Vacuum Cleaner Series: Bissell: Fat, Bloated Back-Killers. You'd need one on every floor.

A quick few clicks and I have all I need to know.

If you're picking up a Bissell, expect it to be 22 lbs. Because that's how heavy almost all of them are.

The Heavy Duty Vacuum, the heavyweight champ weighs in at 35 lbs.!  Imagine toting that up and down the stairs.  These aren't the shampooers, these are just the plain old uprights.

To be fair, their PROLite is 'only' 16 lbs. Get me out of here!

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Dyson - let's get it over with already

Since we all want to compare every vacuum out there to a Dyson, let's look at their uprights.

DC28 Animal ($600.00): 21 lbs. - 245 watts
DC25 Animal ($550.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC25 All Floors ($500.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC24 Animal ($450.00): 12 lbs. - 115 watts
DC33 MultiFloor ($400.00): 18 lbs.  - 240 watts
DC35 MultiFloor Cordless ($300.00 - looks like an
overgrown leaf blower): 5 lbs. - Bingo! - 65 watts but can only run for 15 minutes. Darn.

The uprights pretty much all have wonderful telescoping hoses that can clean a whole flight of stairs, but that comes with added weight as we can see. They are gorgeous, they have a great website, fantastic reviews, and expensive photography, but they're heavy.

21 pounds?  You sure are gorgeous but you'll need to get rid of that extra weight.

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Dirt Devil

They offer 12 different varieties of upright vacs. Twelve!

I mean, you need three for a high, mid, and low range.  Then maybe some in-between.  Like Oreck, they had, what 6 which is plenty sufficient.  I hope I'm not going to compare everyone with Oreck now.

On to Dirt Devil. For a quick test of the water I usually will check out the reviews on Amazon. and D.D. has some low reviews out there:

Extreme Quick: 2/5
Featherlite Bagless: 2.5/5
Ultra Swivel Glide & Reaction: 3.5/5
Breeze Bagless, Optima Lightweight, Featherlite Bagged: 4/5

I'll look at the three that had 4 stars. The two, Optima isn't on their website.
"Featherlite" is 11lbs, "Breeze" is 13.15 (at least they're accurate). No Hepa filtration (the Featherlite has "Micro Fresh" Filtration, but they do have on-board tools (maybe that is the extra weight)). Not that impressed, let's find their best.

Sorting by price, their most expensive upright is the $90 Ultra Vision Turbo Vacuum. It has all the bells and whistles, including actual Hepa filters, and weighs in at a whopping 19 lbs! Do they expect people to carry that up and down the stairs?

Think of all the Chiropractor visits!

Sorry, but your lackluster reviews and lack of any attempt to make vacuums lighter in the world we live in gives you a big Thumbs Down. Dirt Devil seems like the cheap vacuum you get that will last a good 3 years.

Maybe if you cared as much about product development as social media your uprights would be under 10 lbs.

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Oreck

Oh Oreck.

You almost had me.

Shopping the other day and happened by an Oreck shop.  Since I am fastidiously researching for this Vac Series, I stopped in to see what they had to offer.  The saleswoman was just wonderful.  The showroom had all their models out and waiting for you to try on wood, carpet, dirt, and their own heaps of "pet hair".  The vacs were lightweight, and if you bring in your old clunker vac you get $50 off a new one!  The problem here is that none of them had a hose, so you need another vac to do that part. But, as the saleswoman explained, that is why they can make their powerful vacs so lightweight. This changes everything.

Oreck's Pros:

• Actual stores
• Once you buy, you can bring it back once a year for 10 years and they'll replace whatever it needs and keep it running for you.
• Uses bags so cleanup is easy (see image on direct suction below)
• $$$ when you trade in your old vac
• Relatively inexpensive, you can get a really good one for around $200 (I mean $150 if you have a trade in)
• Hepa Filtration
• Looooong 35ft cords
• Eco friendly Bright LED lights
• Most models between 7 - 9 lbs!
• Last for years

 Oreck's Cons:

• They're getting better, but they still look like every vacuum you've seen in a hotel 
• No hose, need a separate vac for that
• Oreck sounds like Ogre and Shrek and is awkward to say.  "Yes, I have an Oreck Vacuum. I live in Britain, now lets go have some tea, shall we?"  
• Um...

As weird as it sounds, I might be less suspicious if it cost $800. Why is it so good and so cheap?  How can they make money when they last that long and are $200-$300 and Dysons cost $600? I know there is a marketing theory that applies here.

At this point it comes to do you want a hose or not, and do you mind having to change a bag (although it's touted as quick and easy, it still needs to be done bagless or not). But I think we have a contender here. They come in lots of different color combinations, some more modern than others.

If I would have had my old vac in the car I would have been sorely tempted to trade it in right then and there.  Not sure what I would have done.

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Kirby

C'mon, let me in your house to try and convince you to buy.

Kirby. I'm starting with Kirby because my mom got one in the 70's. I grew up with Kirby. In fact, she only replaced it around 2008 with the Dyson Animal, the purple one.  Let's say it cost $700 back then, pretty good investment, what $30 a year for the thing.  Kirby thinks themselves as the high end of vacs, the Tiffany in a sea of Kmarts.  And while they may be all they're cracked up to be, you and I will never know because none of their models are sold online. You must contact a dealer who will then schedule an appointment for them to come to your house.  They will let you try it, they might even shampoo a room for you while you watch. Yes, they last a long time, but I can't possibly recommend them above others due to no specs being online. How a company can operate like this I do not know.

Hey Kirby, if you're trying to keep your secrets from their competitors, it's also keeping it a secret from me, a potential 2nd generation customer.  At least list the current models on your website, and some basic features of them. I don't buy anything over $100 without researching the crap out of it online first. So you're not even a contender.

While we're at it, want some Encyclopedias?

Vacuum Cleaner Series: The problem with Vacuums

Clunky, heavy, loud, annoying.  If anything can make cleaning less appealing it is the common household vacuum cleaner. Dusting is easy, just spray and wipe.  Sweeping and then mopping the kitchen floor? I have no problem there. But when it is time to go into the closet and dig out the prehistoric behemoths that inhabit each floor of my house (yes I have two, more on that later), it fills my soul with dread.

Why the inescapable feeling of being lead to my doom?  The answer is poor design. Today marks a day where I will add a new keyword to my blog: awful. Vacuums are awful, everyone knows it, but I'm going to try and quantify why in my Vacuum Cleaner Series.  The ambition here is to examine a Vac company until most of them are exhausted, and then at the end proclaim that either yes, advances have been made, or that no, there is no hope despite all the industry hype.

Hey, that looks familiar.Did it even change at all?
Who could guess that 103 years later it would still suck?

Maybe I'll look in-depth at features such as the inner workings of Hepa filtration and retractable cords, but for the most part this will merely examine the modern vacuums of today through layman's eyes.  I intend to determine if any vacs are worthy per my criteria as follows:

THE LIST - is it too much to ask?

• Weight. This oft overlooked aspect of the vac is, in my opinion the most important aspect.  So what if it can suck your pets into it from the other room if it can't perform this basic of requirements.  Be Light.  Be transportable. If I want to vacuum my entire house in 20 minutes because company is on its way, I should be able to do that without back pain the next day from a 20 lb vacuum. 
• Falling over. This happens all the time. Today might be the day I spend a good solid 30 minutes just on one room with the vac.  I have my upright with its hose attachment, so I get out the hose and do my baseboards, pulling the rest of the vac with me as I go. But the upright portion falls over. Again, and again.  Why isn't it stable, especially since it weighs so much? This has happened with any upright I've ever used with a hose. 
• The cord situation. Vacuuming itself is drudgery. But ad to that the wrapping and unwrapping of the cord before and after every episode and it makes me want to live in a hut with dirt floors. At least you don't have to wrap and unwrap a cord with a broom. Retractable cords end up breaking and you have to wrap it anyway. And the entire time you vacuum, while your one hand is torqued to push and pull & your back is bent over, your other hand is the designated cord corraller. Woe to those who run over the cord with the vac, it usually chews it up. And once you reach the end of your cord leash, you need to walk the whole way back to unplug it, then plug it in somewhere closer to finish the job. 
• Emptying. Some people prefer bags, some bagless. Whatever it is, make it simple and not messy. 
• Hepa Filters. Shouldn't they be in all vacuums by now?
• Profile. It should be low so you can go under the furniture.
• Loudness.  Can it be toned down a bit?
• Suction. It should suck well, not badly.  It should pick up that piece of lint on the floor without me going over it 100 times.