If the bags are negotiable and you've got the extra cash for one, buy a Miele.
It has incredible suction power and has the added bonus of having a very good filtration system that will also clean the air around it.
Sebo also makes a great "premium" vacuum, but like the Miele, it also uses bags. I feel like the best vacuums tend to use bags.
I will second this.
First off bags are better in terms of filtration and release when emptying. OP you asked for best, well best uses a bag system.
Second the Miele C series is basically a tank. A true buy it for life item that will last decades if you take good care of it.
Agreed about Miele. Our White Star has given us 24 years of reliable service. The only problem was the cord retractor stopped working (at about year 15). Now we just wind up the cord, no problem. Definitely would buy again. PS: We've had pretty good luck with off-brand bags and HEPA filters.
Thankyou for the feedback :)
The bags are actually negotiable. Do you have a specific model in mind? Or I'll just choose from the selection they have what seems to fit best for me?
Any that's made in Germany will be great. I think their cheapest tier isn't, but their miserable is solid. You don't need to use the brand name bags, either. Knockoff bags are way cheaper.
You can get one from Costco and get the amazing Costco warranty, too.
Agreed. My Miele also has a very long cord compared with my previous vacuum. (Which was a bagless Dyson I grew to hate. Heavy, cumbersome, awkward to keep clean.)
Miele now us a few bagless models with pretty good reviews. But they are a late comer compared to Dyson and Samsung.
I have a Miele C3 and it is FANTASTIC.
Seconded. Mine is also yellow like C3PO
This is what the reddit vacuum guy recommended lots before he retired. I still want one.
Seconding Miele, but I've heard there are some that are made in China and that it's worth paying the premium to get one that's made in Germany.
Ours is still going strong after a decade.
Bagged vacuums are the way to go. They have better filtration and vacuum power, they're less messy, easier to clean and maintain, and you can get compatible bags for cheap.
It’s popular to hate on Dyson but cordless, bagless vacuum is very much a game dominated by them. Others - Samsung, Miele - have great products but I have yet to see a model from them that is truly superior to flagship Dysons. They dominate on suction and battery power.
Dyson is expensive (overpriced?). The owners is an oligarch brexiteer asshole. The brand is perpetually trending with annoying influencers and I find their vacuums ugly, but … they build very good vacuums.
Yes. I own a Dyson. A corded one. We’re on our third one and keep buying them because we have never had any issues with them.
My current one is 4 years old. The one before was 10 by the time we sold it due to international move. The one before we bought 10 years old used before deciding we wanted a new one.
A way to combat supporting the asshole directly is to find and buy one second hand. Even swapping out a simple part for <$50 can extend an $800 vacuum cleaner by several years.
This is the way. I've owned 8ish Dysons and never purchased one new. There are a lot of people who sell their Dyson because it's "not working". Surprise, if the motor is working and there is a suction problem, there's just something stuck in the hose. I can't tell you how many times I've bought a "broken" Dyson only to find an easily fixable blockage.
It sounds like it's most likely between 0 and 9 times.
Doing God's work
Truth. Very good point.
Part of the problem with our society is people are so quick to throw perfectly functional shit away because advertisements of all sorts convince them that there is something better out on the market now and that what they have is outdated. The quality of products as a whole have gone to shit because people would rather buy cheap knockoff garbage every 6 months and throw it away than buy a quality product that, with some care and attention, could last decades. I've had a lot of luck over the years being patient and browsing all the sites like craiglist, Facebook marketplace, etc and buying the few remaining top-of-the-line brands second-hand (or sometimes even for free) and making it new again. I'll get off my soapbox now.
and there is a very useful Dyson refurbished factory store on EBay, at least here in Canada. I bought a stick vac there 12 years ago, only had to replace battery and air filter since.
Imo they all suck
A Henry. It uses dust bags but it's been months and I'm still on the same one. It's a canister vacuum, not an upright vacuum. Too many times someone sucks up a bunch of drywall dust or cat litter and then you turn on the upright vacuum and it spews dust in a massive cloud. Canister vacuums don't do that.
+1, Henry is a G. I bought mine 10 years ago and he's still like new. My parents are self-employed cleaners and have a Henry they use pretty much every day (and have done for 20 years) and he's still going strong. I can't bear any other vaccum.
I've had to use Dysons in previous jobs and oh my god, they're so needy. The tiniest amount of hair will block the whole thing. Henry could suck up a horse and keep going.
Henry could suck up a horse and keep going.
Lol. Always had these at uni. They seemed to be passed down from student to student.
They're immortal, I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.
Maybe some kind of Miele? The Germans are good at this sort of thing.
I bought a Miele a few years ago and don't regret it. Best vacuum I've ever owned. It is bagged, but in my opinion that's better than bagless. I owned a few bagless vacuums over the years and they all have the same problem of excessive dust generation when emptying. You don't have that problem with bags.
How does she perform on noise?
Pretty good. It has about 5 power levels for different scenarios (carpet, upholstery, curtains, etc) with the lower levels being super quiet. Even at the highest power level, I wouldn't worry about bothering anyone by vacuuming another room.
If the criteria is pure suction power, my Shark literally sucked a strip of veneer off an antique rocking chair. And nearly pulled down a curtain it grabbed hold of. Which aren't good things, but I learned to turn it down when near loose stuff.
I'm a firm believer there isn't a better value than a Shark vacuum. The thing is reasonably priced compared to other high performing vacuums and it works phenomenally. I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat.
TLDR; buy a Shark @ sharkclean dot com
Sharks are great. The prices are good and they seem to be total beasts. And as far as I can tell they don't need a lot of maintenance or anything either.
Try the Hoover MaxExtract PressurePro model 60. Be sure to ask for the dust filter.
The bags are the primary filter. Every bag change is also a filter change. It is really ingenious.
Bagless vacs require cleaning as the primary filter is somewhere else.
We own a German made Miele. The bags are expensive. But we love it.
I can't tell you which is the best but I can give you my general impression of vacuum cleaners, I've used a few in a lot of different houses.
The most popular cord model here seems to be Dyson Ball, but imo it's overrated. Not bad, but not great, and very expensive.
Miele, I've used a couple but must admit, they were old. They seem better than the Dyson Ball though not by much. In terms of weight and manoeuvrability they were similar. I repeat, these were old models so maybe you find nicer ones brand new.
I've used one corded Shark, it was a "standing" type you could detach partially and carry around by hand (still keeping the cord). The whole vacuum was very heavy and bulky but detached was much more manageable, and the suction power was really decent. Cord was very long too.
Of the three I'd pick the Shark, with the caveat that I didn't get a fair comparison with Miele.
Going cordless has made life much easier
Don't get a bagless. At least, as someone with allergies - I (my nose) can tell you that bagged vaccum cleaners are much better. The main HEPA filter lasts for ages (I've only changed my once in the last decade), thanks to the double filtering - the bag ls themselves are a filter, plus there's a second filter that sits in between the bags and the inside of the vaccum (which btw, you get free every time you purchase a ser of bags).
The main advantage of bagged is of course the maintenance/cleaning/disposal - when it's time to empty out your vacuum, just open the hatch and chuck out the bag and you're done - no risk of dust or tiny insects like dust mites etc spreading around. Especially in this era of microplastics - you don't want to inhale all the microplastics you've just vacuumed up now do you?
Not buying bags is nice, but they sure are cleaner than canisters.
You already got a lot of responses but I love https://www.rtings.com/ for vacuum reviews. They show all kinds of vacuums too.
There is a very good reason nearly every commercial cleaner uses either a Pulman or a pacvac.
20m extension cord, good power, cheap and just bang out the filters every few cleans.
I've had my Shark Navigator Pro for over a decade, the thing is a tank. If it died tomorrow I would instantly buy another one.
I hate changing bags, but bagged is best. I have a Riccar and really love it, it sucks a lot.
I have a 16 gallon shopvac I bought... about 15 years ago, maybe more. Honestly, I think that's the way to go. They can handle wet, dry stuff, huge capacity, really powerful, simple system. Not even expensive compared to normal vacuums.
If you have a husky/husky mix, good luck with bags. You will need about 1 billion per year.
I'm very happy with my Wertheim stick vac, way more than I was with the Dyson I had before. It used to give me strong static electric shocks whenever I used it. The Wertheim actually has some metal studs on the handle supposedly to help with grounding. No idea if that is why, but it has never shocked me, not once. Plus you can actually remove the dust container if you want, you don't have to take the whole handheld unit to the bin. Oh and the trigger is a toggle, not hold to vacuum.
It is battery powered, but it came with two batteries and a free standing stand that charges the spare when the vacuum is undocked or fully charged, so if I ever ran out of battery (never happened), I could just swap the spare in. Plus I guess if the battery degrades, I can get a replacement probably.
I have a Shark Duo clean with a battery setup like this. I was able to buy a 3rd battery from some other manufacturer. Its great never having to worry about running out of juice.
Dunno about the newer ones, but my 20 year old Dyson is still working wonderfully. It’s the traditional DC 07 Animal - not the ball version.
The newer ones are still pretty good, but they aren't so bulletproof, anymore.
The fact is, if you do regular maintenance on your vacuums like filters, keeping tangles out, etc and you don't bash it around hard, even most cheapo vacuums can last a decade. Most just eventually get abused. Some definitely have weak/flawed roller assemblies, though. Screw those ones.
It doesn't plug into the wall like you asked. But my favorite vacuum is the "shark ion p50" It is a standup cordless vacuum with changeable batteries, large canaster and good suction. The shark corded (no battery) dual brush(duo clean) models or other corded brands do have better suction though. The p50 is just the closest to a coarded but still battery one I could find, I hate tripping on cords.
Aeg vx7, with bags, very good performance, reasonably loud, long cable. Bought in 2018 and still very good.
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