How was Hoover's twin chamber bagless system really?

[fan-of-fans]

I've noticed vacuums like the Hoover bagless Windtunnels, Savvy, etc used Hoovers twin chamber setup. Was this a good setup?

My only experience with it is a Hoover Empower that a friend had in college. When he moved back home I used it to vacuum off a futon and it had horrible suction through the hose - I mean a straw would be stronger suction! But I bet he never cleaned the filters.

Was a neat vacuum otherwise, I liked the power surge switch on the handle and how the main switch had both on and hush modes.

I don't know, I've never cared for pleated filters in uprights - paper or otherwise. Always logged up with hair and fine dust after cleaning just one or two rooms. In fact to me, the first good bagless systems were when they started coming out with the rinseable pad filters and using true dual cyclonic separation. The old single cyclone design or what is basically a dust cup with a filter just did not work well in practice.

 

[bagintheback]

Not very good in my experience, which is too bad because otherwise Hoover made great machines. I bought an EmPower new in 2005 and it had really strong suction and a good brush roll, but the twin-chamber setup was awful. Suction loss wasn't very noticeable (I even used the arm and hammer carpet refresher occasionally), but cleaning the filter was nasty. Clouds of dust every time. You had to disassemble the filer and knock it against the garbage can so it didn't clog. I'm not surprised your friend's empower lost suction if it wasn't very well taken care of. I replaced my filter maybe 3 or 4 times during the few years I owned it.

I've also owned a Hoover Bagless, which was the original twin-chamber model with an Elite motor. It was a true direct-air machine that just replaced the normal bag set up with a bin. Again, nice late-model Elite, cleaned carpets great, but the twin-chamber just destroyed it. You could see dust blown out of the bin every time you turned it on. The seals would leak pet hair near the lid. When it was new with new seals it might have been better, but the direct-air fan-first set up just does not work with that kind of bagless after years of use.

The difference between what Hoover and Fantom or Dyson was offering at the same time was huge. You can empty a Fantom or Dyson with almost no drama and almost no maintenance. Sadly that wasn't the case with the Hoovers.

Someone else definitely knows more about this than me, but I think the only reason the twin-chamber existed was to compete with Fantom, but Dyson had the patents to the only real cyclonic technology. As soon as engineers either found a way to build dual-cyclone machines without infringing on patents, or Dyson's patents just simply expired, they started selling their own cyclonic machines and twin-chamber was pretty quickly taken off the market. If I remember correctly this took place around 2009 when the T-Series made their debut.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I would agree with you. And it wasn't just Hoover that was this way, but most any of the bagless upright vacs of the late 90s and early 2000s were far inferior.

The Eurekas and earlier Panasonics/Kenmores and Bissells also all had the pleated filters that clogged easily, some had various designs to slightly separate the filter from the dust bin, but all required lots of work to maintain.

I think you are right on the patents expiring, because it really was around 2009/2010 when all of the other manufacturers started designing TRUE dual cyclonic bagless uprights that didn't have the clogging issues of their earlier models.

Up until then the only really good bagless uprights I'm aware of were the Fantoms/Vectrons, Kenmore-branded Fantoms and the Amway Cleartrak. All variations of the Dyson design. Nobody else would have been allowed to use it. The Amway Cleartrak is the only one of those I know of still in production.

 

[cam2s]

There was also a screen between the two chambers that was suppose to keep large items out of the filter. If you were lucky the build up on it would fall off when you emptied it but often it had to be scraped. This set up did maintain airflow reasonably well. I think Hoover realized this was not an ideal set up. Before they could build true cyclonic machines they had the “self cleaning” filter set up found the Hoover Z and the Windtunnel 2. My Z is in storage but it had a lower collection chamber, a screen, then a revolving pleated filter that ran against a tab that was suppose to knock the dirt loose. Still not really effective but someone cleaner than banging out the filter on the twin chamber system.

 

[fan-of-fans]

Those things sound like the Kenmores of that time in a way.

My mom had a Kenmore Quick Clean bagless, the pleated filter was in a separate section on top of the dust bin. You lifted out the bin and then the two sections came apart to empty. There was a plastic disc with holes in it that went over the filter. It did pretty good at capturing hair and large particles before they went into the filter. Still all the fine dust got stuck in the filter though.

I have a Kenmore Progressive bagless, and there is a lever on the handle of the dust bin that moves a little piece that flicks dust from the filter. That's supposed to knock the dust loose, then you press the button which dumps the dust out the bottom of the bin. On this one the filter is situated in the dust bin itself with no separation.

 

[jo]

I had the model pictured above and found

I found that this model wasn’t all that bad…most of the dirt and dust picked up would go into the main chamber and a lot would accumulate in the screen dividing the chambers and then the finest dust would accumulate on the pleated secondary chambers filter. It filter could be rotated against a plastic tab that stuck out front he mounting bracket and that would loosen the dust from the pleated filter.

I often would just clean the whole thing out using my Electrolux canister after gently dumping the primary loose dirt out then thoroughly vacuuming the bin, the screens and the filter itself with the dusting brush attachment. So I’m vacuuming the vacuum itself with another vacuum to thoroughly empty it! Works well…provided you have a second vacuum!

Jon