Dirt Devil Breeze

[justjunque]

Hi all,

It's after the fact now, but a neighbor was throwing away a Dirt Devil Breeze.
It got rained on pretty heavily from the remnants of Florence, but someone did pick it up before the trash truck came by.
Scrappers/Pickers always roll through the neighborhood on trash day.
There can't be much metal for scrap in one of them, right?
Maybe someone plans on tinkering with it?
Were they any good, or would most of you consider them plasticrap?

Barry

 

[mariotron]

Pretty poor quality vacuums.

I use to have one and the dust bin fell off and exhaust would blow everything around. It did have a separate hose for above floor and carpet cleaning though.

 

[huskyvacs]

I'm probably the only person on here that loves Dirt Devil vacs. I had a Breeze from the trash in 2010 but the armature was fried.

There's nothing too remarkable about it, just a no frills bagless vac from the mid 2000's. I think they still sell newer models of the Breeze at Big Lots.

Rain won't hurt a vacuum at all, just let it dry out in the sun for a day or two before plugging it in.

They have no scrap value other than the motor and cord, which scrapyards will not take motor windings and copper strand wire anymore because the windings are too contaminated with glue and such and the strand wire doesn't melt cleanly. I tried taking in TV yoke coils before and they said no, they don't take it. Also a lot of electric motor windings are not real copper, they are copper plated aluminum, so the joke is on them.

Scrappers are usually not too bright and they just destroy vintage electronics and appliances by the ton just for 30 cents rather than being smart enough to fix it and resell it. Once I get a truck I'll be curb cruising too, and will be saving vacuums from being ruined by scrappers.

 

[justjunque]

Huskyvacs

Nothing wrong with that!
I'm happy to hear there are Dirt Devil fans.
Part of me wanted to pick it up and at least see if it worked.
I've seen several posts about discarded vacuums that simply needed a clog cleared out or something.
I would have then donated it to the Goodwill store or something.
If it hadn't been right next door, I probably would have.
But I just felt too self conscious trash picking the people right next door.
At least someone did pick it up before the trash truck got it.

Barry

 

[nicktechtalk]

I really like the older Dirt Devils, mainly because I grew up with those because they were cheaper vacuums to buy and we couldn't afford the more expensive ones back then. I really like when I see an older one at a thrift store because it brings me back to when I was young. I think that its totally fine for anybody to collect whatever type of vacuum that they want regardless of brand, just as long as they are happy that is all that matters

 

[broomvac]

Huskyvacs and nicktechtalk, you are not alone.

I have a soft spot for Dirt Devil, too. I own six of them with no regrets.

I've been thinking about starting a Dirt Devil appreciation thread one of these days, actually.

 

[huskyvacs]

I used my Dirt Devil 100 series hand vac to vacuum my vintage mattress on my bed. The soft thick bristles on the vacuums with a mid-range RPM speed on the brushroll is strong enough to clean the debris but not rough enough to ruin the mattress.

A couple months ago I made a big mistake in using my new Eureka upright to vacuum the mattress, and it worked, but the brushroll was too stiff and aggressive for the fragile fabric and it tore a couple holes in it just from the bristle strips. Never gonna do that again. I used to vacuum the bed a lot with my Kirby Ultimate G in handheld mode before but what a beast to try and drag across a soft mattress, might as well be dragging a bowling ball through a mud pit!

As for DD's uprights they were always aimed to be a budget cleaner for the less-affluent shoppers. They got the job done efficiently without the buyer having to shell out $180 for a comparable bagless vac. Walmart has a couple of Dirt Devil pet vacs out now that are both visually attractive in design and color, and they are priced at around the $70 mark which is not too bad when you compare the specs to other brands.

I do like the Broom Vac from Dirt Devil and hope to get one some day, along with that other weird one, the Room Mate. The Dirt Devil MVP and the Featherlite both have strong followings among some collectors, but I'm not too crazy over them because they are a bit bland as far as styling goes. I do regret getting rid of my MVP, but I wasn't a collector at the time I got rid of it years ago.

I guess to put Dirt Devil into perspective, they are like what Black & Decker is to the power tools market. Affordably priced for the budget consumer, with some sacrifices made in features, but they get the job done well.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I liked the older Dirt Devils like the hand vacs, Broom Vac, Roommate, etc up through the MVP models. The ones Walmart was selling in the 2000s I didn't care for, but I've never used one.

If I'm going to take up space collecting vacuums, I'm going to get something more interesting/better made. But that's just me, we all like what we like.

And yeah, I always wonder if a vacuum I see in the trash works or not. But I'm not interested in picking one up not knowing what's been picked up in it to see. I do notice them getting picked up sometimes before trash day. But if I ever see a vacuum in the trash these days it's almost always a bagless Bissell vacuum. For a while it was always Hoover Windtunnel Self Propelled vacuums. Those at least are a little higher end machine to find in the trash.

 

[kirbyklekter]

I have a few of the early-mid nineties Dirt Devil Deluxe

uprights and always liked them. One model, the black D.D.Deluxe had a funny quirk. The suction was so strong using the hose, that if you put your hand over the end of hose (why would you but...) it would cause the plastic bag compartment cover to constrict. This eventually put creases on the cover and weakened it I'm sure. Only that one year so I'm thinking design flaw? This era back then is when it seems every year or so the new vacs had an extra amp added. The great h.p. race of the early nineties! Anyone ever experience this with a dirt devil. Now I'm remembering a couple other vacs of the period that had a valve type vent on the hard shell that opened when the hose clogged or something that would cause the machine to work harder and would maintain proper air pressure in bag area, I think. I still like them for what they were.

 

[electromatik]

It's ok to like them! Just because most of us here tend toward vac snobs, doesn't mean there is shame in liking a certain brand. One thing often forgotten in these days of vacuum commodification is that it has enabled more people to afford them. Having a vacuum is better than having no vacuum is my philosophy. The bad thing is, a lot of the time with these cheap vacuums, you are more or less just moving the dirt around since they are not engineered very well.

My sister owned a Dirt Devil but I forget which one. It had a hose and on board attachments. I used it a few times. It was red and it didn't last long. That's about all I can say about it.

 

[myles_v]

I'm another collector with a soft spot for Dirt Devil, but I don't currently own any. I've had my eyes peeled for a Roommate for a while though.

As for the Breeze, I used to have one. It was OK, it picked up dirt off the carpet and put it into the bin, so it was effective enough to serve its purpose.

 

[kirbyklekter]

Oh I definitly appreciate the quality

in the higher end vacs. All 30 of my Kirby's clean better, I think than the Dirt DevilsI had. We bought the DD's for cleaning the apts where I lived back then. They were a good value and seemed a good match for the type of carpet they had. The Kirby's deep clean! I was house sitting for some friends around the time I got my first Kirby, a Classic 1-CR. They had really nice plush carpeting in their home and 2 golden retrievers. So I thought I'd road test my vacuum at their place. I vacuumed and then left as they were coming home later that day. They called me that night thanking me for cleaning their carpet and asked what they owed me. That's the difference a good machine can make. Walking on their carpet it felt like they had replaced their padding with a thicker pad. Ooops! Sorry about the novel...