#8. Sometimes a heavier vacuum will push easier than a lighter weight machine.
An engineering trick used to make a vacuum easier to push, is to use a stiffer bristle in a vacuum cleaner's brush-roll or agitator. This has an added benefit of grooming carpeting better. If you have a very delicate carpet you may want to consider sacrificing this better cleaning brushroll design for a gentler one that won't be overly aggressive and prematurely ruin your carpeting.

The best known lightweight vacuum cleaner the "8 Pound" Oreck has such a small motor that it's necessary to use a very soft brush-roll so the motor won't over-work. This softer type of brush does not do a good job of grabbing the carpet making this type of vacuum harder to push on medium to thicker pile carpets.
Oreck vacuums, although they are incorrectly recommended by the manufacturer for all situations, are appropriate for use in a limited few:

#9. The MAJORITY of "HEPA" vacuum cleaners are not properly sealed and leak an unacceptable amount of dust and filth back into the air you breath.
Consumers buy "HEPA" vacuums because they have been lead to believe they filter all of the dust and micro-fine contaminants out of vacuum exhaust. As it turns out, he most harmful dust is virtually invisible to the naked eye and readily escapes most vacuums. If you can't see this dust, How can you tell if the filtration claims are true? You can't, unless you can somehow measure the amount of dust particles in the exhaust air.

Your better Independent Vacuum Retail Center should have an expensive piece of equipment called a Laser Particle Counter. This equipment shows how many dust particles (3 microns in size) are in a cubic yard of air. A Laser Particle Counter is the only way you can truly tell if your vacuum is leaking dust. As it turns out. the majority of brands that we test, fail to meet the manufacturers claims. And, most vacuums, even those with a HEPA filter leak enough contaminated dust to leave the air in your home up to 6 times more dust contaminated than before vacuuming.

We have found that if you are concerned about this sort of thing, you should ask if the vacuum you are considering purchasing has "SEALED FILTRATION. This means that 100% of the air that exhausts the vacuum goes through the filter. If a vacuum does not have sealed filtration not all of the exhaust air is going through the filter, some leaks out through the cord rewind system, around the motor compartment, out of the wheel ports and numerous other places.
Have you ever noticed how your home has that "JUST VACUUMED SMELL". It's because you've put dust, bacteria, dust mite feces and other contaminants that you just picked up out of your carpeting back into the air.
IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT DUST, ASK TO SEE A MEASURE OF THE DUST FROM A VACUUM CLEANER'S EXHAUST COMPARED TO THE AIR IN THE ROOM.

#10. Spending More on a Vacuum DOES NOT Guarantee that you are Getting a Quality Vacuum.
Common sense dictates that if you spend more on a product, you should get better quality. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Some manufacturers spend an improportianate amount of revenue on advertising and marketing to get their product known, rather than let quality and reputation create a market for their product. With that said, with the purchase price of some of the better known, very expensive vacuums, half of the purchase money goes for more marketing and advertising costs, rather than engineering and development costs. What this means to you is that you may have just spent $500.00 on a brand new popular branded vacuum that should really sell for $250.00. Some of the best products are the ones that you rarely see on television and in news papers. These are the ones you hear about in conversations with friends and neighbors or by visiting your Local Independent Vacuum Retailer.

Spending more on a vacuum doesn't guarantee that your getting a good vacuum cleaner, however the same rule doesn't hold true for the opposite. When you buy a cheap vacuum cleaner, that's what you get.

10 years ago it was possible to purchase the less expensive vacuums on the market and still get a quality piece of merchandise. Not so these days. With international trade barriers relaxed, manufacturers have discovered how easy it is to import cheap product from China that looks good and sells well before the consumer realizes the problems associated with their bargain vacuum. The problem is there is little to no oversight on production and labor practices in Chinese factories and product quality suffers enormously.

#12. In General, Older Vacuums are Better Made than Brand New Vacuums and are Often Worth Repairing.
It's amazing, in retrospect what we thought were cheaper machines 5 to 10 years ago, we consider quality products by today's standards. In the last 5 years, we have seen a dramatic decrease in quality, performance and durability of many of the vacuums produced. Not all vacuums, but I would have to say a majority. Good vacuum cleaners are getting more difficult to distinguish upon casual inspection and initial use from poor quality "throw-away" or "disposable" vacuum cleaners.
If you have an older vacuum that breaks down, consider getting it repaired. It just may be a better vacuum than the new one you are considering purchasing. A local vacuum retail store can advise you best. As Independent Vacuum Retailers, we know what lasts, what doesn't. For example, in most cases money would be better spent on a major repair, lets say $200, on a 20 year old Electrolux, rather than spending $300.00 on the new Electrolux. The twenty year old machine will last another 10 to 20 years and outclean the newer machine. The new Electrolux, which is actually a Eureka with the Electrolux logo, will only last a fraction of the time that an older, well maintained, "original" Electrolux would.
#13. Investing in a Quality Vacuum Costs Less Over Time Than Buying Bargain Vacuums.
Over time, you will repair & replace a cheap vacuum 3 to five times more frequently than a quality machine. A bargain vacuum will never get out as much dirt, groom your carpets as well as a quality vacuum, and lead to premature wear and tear on your expensive carpeting. Not to mention the health concerns due to bargain vacuums leaking dust. Sure, you're going to spend 4 to 6 times more on a good, durable, quality vacuum, but over time your savings will far outweigh your initial expense.
As Benjamin Franklin said, "The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten."

#14. The Very Best Vacuum Cleaner if it is an option for you, is a Central Vacuum System.Out of all of the best household vacuums available on the market today, not one of them comes close to the cleaning power, convenience features and health advantages of a built-in, Central Vacuum Cleaning System.

With all of the confusing and manufacturer biased reports on how to choose the best vacuum cleaner, we tried to give you a different, fresh perspective to use when you begin shopping for a new vacuum cleaner. We wanted to open your eyes and give you an insiders perspective on the vacuum industry along with some of the common pitfalls and mistakes consumers make when shopping for a vacuum cleaner or considering the repair of an older vacuum. I hope you find this information useful.

Best of luck with your search and research. If you find the right vacuum, invest in quality and avoid cheap disposable machines, you'll end up saving a lot more money in the long run than you realize and have a much healthier home environment.