Worst hose you've ever used

[niclonnic]

What is the worst-designed hose you've ever used on an upright vacuum cleaner?

For me, it's on the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Lift-Off vacuum. I've owned this machine since Christmas of 2018, and it's pretty much been my daily driver. While it's a fine vacuum, the hose is just too short, making it very awkward to use. It gets stiff while using the crevice tool or turbo brush, which in turn makes the vacuum tip over constantly, even in "Lift-Off" mode (due to the hose being mounted up high). This turns a stair cleaning job into a balancing act.

In addition, the hose does NOT stay locked on to the vacuum; Bissell stupidly did not include a locking mechanism for the hose, meaning there is no audible click when you turn the hose cuff clockwise to "lock" it into place. So while using the hose, it has a tendency to detach completely from the vacuum, forcing me to reattach it often. This happened to my sister while she was vacuuming earlier today. She called me into her room, where I then reattached the hose for her.

The other poorly designed part of the vacuum is the telescopic wand; it's short and does NOT stay locked, so it constantly retracts while cleaning, even after turning the collar to the "lock" position as tightly as I can. This is especially irritating when using the crevice tool.

I will say that my Dyson DC07 Animal has a superb attachment system. Its hose and wand (not telescopic) are significantly longer, making them a lot more usable than on the Bissell.

Every vacuum cleaner has its faults, but the hose on this Bissell is just infuriating to use. Thoughts?

 

[jo]

Many bad hoses come to mind....

Wouldn’t mind a picture of your Bissell. My niece has one and the hose does lock on if you twist it, on the other end, when using in upright mode it nestled into a little notch and while not locked it doesn’t come off. The hose is stretchy which is nice.

I have a dirt devil with a short hose that doesn’t stretch it’s hard plastic like a shop vac hose. It does ok, but as soon as you block off suction with it such as put it against an object to really pick up something stuck or whatever any dirt in the dirt canister immediately gets sucked on to the filter reducing suction substantially until you clean the filter. So using the hose is sorta useless unless you only use the brush head attachment which allows the suction not to be cut off at any moment at all,

My Shark rocket stick vacuum I ordered a stretch hose for it, the end where you add attachments is not glued to the hose and it unscrews itself and falls off and that’s annoying, but I noticed they are not all like that...I think mine forgot to get glued.

The old Electrolux braided hoses that disintegrate from the inside causing them to leak caused many unsuspecting people to think their Electrolux wasn’t cleaning well anymore and they threw them away never to buy such an expensive vacuum again when all they needed was a new hose, but this hose issue went on for a long, long, time until they finally changed to rubber material. But the old ones would have the rubber come apart inside which would cause fuzz and other objects to catch on the rubber strips and then start clogging the hose. At one point on one of our machines I removed what seemed to be a quarter bag full of dirt and debris that had accumulated in several feet of the hose. We learned the hard way to not connect it to the blower end to unblock it unless we had the other end pointed into the suction hole...the clog didn’t want to dislodge at first, then with rigorous shaking of the hose with it connected to the blower port and the machine on, suddenly it blew out...all over the house in a huge cloud spewing dust everywhere...we had to revacuum the entire room, the couches, etc. We learned...take it outside next time we had to clear the hose if it wouldn’t come out holding the handle end of hose in the suction end.

The Dyson DC07 hose is really long but a pain in the butt to take off the wand and feed back on and mine has ripped because of having to slide it on and off the wand repeatedly causing stress on it.

Had a Hoover bagless windtunnel and the hose end would never stay put in its spot and it needed to be or some suction would be lost through the hose. By putting it in its spot, suction was not allowed through its end as the storage spot was solid. I think the machine was supposed to have an automatic diverter to prevent suction through the hose when tilted down, but there always seemed to be some suction coming through the hose even when tilted. Since the hose wouldn’t stay put, it often would be flapping around on the side of the vacuum when it wasn’t in use and also vacuum efficiency through the floor nozzle would be compromised. I gave the vacuum away when two other things broke on it.

Not a fan of most Kenmore canister hoses as the giant handles hamper getting into tight spaces width just the hose end and feel clumsy.

On the Electrolux Renaissance the electronics in the hose handle talked to the circuit board in the machine, they failed a lot and a new hose was $289 plus tax. Without buying a new hose with all new circuit boards, the entire machine is rendered useless. Fortunately this design problem was changed with the next model (Guardian) to follow to eliminate this issue.

Hate the cheap plastic hoses on most brands of shop vacs, they don’t stretch and often kink up and can be too short or cumbersome to use if they are the fat ones for larger debris. My Brithers on his Rigid shop vac kinks right next to the machine and then clogs there constantly so you have to stop and hold it unlinked to unclog it and get the machine to suck in all the dirt collected in the now clogged up hose.

I’ve had very few issues with Aerus/Electrolux genuine rubber hoses kinking or clogging out of all the different vacuums and hoses I’ve used, if it does clog, the handle end can be removed if one knows the correct procedure and then put a broomstick through the hose to clear it.

Don’t like anything that doesn’t swivel easily at the handle end. That makes a HUGE difference.

Jon

 

[fan-of-fans]

Worst upright hose I remember was my mom's old Kenmore Quick Clean bagless upright. Every time I would try to use the hose, as soon as you put the crevice tool on or put on the dusting brush and touched it to a surface, the hose would spring back and tip the machine over. A few times it fell over on me and it hurt!

I will say my Kenmore Progressive upright has a better designed hose as far as that, it has a clip at the bottom that keeps it from falling over, and I've never had it tip. Also it has three speed vs just one so that helps.

My Electrolux has a very stiff woven hose that just seems very short. I can't fault it simply because it was probably less stiff when it was new, it's just age.

Not a big fan of the hose end on my Kenmore Progressive canister. As mentioned above, the hose end is so big, especially with the third gen models. That horse hoof dusting brush just gets in the way. I did order a dusting brush from the newer Kenmore Elite canisters which fits and is more like the older dusting brushes, so that helps a lot.

 

[myles_v]

The first one that comes to mind for me is the Hoover Air Cordless. Short and awkwardly positioned. The latch that needs to be released in order to release the hose is very difficult to reach.

 

[suckolux]

I had a few thoughts to input, but Jon covered it all pretty good

 

[dysonman1]

Some of the worst upright hoses were Eureka and Hoover. They attached under the nose of the machine, which let the machine tip when you pulled it, and there was hardly any suction anyway. Virtually useless.

 

[human]

The absolute worst hose was the non-powered woven hose that came with the Electrolux 1205 that my dad grabbed from a neighbor's trash pile in the early '80s. The thing leaked so badly it effectively had no suction. I didn't know about woven hoses back then and wasn't at all a 'vacuphile' like I am now, so it never occurred to me that the problem was with the deteriorating structure of the hose. Given its lackluster performance, I was amazed to find it languishing in my parents' attic in 2016 almost as amazed at how well the machine worked after sitting forgotten for at least 20. A good, OEM vinyl electric hose makes a world of difference.

Another bad hose is the 10-foot lightweight plastic hose I got for my Electrolux Discovery Plus. The machine is essentially a Discovery II with brackets for onboard tool storage. The having the tools onboard during use is more than a little awkward and the hose constantly pulls the machine over. I understand from some rather knowledgeable folks on this site that the machine would have shipped with a six-foot hose, which might be more manageable. If and when I pull that machine out of back of my barn, where it has sat in what one might euphemistically call 'deep storage' for three or four years, I might consider cutting that hose off to a more correct length.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

I find the best are:

Hoover's "veriflex". tons of it are still working well.
Hoover's "ultraflex" works si ell, too.
Hoover's "Tufflex" is about the best.
Hoover's 'pool filter' is "lackluster". It's found on lots of the plastic stuff.
The hose on the Connies would cut near the wand, from lots of use. Luckily, it can be cut off and reattached. Never had an issue with any of my cleaning tools. The cleaners always follow me around the house.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

So, I'd choose the cheap

pool filter hose as the worst. But, the predecessors are the best.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

There's a pic of me at Tom A's house

He has a "custom" attachment set that has a 7' stretch of that wonderful "Tufflex" hose. I'm at the top of his stairs, and the vacuum is at the bottom.
"Fun"!

 

[niclonnic]

Pics

Jon requested some pictures of my Bissell, so here they are. The hose IS pretty stretchy, just not long enough for my taste.

 

[kirbysthebest]

Hoover React lift off pet

Besides the vacuum being very handle heavy, the hose is roughly three foot long. On stairs in lift off mode you don't even have enough hose to do one step without it tipping. It's a balance act. Very inconvenient, the positive I give it is the hose is black opaque, and not the clear that shows the dust build up and looks awful.

 

[huskyvacs]

I hate the Shop Vacs that have the huge diameter clunky hose. Trying to clean anything other than perhaps an aircraft hanger with it is a nightmare. You constantly have to wrestle it around, it can swing up and hit you in the face if you try and turn the tools around, it collects static electricity and everything sticks to it and then rubs off the debris where you just cleaned. The ones with the normal size hose are better.

 

[human]

I agree the large diameter shop vac hoses are ungainly but they do have their uses, especially for picking up large, chunky debris. I once took up an oak parquet floor and collected the parquet pieces with such a shop vac. It was much easier than doing it by hand. My (now-ex) wife taught third grade and took a bunch of them to school for educational purposes.

 

[suckolux]

Agree again on the large hoses I almost bought a really nice one at Costco DeWalt though I think it was probably made by cleaver like my vacmaster had some nice attachments and a nice caddy but it had the big hose and with my hands that would be a complete waste of time sadly

 

[jo]

Nick...

Nick...that’s a much newer Bissell pet lift off than the one my niece has. Hers was bought by her grandmother probably 10-14 years ago or so. It is blue and looks like a big upright but the motor and dirt canister unit come out of the center of the upright part to use by hand. It actually still works pretty good if you keep the filters clean and the belt is good. Though the after filter is terrible and it doesn’t seal and you can see where dust leaks out, so dust capture and filtration isn’t the best and my niece doesn’t empty the dirt cup as often as she should nor clean the filter that often which likely causes the issues of fine dust passing through. If I find a picture of it Iill post it. It is blue metallic and I have seen them in red metallic too as a friend has it in red...or did at one time.

Jon

 

[huskyvacs]

Yup the large dia. hoses are good if you're doing that kind of work, but when they sell normal Shop Vacs with those big hoses it becomes rather ungainly. The vac I bought last came with a big hose, I didn't realize it at the time as it didn't look that big on the box.

I found a smaller little one of the newer chrome Shop Vacs on eBay for cheap and it has a normal sized hose on it, and its a lot better as a little around the house runabout. I use it in my basement to clean up yucky basement debris like old mouse droppings in the ceiling and spiders and dead bugs and cat litter and such I don't want stinking up my good upstairs vac.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

I had a friend, (accountant)

who wanted to paint a brick blue to match his Convertible w/ front tools. He complained of tipping....wanted to attach the brick to prevent tipping. but ran the vac everyday.
I told him he used the wrong technique.
He simply didn't know how to use his apparatus correctly.

He also collected Dormeyer mixers. They were everywhere.

 

[niclonnic]

huskyvacs

I own a Ridgid 12-gallon shop vacuum that has a large diameter hose. It is a little unwieldy to use and it and gets staticky on the outside, but it allows for a large cleaning radius.

Also, I shouldn't have said "upright" in my OP, as now we're talking about canisters and Shop-Vacs in addition to uprights. Just a little mistake on my part.