Europe to cut power of vacuum cleaners to save energy

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Well 3KW is the limit for a 13 AMP BS 1363 plug & flex so I'm just waiting for it, shouldn't be too much longer unfortunately.
 
I can fully appreciate that other factors over the years have drawn customers to newer cleaners, but as the topic was (and I do stress the use of the word 'was') about wattages, it was this aspect I spoke about. I wouldn't say consumers had been conditioned into the likes of telescopic tubes, attachments, and power controls in quite the same way, as these are very much a physical thing, something which people can look at and touch and experience for themselves. They can then decide if this added feature is what they need.

With wattage, it is much simpler. You can't see it, you can't really measure the benefits of it on a factual scale, so the consumer simply trusts in what they think they know and what they've been given to understand, which is that big is better. Notice that Dyson cleaners have never really stated their wattage on anything but the rating plate. I am cutting myself some slack here as I am quite sure someone with a keener eye and better memory will be able to say there was such an attempt at such and such a time, but I speak in the very general sense when I say Dyson have never really advertised the wattages. People still bought the cleaners though, despite have relatively low wattage motors. It is though they are immune from it; as though somebody somewhere has suggested that when choosing a new vacuum cleaner one should purchase a Dyson, then failing one should automatically hunt down the cleaner with the most watts.

I would suggest that the Hoover Freedom 1000 and Electrolux 345 cylinders, and Hoover Turbopower 2 & 3 would be good choices for an manufacturer to study in great detail to decipher what really makes for a good, all round vacuum cleaner. Please note these three models I refer to are not exhaustive, they are just what comes to mind. It's not an attempt to open a debate about every Tom, Dick, & Dyson ever made.
 
I have to suggest that the day of a 3kw vacuum cleaner will never arrive, for two reasons. One, the cost of fitting flex which was both thick enough to take the loading for long periods and long enough to use would be rather high, and the flex itself rather bulky to use and store in a domestic situation.

Two, I would suggest the heat from the motor would be too great for the plastic casings to comfortably withstand it. Mouldings and casings would have to be minimises and with that comes an increase in noise. In 1994 the Hoover Alpina was being marketed as a machine which was both powerful and quiet. But in designing this cleaner, ventilation had clearly been overlooked and a good deal of early models used to regularly overheat.
 
thank God finally someone is thinking

Without even having read the article:

In the good old days, vacs had like 400 to 600 watts and they were cleaning reasonably well even compared to today's machines.
Then the 80s wattage race came up in the commercials, the miraculous 1 kW being THE holy grail.
Then came Dyson with his patents, blocking all other manufacturers from producing a well-thought-of multiple cyclone. Consequence: They would place their 1400 watts China screamer motors into plastivacs with a cardboard-zigzag wannabe cyclone (Dirt Devil crap vacs et al.)
Consequence: All cheapo vacs went from silly zigzag paper cyclone on 1 kW to silly zigzag cyclone with 2 kW.
Major companies having noticed that went from 2000 w to 2200 or even 2400 here (Bosch etc.).

I am really sick of this cheap-cheap-thrift-bingo race.
Do it the Lux way or the any other good vacuum company way:
A REAL filtration system (no cough-yourself-to-death plastic pans, hello Mr. Dyson) or just devise some good water basin thing (but withOUT rusting of the motor shaft, hello Rainbow!)
A real motor (best magnetic field dispersion through the iron, no China pressed cheapo screamer stuff)
A real good hose, tight gaskets, best swivel joints.
A really good nozzle (fastest air stream close to the surface, no air leaks when on carpets)
Calculation of the best "workability point" in the diagram:
No airstream = highest vacuum load per kig
Full airstream = lesser kg per litres of air stream but highest litres per minute.
Somewhere in between there must be THE working point for any of that specific vacuum cleaner.
No trust in thrift shreaking get-me-deaf plastivacs.


Coming from here any fantastic vacuum cleaner can be made with some mediocre 600 to 900 watts.
Look at Kirby, Lux, Vorwerk and all the others that really CARE about their profession and take pride in diligence to details. It is not about vacuum "brokers" but about "manufacturers" (manum = Latin for hand, factum = made, so hand made)
Even if hand-made may not be practical today, I still request any "manufacturer" to have a "hands-on" mentality regarding customer's needs. Period.
 
I like that. I would also like to see consumers educated into understanding that it is only really carpet cleaning which requires a reasonable amount of suction power. For all other tasks, like hard floors and surfaces, it is just not needed. In fact, I can recall telling a good deal of my customers who had mostly hard surfaces that the concept of a cleaner like a Dyson which does not lose power was completely wasted on them as power was not what they needed to clean their homes. They would of course benefit from the bagless side of it, but that wasn't the principle reason James Dyson made the cleaner as far as I can see.
 
Really Ryan?

You're complaining about Miele now because you decided to suck up rotten milk in one? Yes I did read that it was dry but thats not something you should be picking up with a vacuum in the first place... Thats not fragility, its user stupidity. But let me guess... You've done the same with a Sebo with no ill effects correct?
 
Hoover has the "Greenray" machines.

Although intriguingly, the Purepower Greenray seems to have dematerialised from the Hoover website! (I recently mentioned this in another thread).

I want manufacturers to think carefully and design appropriately. I want a lesser powered upright, but it must agitate the carpet properly and remove grit and hair efficiently.

1000 Watts seems about right for clean air uprights and cylinders. Think of the 1980's Hoover Sensotronics, the 1990's Hoover Turbopower 3 and Electrolux Airstream 1000.

Remember too that twin-stage fans gave way to single-stage fans and ridiculous power consumption. Increasing the diameter of air ducts can improve airflow efficiency too.

I just wish that manufacturers would get off their collective arses and instigate changes on their own initiative!
 
Really Ryan??

Um, I didn't intentionally go to the bother of testing how fragile a vacuum cleaner is by sucking up dried milk - I was cleaning under a fridge freezer, picking up glass fragments from a glass breakage using a suction only vacuum cleaner as MOST WOULD - I wasn't aware that there was anything like the milk under the fridge other than a dry floor to my eye. It was a shock that the Miele's so called "quality" and expensive to buy Active Air Clean filter couldn't hold back the odour. 


 


If you bother to read my profile you'll see that I like lots of brands - and I've collected a fair few over the last 10 years or so as other members have done on here. 


 


Ry-Ry - it would appear that is a new upright from Electrolux. They claim that is has no loss of suction, so it probably uses the same filter design as Hoover's Air Volution, Vax etc. I quite like the look with the entire clear bin leading right to the top before the cyclones but then it is similar with Hoover already, Bissell and others.


 


Whilst I think it would be prudent for brands to look at what has been offered in the past, I think it is high time Hoover brought out a proper Junior range and but more realistically and probably in time, Hoover will do a cheap way out and offer a new bagless Turbo Power upright with an even lower motor to extend their Greenray idea. 


 


The 'Eco" tag is something that Miele actually thought about a long time ago well before they released their "Ecoline" motors - the budget S2 for example has an intentionally lower 1600 watt motor compared to the 2000 watt motors on their bigger cousins, not just from a marketing point of view. 


 


 
 
Talking of using a cylinder on hard flooring, I must say I have never really realised until today that the floor tool on my 2004 Panasonic MC-E8011 is actually very good on hard flooring.

It doesn't fly over it like some do nor does it stick to it.

I used it because there was some flour (amongst lots of other dirt) on the kitchen flooring after my mother's baking last night. Didn't want to clog up a bag with it, so used a bagless that I don't really care about.
 
I find most suction only floor tools on hard flooring is good until you have to brush up pet hair, or your own hair if you are susceptible to having your hair cut in the kitchen or bathroom. That's when the hair sticks to the bristles.


 


As for sucking up flour, I've done it myself using a bagless vacuum. You can ignore the filter until the machine eventually runs out of puff and then have to deal with the flour then. Talk about wasted energy there - at least with a dust bag you can physically tap the paper to loosen the powder out and then reuse the bag again.
 
"or your own hair if you are susceptible to having your hair cut in the kitchen or bathroom." I like you're choice of language there!

As you shall see if you watch my Hoover Junior U1104 video on YouTube I haven't had a hair cut in a while, thank goodness. It is "insulation".
 
Please Ryan, it IS NOT the same type of "performance" video as that one I sent you... But lets not talk about that here, OK ?

There will be an in action video soon - OF THE VACUUM, OF THE VACUUM!
 
Flour 


 


Just in case you guys didn't know sucking up flour is a very dangerous  thing to do as it is highly explosive, should any get into your motor and be blown out it could explode in a very big way. 
 
high wattage vacuum cleaners

i doubt the 3 killowatt vac will ever happen but if it did it should should have a goverment health warning on rather like a pack of cigarettes EG a picture of a 3 bar electric fire glowing red hot or maybe a pic of an electricity meter whizzing round
 
A 3kw kettle cannot be compared to a 3kw vacuum cleaner though. The idea of a 3kw kettle with rapid element is that it boils water faster than a standard kettle. It runs at a higher wattage, yes, but for much less time pro-rata. The vacuum cleaner on the other hand is using electricity for as long as it takes to clean the area in question.
 
Indeed Benny.

The only way to get a heating element to a hotter temperature and thus to boil water faster is to increase the wattage (after you've designed it properly), but with a Vacuum Cleaner this idea does not apply.
 
Just out of interest 3000watt vacuum shave been available for many years with no ill effects , Most commercial twion motor machine use two 1500watt motors. These machines run long hours , sometimes all day. 


 I have one that is now 12 years old and never melted a plug or a cord. 
 
Not quite Benny - you don't normally use a vacuum cleaner every day - and if you do, would 5 minutes suffice compared to the 20 or 30 times a kettle is used daily? Same with a hob, it uses far more electricity from the moment it is heated up, switched on and used. We can discuss how long a vacuum cleaner can be used compared to a hob, a tumble dryer, a washing machine - but then I think we'd be here until doomsday. There's only a select few who choose to vacuum each day compared to those who are tea and coffee mad and need a brew every couple of hours, or new parents who require the washing machine and tumble dryer to be used daily. Lets not also forget the daily appliance that also uses up energy - the fridge/freezer.


 


Thus, there really isn't much of a justification to lower vacuum cleaner watts - unless the EU are trying to get around brands to lower everything else they produce.


 


Also JM - kettles with higher elements don't produce hotter water, they just do it faster due the higher power element - if it was the case that rapid boil kettles produced hotter temperatures, brands would have to cease selling the product as boiling water suitable for domestic use has to be at a fixed temperature.


 


 
 
No, because the cord will have been such that it can take the loading. What I was saying was that such mains lead would be bulkier than normal for domestic cleaning, and to be long enough to be useful would be costly. One of the reviews of that 3KW sebfan showed us did in fact say the mains lead was short.
 

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