Help to me to understand smaller...

[wyaple]

European homes require smaller vacuums.

There seems to be a general drift that smaller homes require smaller vacuums. After reading many comments like "when company xyz started selling the smaller sized version of a fill-in-the-blank vacuum, they sold like the proverbial hotcakes."

I would dearly love to hear your stories and/or general knowledge, especially from non-USA members as to how vacuum size affects your purchasing decisions over the years.

For example: If a particular vacuum has a power nozzle (or floor attachments) that is in the 14"-15" range, how would that greatly impede your ability to clean compared to say, something in the 12" range?

I'm not actually attempting to be funny here, but based on what I've read, it would make it seem that many things European are 1/3 smaller than what's typically found in the States. I'm imagining smaller chairs, couches, and hallways so skinny that only 1 person can fit through.

I was all over Europe in 1981 and I noticed that some things appeared to be slightly more diminutive, but I couldn't understand the requirement for smaller cleaning devices.

Please enlighten me...

Bill

 

[delaneymeegan]

1. Bigger is NOT better. We American's were fooled into believing this, amongst many lies when being brought up. It serves the oil investors, not the general population.

2. Smaller, lighter, easier to maneuver vacs are just as sought after in the U.S. I don't think any typical person would willingly want to haul around the likes of a heavy, metallic Electrolux canister, or clunky Kirby upright, when they can breeze through clean up with a light weight Bissel.

3. The U.S. is often the butt of jokes, because of it's tacky, wasteful, foolish lifestyle that is heavily dependant on other countries for petroleum for (political suicide). Why would other countries want to end up like America?

 

[suckolux]

smaller home here, bad back. Smaller and light are a big help often! The small power head fits in so many places the big one won't

 

[henrydreyfuss]

Europe missed out...

 

[ralph123]

dm said: "Smaller, lighter, easier to maneuver vacs are just as sought after in the U.S. I don't think any typical person would willingly want to haul around the likes of a heavy, metallic Electrolux canister, or clunky Kirby upright, when they can breeze through clean up with a light weight Bissel."

I would take either the Kirbeast or the Electrolux canister over the light weight bissell - any day.

 

[delaneymeegan]

I hear you Jeff/Ralph123. I just received my 1986 Electrolux Marquis metal sided canister and it is beautiful.

Do I plan on using it to clean with? Probably not. It's more of a collectors item, like most of my vacs.

My statement mentioned typical people. We as collectors are not typical.

When one checks the vacuum manufacturers sites like Eureka, Hoover, Bissell, etc. light-weight is always a selling point. Lite weight plastic hoses and attachments over old braided heavy, hoses and metal parts.

 

[rvarley]

Small vacs fit in small spaces

I have a small collection of vacuums including a kirby 561 and a new Rainbow. As a collector, I like and use them all. But the one I always reach for when I'm doing my quick, frequent clean ups (2 ldogs) is the light weight Simplicity. It fits in places the bigger vacuums can't reach. Try getting under a bed with a kirby. And I love and use the rainbow regularly, but setup and cleanup take time. I can understand why non-collectors wouldn't want to deal with a large, complicated, heavy machine. If I were forced to have only two vacs, one would be the lightweight Tacony and the other would be a canister - possibly the rainbow. Nothing beats the fresh smell of cleaning with the rainbow.

 

[suckolux]

Love love my Silverado, daily driver, no, not anymore.I have had it forever, but last few years, a bit heavy and clumsy for daily use. Will I still use it, of course! It has a couple boo boos, but for the most part they happened at my house in the last 25years

 

[vintagerepairer]

It is not just the fact that European homes are smaller that is the problem (though that is part of it), it is also what we put in them. Many British homes can be cluttered and stuffed full of furniture and nick-knaks. Not only do you have to go round everything at floor level, you have to be sure not to knock things over at above floor level too.

Storage is another problem here. The average UK home only ever seemed to have the infamous cupboard under the stairs. That said, I did read somewhere that it was very fashionable at one time of the day (I am talking 1940's post war here) to have the vacuum cleaner standing in the hallway so that visitors to the front door would see that the family had a vacuum cleaner. This would suggest not only wealth in being able to afford such an appliance, but also that the family could afford carpets too.

I have never understood why the Hoover Senior cleaners were ever as popular here in the UK as they were. They were amongst the most expensive and they were possibly the biggest cleaner you could find in the shops. And yet Hoover must have sold millions in the UK over the years.

 

[sebo_fan]

Delaney makes a very good point in that bigger is not better and that Americans have been brainwashed to believe it. After all look at the massive cars of the 1970s and before that - it took an oil crisis to realise that gas guzzlers could no longer be sustainable.

I am however intrigued by your post, Bill. Not everything is large in the U.S - Europe wouldn’t be where it is now without the influence of the American Black and Decker dust buster or Remington versions or even the hand held Dirt Devil ‘Handy.” Maybe that’s just my observation, but whilst countless brands have copied and tried their own versions it was the Americans who brought the smaller dust busters and/or hand held vacs to Europe and UK. Helped massively by U.S run Hoover in the UK and other European countries, too.

I am probably one of the more unique British citizens to have lived in a town that was once home to a U.S Military Naval base; we had locations in our town where Americans lived from the 1960s to the 1990s until Ronald Reagan called the troops back and pulled the military out. Our town has never been the same, although everyone remembers the American cars that the officers had as well as American housing that we had with low ceilings and huge floor spaces.

American appliances were also brought over including huge top loader washing machines that we Scots only recognised as commercial washers found in launderettes. When the satellites arrived to receive Satellite TV, the rest of the UK had to make do with terrestrial TV. I remember the American satellites very well; they took up 2 acres of fields to accommodate 100 American homes.

Benny, I don't think storage is a massive problem in the UK thanks to the popularity no doubt of IKEA. I think as a nation that we do have a problem with hoarding as well as buyers being led to believe that in certain cases, larger home appliances "U.S" style are better such as those double door fridge freezers that everyone loves but can't usually fit them in their kitchens and ends up being put in the conservatory instead.

I think the Senior did well because it was higher powered than the Junior, and looked quite fashionable at the time. Whenever I see a Hoover Senior, it reminds me of this car, also unusual on the fact that both machines were on the market between 1957 and 1975.

Both are classic, both are timeless - in my opinion.

 

[human]

sebo_fan wrote: ...buyers being led to believe that in certain cases, larger home appliances "U.S" style are better such as those double door fridge freezers that everyone loves but can't usually fit them in their kitchens and ends up being put in the conservatory instead.

I reply: I resemble that remark. My parents are in the process of downsizing their home and gave me their extra fridge. It's a huge three-door model (double refrigerator doors up top and a pull-out freezer drawer at the bottom) and it wouldn't go through my kitchen door without being disassembled. I had to remove all the doors in order to squeeze it through the door with less than a quarter inch to spare. Even getting the old fridge out required removing the door handles. The old fridge now resides in the storage building behind the house, where it is full of beer and soda pop but the new one came within the proverbial hair's breadth of going there.

 

[rainbowd4c]

I guess my thought process is...

It's all a matter of wants and needs for a person and what they want and need for their housekeeping needs. For myself our house has dogs and cats and carpets and hard floors. For myself I use my vacuum for virtually everything from vacuuming the furniture, going up the walls and knocking cobwebs, cleaning the ceiling fans, and door jambs and the window sills and just regular everyday vacuuming. A larger style vacuum works better for me and what I need.

I know people who have mostly hardwood floor with a small rug here and there and don't use the attachments the same way I do and they have maybe just a small stick type of vacuum.

I think it's just in what a person wants.

 

[sebo_fan]

"I know people who have mostly hardwood floor with a small rug here and there and don't use the attachments the same way I do and they have maybe just a small stick type of vacuum. "

Whilst this is a good point, I also had a thought - most of Europe just had feather dusters to do ceiling fans or a terry style towel wrapped around a broom to get at the ceilings or corners. The U.S seems to have every kind of attachment going for the vacuum cleaner. Another possible reason to why everything appears bigger.

End of the day Europe/UK is smaller physically so there should be no point in having a larger than life vacuum cleaner in a small home.

 

[wyaple]

Maybe I should ask which of two camps you prefer?

Camp #1: Most powerful, largest, heaviest, get all the dirt possible or
Camp #2: Moderately powerful, small, lightweight, and moderate cleaning ability.

For me, I want to get all the dirt possible (power) and also clean as quickly as possible (maneuverability), so there is a slight convenience factor. My G4 (23 lbs.) with very high airflow, good agitation and super easy to push (can be driven with your thumb and forefinger) fits the bill.

BUT, I regularly rotate through all my vacuums as daily drivers. All are maintained perfectly and used as much as possible.

Bill

 

[vintagerepairer]

Well you see this is the interesting thing - a cleaner which is easy to use and move around a clutted home that performs "moderatly" actually out perfoms the bigger & more powerful cleaners that are too big & powerful to manage. Effectivly it renders the performance of the latter none-existent if the owner does not use it. I always remember someone saying to me that her vacuum cleaner was so powerful that it picked nothing up, given that she was physically incapable of using it.

 

[sebo_fan]

Excellent point Benny. Also with the likes of Miele and plenty of other brands, you get the same kind of motor with suction pull as you would do with smaller vacs in the same range to the larger ones. Thus, it isn't necessarily better to have a bigger, heavier vacuum - it doesn't always provide the best suction compared to smaller, compact units.

 

[turbo500]

One important factor to remember is that Europe and the UK is much older than the US. We also have a lot of people in a small space. Many homes over here were never built with things like vacuums and washing machines in mind because they didn't exist, which is tradionally why front-loader washing machines are more popular over here as they could fit under-counter in a small kitchen with no loss of workspace.

There has also historically been huge "class divides" in this country. Rewind to the era of the Industrial revolution, a lot of England (especially in the north) is littered with terraced housing (pictured below). Many of this style of house were built to accomodate mill workers and labourers, being relatively inexpensive. As you can see, there's are tall narrow homes with lots of knooks and crannies to navigate and stairs to go up and down. Not ideal with lugging around a big clunky vacuum and very limited storage.

Whilst the popularity of this style of house has gone down, we then moved onto state-rented "council housing". Lots of rooms in these houses, but very boxy and often quite small rooms. Again, these weren't built with the intenion of housing particularly well off people, so vacuums wouldn't have been thought of, in use or storage.

Modern homes now tend to be built with utility rooms and more storage, but as the population has increased, new builds aren't necessarily any bigger than houses of old.

I grew up in a 3 bed (later extended to 4) ex-Council house. We had a lot of rooms, but they weren't very big. We had a Kirby Legend 2, but given that the rooms were so small, my Mum struggled with it and preferred to use our Panasonic instead.

 

[turbo500]

Here's an interesting picture. A mock up of a typically English 1950's style living room.

Try swinging a G series or enourmous powernozzle around that!

 

[suckolux]

Another take on small or powerful? How about both? I do weekly do a big vacuum with more powerful machine, just incase! Doubt it finds much.