A little update
For anyone who's interested in the continuing story of the Anniversary Orecks, it's kind of a big day in Junque land.
I finally got up the nerve to take the outer bags off and give them a bath. I went with hand washing, as usual. I was just too worried that the washing machine might damage them. It took every ounce of courage I could summon, just to pry the clips off the bottoms of the bags. I was sure I would break the clips. And, as we all know, finding the correct replacements would be next to impossible.
As I write this, they're both in the tub, in clean, cold water. I washed them in warm water and liquid Tide.
I was expecting a lot more dirt in the wash water! Maybe the Oreck inner bags do a pretty good job of containing even the fine dust. My Kirby bag, for example, made the water look like mud. I washed the two Oreck bags simultaneously, and there was hardly any dirt in the water!
While we have a few hours of daylight left, and the last 80 degree day we're going to have for the rest of the year, I'm going to set them outside on a drying rack.
When they're dry, I'd like to try to shave some of the fuzzy look off of them. I have one of those little battery powered clothes shavers, to remove pills and fuzzies. Has anyone ever tried that on a vacuum bag? I don't think it would do any harm. I'll try it in an inconspicuous area first.
Update to the update:
Before putting them outside on the drying rack, I put both bags in the washer, and gave them a low speed spin. It did get a good portion of the water out of them. Now, they won't need as much rack time as they would have if I had put them out there dripping.
Now, I'm off the give the bag docks and bottom clips a little wash in the sink.[this post was last edited: 10/28/2023-13:47]