Straight suction canisters vs powered brush canisters.

[rainbowd4c]

I thought that this could be an interesting conversation for some of us. I was looking at the pictures from the convention and I saw the ones of the cleaing competition and the told straight suction canister vacuum. I was shocked at how well they were picking up all the debris on the floor. I have always been a firm believer that for carpet you need a rotating brush if it's a canister or upright. However after seeing the cleaning compition pictures I think that maybe my theory has been proven wrong. What are your views on this?

I apologze if this conversation has been done already.

 

[trebor]

Straight suction machines were once the...

standard. Look at old Royal and Electro-Hygiene and other uprights. Unquestionably the Hoover was an improvement for deeper pile rugs. Moving into the 50's, flat rugs, even reversible ones became popular, and non-powered nozzles could do a decent job of cleaning them. By then, except for electric brooms, straight suction uprights had disappeared. Filter Queens and Compacts and Airways were sold in homes with wall-to-wall carpet, trading in "old-fashioned" uprights, with clogged cloth bags, worn brush rollers, and stretched belts.


 


Carpets are now manufactured by gluing two backings together, sealing the gaps and allowing little air to be pulled actually through the carpet. Straight suction nozzles like those included with the aforementioned machines and others are no more. Once the technology of the power nozzle was developed, the advancement of the non-powered nozzle simply came to a halt. It does make one wonder what could be achieved with today's advancements in metal technology and our knowledge of airflow dynamics, coupled with virtual 3D modeling.

 

[vintagekitchen]

For myself, I have to say a straight suction nozzle has always seemed much more limited in it's abilities. On carpet with any amount of pile they are not only harder to move, but clean less and less effectively the deeper the pile is. Also, even on a flat weave carpet, where a straight suction nozzle is most at home, bits of fluff or hair require one to sort of "scrub" at the carpet with the nozzle, in order to loosen the bits.

Though I do sometimes use a straight suction machine, mostly for fun, or when I simply want to remove some surface litter on a relatively clean carpet, to me they will never be on par with a powered brushroll for deep cleaning. When my Grandmother bought her Kirby Tradition, she was horrified at the amounts of dirt which kept coming out of her 6 month old shag carpet, that she had been cleaning daily with a straight suction Singer since it was installed. She said after seeing how fast those Kirby bags filled up digging out all the left behind dirt, she would never use a straight suction machine again.

 

[vintagerepairer]

I find these threads so very interesting. Because here in the UK one has to go a long way to find a powered cleaning head, despite being a country where wall to wall carpeting is rife. The suction powered heads have been around for a very long time but only became really popular within the last 10 years. The electrical powered heads have never been in fashion and have come & gone and were usually only available on top of the range cleaners. I think the unpopularity of PN's is because our homes are smaller and people who like canister cleaners over here do so because the cleaning head is so much smaller and lighter than an upright, as are the hoses and tubes. Adding a PN to that creates an additional bulk which I suppose one could say defeats the exercise of having a canister to begin with.

I've never considered the straight suction canisters to be all that good at vacuuming carpets really, but for us in the UK I think their lack of performance at deep cleaning carpets is balanced against the ability to quickly and easily get in and around and under furniture, which in a cramped home could be argued makes the canister as good as any other cleaner, because whilst it's not doing a deep-down clean of carpets, it is giving the user the means to get right into corners and other places which an upright or canister with PN would otherwise miss.

 

[vintagekitchen]

smaller homes..

Living in a 900 Square foot home, I see the point about a straight suction head being more agile for small spaces. I usually end up doing a good deal of cleaning in corners and under furniture using the upholstery nozzle or just the wand, since there are so many places an upright or powerhead simply will not fit here.

 

[trebor]

A few nozzles on their respective machines...

have been proved to be effective carpet cleaners, and have even done well in cleaning competitions, most notably, Compacts, Apex canister, and the Rainbow D2 with the nozzle minus the air vents. The Sunbeam tuna can in Consumer reports in 1968 did well, too.

 

[rainbowd4c]

While I don't know entire vacuum history's like most of you I do know a few things here and there, and have been able to form my own opinion. I have to agree with the fact that if you have a canister and lots of carpet you need a powerhead. I just put a new belt on my Rainbow and it seems to be doing well and while my apartment is all hard floors I have large thick area rugs in my livingroom, bedroom and a runner down the hallway. The one day I was just to tired to get all the attachments out so I tried to vacuum with just the hard floor brush and needless to say it was a mistake.

@ Trebor. I never through about the fact that carpets back them were a lot different when the machines in the pictures were on the market so yes I'm sure that you could use a straight suction machine and get your rugs clean. As opposed to now carpets (when you find them in a house) are a lot different in material, texture, and piles.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I think another reason power nozzle canisters are popular here in US but not in Europe is many houses here have carpet whereas in the UK it's often hard floors. Here, most of our straight suction machines are the smaller more compact ones that are marketed towards people living in smaller homes or apartments. Mostly for above floor and hard floor cleaning and a few small rugs at most. They would make a perfect companion to an upright though.

I know I could not keep my carpeting clean with just a straight suction canister. Perhaps some low pile or soft carpets could be cleaned with a straight suction nozzle that has a good brush to separate the pile and get deeper down, but for a good deep cleaning a beater brush is needed.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Well no, the UK is a place full of wall to wall carpeting. The rest of Europe may be hard floors, but we don't do it here. There is and has been a trend this last 10 or so years for hard flooring as a fashion, mainly laminated floors, but even so I know a good deal of people in the UK who still have a carpet in the bathroom and toilet rooms. Fitted carpet is still very much alive and well. And often smelly.

 

[trebor]

Some facts about carpet...

Carpet was the villain in the minds of allergists for decades. When the trend shifted to hard floors several issues became apparent


1) noise pollution, EVERY noise is magnified.


2) dust, it floats everywhere, and above the floor cleaning needs to be done more frequently


3) furnace filters need to be changed more often


 


Carpet does act as a filter, and filters need to be cleaned, or they become a contributor to the indoor atmospheric pollution


Air passing over walls and under furniture allows high concentrations of dust mite allergens to collect under furniture in the carpet. Most people do not vacuum under their furniture regularly because no one walks there.


 


The optimum solution is hard surface floors with hall runners and large area rugs with seating groups, hard surfaces to make cleaning under furniture easier, and a lack of warmth and shelter for dust mites and other critters while providing warmth, comfort, color and noise control.


 

 

[sensotronic]

In my experience straight suction vacuum cleaners do not pick up as much dirt as a cleaner with a power head.
Pet hair in particular is very hard to remove with straight suction as I've noticed with many cleaners including Miele, that they tend to roll the pet hair up into strips that take forever to remove from the carpet. The fibre pickers on most floorheads don't work very well.

Add a power head and pet hair is picked up in one sweep. I have straight suction Miele and Sebo cleaners and I also have the equivalent power head versions which not only pick up pet hairs and deep down dirt, they also groom the pile. Air powered turbo heads are an improvement on straight suction, but I don't like the extra noise they produce and the efficiency drops off if the suction reduces.

It is true that a power head adds to the weight of the cleaner, but they are far easier to push than a straight suction nozzle. My Sebo D2 Storm is much harder work on carpet than my D4 premium with its power head.

A straight suction cleaner is best suited to homes with mainly hard floors and few rugs which is why they are popular in some parts of Europe. Being a vacuum enthusiast I naturally have several canister models to choose from and I always use a power head version for carpet cleaning. If I'm having a spring clean and want something to get into tight spaces or dust high areas, I would chose a lightweight compact straight suction canister like my Sebo K1 Komfort or Miele S4. I do have the Sebo extension hose that I use on my D4 Premium which gives the best of both worlds as I have a powerful machine with rotating brushes for carpets and the ability to clean high and low with the extension hose fitted to the power hose. This means I can leave the cleaner in one place and reach most areas of the room.

To sum up, yes power heads out clean straight suction nozzles but are heavier, though easier to push. I think the general public who choose straight suction canisters are happy as long as their carpets look clean, even if a lot of deep down dirt is being left in the carpet. Many people swear by their cute little Henry machines but I bet if a decent upright or canister with a power head was to be used after a few months of cleaning with Henry, the extra dirt removed that smiling Henry left would shock them.

 

[kenkart]

I Use.

A straight suction cleaner about all of the time, Im not a big fan of uprights or power nozzles, I will use a revolving brush machine maybe once a month or so, just to groom the rug.

 

[vintagerepairer]

There can be no doubting that a straight suction cleaner with no power head does not clean carpets deep down as well as one which has such a device, or as well as an upright cleaner. I said as much earlier on. But I do still stand by my comments that their versatility allows the user to take the hose into places which uprights and cleaners with PN's cannot reach. One of my mothers biggest irritations was that the house they bought new when we moved to Doncaster in 1971 had wall to wall fitted carpets downstairs and her Hoover 262 did not get into the edges. Before this, we had only floorboards and large area rugs, and mother used to damp brush and damp wipe into every last corner. She hated using brushes on the carpet. Shortly after the move, she went to work for the local doctor as a receptionist and housekeeper (doctor lived next door to the practice). They had a Hoover Constellation in pink, and my mother had an open invitation to take it home on loan, which she did many times to clean edges and furniture, until she got her Electrolux 504 with tool kit.

I have since seen a good deal of homes which have never seen the end of a vacuum cleaner hose. Long grey strips adorn the edges of rooms along the skirting boards and around furniture when an upright cleaner has skipped around of everything. The main sections of carpeting may have been fairly well cleaned but the edges harboured a lot more. So I think one has to balance where the dirt is best collected from if it is a choice of cleaning middle or edges. When I think of some of the huge, heavy Hoover senior cleaners which people used to bring in for repair, I wonder how their houses allowed such a cleaner to be push around.

The apartment I am in now is all hard floors and I don't like it. The bathroom is none slip lino as it is a wet room, the rest of the place is laminated. I would like at least one carpet so as to keep dust down. As Trebor so rightly points out, nothing stays at floor level and it does send me a little bit potty.

 

[rainbowd4c]

I know for myself I have always liked carpet. I have always thought that whatever room you keep the TV in should have carpet because that room is comfortable, and I like the feel of carpet on barefloor. So when I got this apartment I had to come up with something for my livingroom and bedroom so I just bought large plush area rugs so that the rooms could be defined. Plus I have a Rainbow rug cleaner and powerbrush and if I didn't have rugs then those would have just sat in the closet unused.

I like the combination that I have with hardwood and area rugs. It makes my apartment look comfortable and homey.

@ vintagerepairer. You can still use a canister with a power nozzle to get into tight corners. Just use the attachments that come with the units. Thats what I do. I don't have a collection just my Rainbow and my Dyson DC35 and I have found no problems getting into tight areas at all with all the attachents I have to use.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Hello Rainbow. You should see the size of some UK homes. Add to this now a love for lots of furniture. You will soon realise what I mean about tight corners. It isn't always about the room to fit a PN into, it is about having the room to move around without knocking things over with the heavier hose and so on. This is what I mean about the lovers of cylinder / canister cleaners in the UK being such due to the relatively small and lightweight floor tool. I have known of people in the UK who bought cylinder cleaners for their small homes and didn't even use the main floor tool, or in one case even the tubes. Yes, one woman told me she used to get on her hands and knees with just the vacuum cleaner, hose, and a small upholstery attachment, and vacuum her floors this way. I had occasion to visit her home once; it was tiny and I could barely move for furniture.

 

[eurekaprince]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the most efficient, economical and simplest way to clean a home that has any carpeting is with a vacuum team - an upright for carpets, and a canister for everything else. Neither kind of vacuum does both kinds of cleaning without a lot of complicated, unnecessary engineering gymnastics.

 

[vintagerepairer]

eurekaprince, that is just what my mother did in later years. She got an Electrolux 504 in 1975 and that had a really good set of tools and relatively powerful suction when compared to other uprights. To some degree it was like having a cylinder and an upright, although separate cylinder would usually have even more suction. A couple of years after getting the 504, her old 262 which had been put upstairs broke down. Mother part exchanged it for an Electrolux 302 cylinder. She often had me fetch the 302 downstairs so she could deep clean. I of course got the job of moving the furniture so she could get under and behind it.

 

[eurekaprince]

Benny - Eureka, Hoover and General Electric marketed "home cleaning systems" in the 1950's that twinned carpet cleaning uprights with versatile cylinder vacs. It makes a lot of sense to this day.

When I grew up, we always had a vacuum team: at first a Eureka 260 upright and a brown GE cylinder (AV???), then my beloved "Goldie" (Gold Eureka 2083 Rugulator Cordaway Upright) paired with a quiet, powerful, lightweight Sanyo canister.

I now am the proud owner of a highly efficient and powerful Hoover Tempo upright and a wonderful, quiet, lightweight Electrolux UltraSilencer Green canister. I could not be happier with this cleaning duo that together cost me no more than $550 Canadian dollars, including tax.

 

[durango159]

I'm a power head fan

I definitely choose a power head canister over anything else. My favorite machine is a Hoover PowerMax canister. You can add Supreme, Deluxe or Ultra as prefixes onto that but the basic concept of that machine just works well. 12" light in weight, easy to manuever power nozzle. Edge to edge agitator with suction duct extending under the belt to reach the far side, Slim design, headlight, dual brushed agitator with centralized suction duct and agitator cavity has a decent size opening for rug contact. With the onboard attachments I can clean every square inch surface in the house. Love Hoover's older style upholstery nozzle with the rubber fingers too.
I find uprights too bulky and straight suction heads just brush over the carpet, they capture paper hole punches and some crumbs but just roll hair up into little balls, eventually if you rub over it enough the hair ball gets big enough to be sucked up. But if I use my Hoover PowerMax about 95% of hair is gone on the first pass.
Hoover streamlined their production and redesigned the original agitators in the 1999-2002 area on these so they were universal to fit the Elite, Dimension and other uprights with several support bars on the base plate. The Hoover PowerMax power nozzle only has the belt area and middle support bar so the original brush roll worked much better than the newer one which have non bristled crevices carved in for where support bars would be.
I've been doing house cleaning for years. The PowerMax is easier to use and has outcleaned World Vac 6865, Powerforce, most bagless models, DC07, Majestic Triple Crown, Kenmore Power Mate, Whispertone, Caddyvac, Vicory and others.

One thing I really wish is manufacturers revert away from the bulky gas pump style hand grips, their very bulky and too cumbersome for attachment cleaning on steps, dashboards, under furniture. I like the old Hoover Futura/ Dimension 1000 hose with sliding suction valve and slimmer design handle. Also Eureka Rotomatic hoses. The World Vac hose is similar but not as good as the Rotomatic, it felt like a cheaper plastic so there was a vibration, and it had too much movement where the plastic meets the metal. Don't like the Kenmore/ Panasonic non gas pump style electic, there's no place comfortable to hold onto. I'd be fine with manufacturers reverting back to the toe operated agitator on/off switch as on Beam Rugmaster, Hoover Quadrafex Powermatic and Panasonic Jet Flos. Especially if stuck on a rug, its quicker for me to shut it off with my foot, than it is to find the button on the handle. My Riccar 1700 hose handle has so many buttons, you have to study it to remember which is powernozzle.