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a double-edgew sword

Wattage -and the amount of it used- is dependent on the appliance type as to whether or not it is in anyway a drain. In the case of heated appliances with thermostats and those which turn off immediately after use, like toasters and kettles, a higher wattage is much more beneficial as the appliance goes from zero to end-result in a much faster time than one of a lower wattage. So in that instance the high-wattage appliance is using less energy than a lower-wattage appliance. Typical example would be a fast-boil kettle. That gets water to boiling point so much more quickly than traditional element kettles with a lower wattage (bearing in mind that at normal pressure water boils only at one temperature - I read recently an article where a kettle was described as being able to boil water to different temperatures) making a saving overall.

That is the key word of course, 'overall', as not everything is about being in real-time. A vacuum cleaner on the other hand is using electricity for the duration of however long it takes to clean a room; it's use is not finite by any means. Until wattages began to spiral out of control, manufactures designed cleaners and fans in such a way that clean-fan motors could run at around 700 - 1000 watts and still pack in a lot of cleaning power. It is proof it can be done.

The Hoover Senior is a fine example of boosting wattage to make up for lost performance elsewhere; had the machine fitment on the hose been such that there was no chance for air to escape, a boost in motor wattage would never have been needed. Hoover should have moved to the pan-convertor fitting years and years before they did (Hotpoint had used such an arrangement since the early 1960's) and saved themselves the cost and expense of making & installing the 2-speed motor into the bargain.
 
I just got a chance to listen to those broadcasts and I think you did a wonderful job! Your insights were very interesting, and you gave this site some free publicity:)
Scott
 
Regarding the topic at hand,

I must say that for me this discussion is rather interesting as no such debate exists over here. Although I do not know the exact date that the regulation was put in place, for a long time residential vacuums have been limited to a max power of twelve amps. Therefore the marketing potential for the power consumption of vacuum cleaners has been very limited. I will post a picture of the kind of thing that appears on a lot of cheaper vacs over here boasting they have "max power" and for the most part, if a vac has less than twelve amps it is simply not stated anywhere other than the ratings plate. And at the vacuum store I work for I get very few people talking about amps as though they relate to suction (although I have read some online reviews that seemed to think so). I think this is due to the simple fact that most vacuums use twelve amps now, so it's sort of a moot point. Many vacuums don't boast their amperage, and people don't seem to mind. For example, my sebo x4, miele upright, and most dyson uprights(excluding the 6.5 amp dc24)use 12 amps.

The whole point of this is that I can't help thinking that this may become the case for Europe on wattage if such a regulation is passed, and I can't see it as a bad thing.

Of course I am no electrician and the difference in voltage may mean that this proposed restriction may be more strict than the one in place in the U.S, I don't know.

Scott

singingrainbow++6-1-2013-17-27-57.jpg
 
Re: A double edged sword

VR - if you look at mostly any rapid boil kettle you'll see 2800 watts TO 3000 watts. Until tests provide evidence that kettles allow a lower amount of wattage to boil the water before boiling, the product is STILL using the lower output of 2800 watt just to power it up. These ratings are still too high. We then sacrifice quick "boiling time" or how impatient you are versus patience with the far lower "supermarket" slower-to-boil or cut-budget brands that offer a far lower element energy rating of 1800 watts to 2200 watts per kettle.

One could easily argue that even 2200 watts for an electric kettle is still too high - and given that most kettles in the 1990s had between 700 to 1000 watts for the "traditional" design, even the metal round bodied ones in year 2000 under Russell Hobbs were uprated to 2200 watts to 2800watts, presumably to meet the demand "for high power' for buyers.
 
Re: Air Watts

Sadly I don't believe in air watts either - air watts only came about with Dyson's 100% suction all of the time - with a bag in a place, or even the cyclonic paper pleated types, we all know that the suction starts to weaken - thus air watts cannot provide a continuous, reliable figure that buyers can depend on. Not just dependent on 100% suction all of the time, it also depends on the design of the vacuum's air flow and sealed suction, which in some brands' offering is lacking.

But unless a system offers continuous "power" and "suction" all of the time without it being weakened, air watts is a marketing spin concept.
 
singingrainbow

For many years, probably into the early 1990's, the wattage of vacuum cleaners was never really much of an issue for the UK consumer, and it's mention of it was little more than a technical specification. I think perhaps some people realised those cleaners with a higher wattage motor were sometimes more powerful, but back then we also considered that a physically smaller cleaner would never be as powerful as a larger one, regardless of the motor wattage.

We also had a good deal of 'fan first' upright cleaners on sale here until well into the 1990's, practically all of which had relatively low wattage motors. Had wattage been a consideration back then, sales of these cleaners would almost certainly have faltered, and unnecessarily so.

The only home appliance where numbers ever really mattered to a consumer was on the spin speed of automatic washing machines. It was always considered that the faster the drum turned, the better the spin. This mind-set went on right up until the mid 1990's, when many appliances in the shops -including washing machines- had to display their performance on a charts so that consumers could see exactly how well they appliance fared. It was in doing this that we could see that in fact some of the machines with higher spin speeds were, for a variety of reasons, not performing as well as others. To date there has never been any such requirement for vacuum cleaners to be tested for performance, which, coupled with a growing trend to ramp up the motor watts, has led to the situation in which we find ourselves today.

As I said earlier, older vacuum cleaners were built for maximum efficiency, but the desire and cost to do this seems to have given way to a trend of fitting higher wattage motors. As I also said, on an appliance which has a finite running time, such as a rapid-boil kettle where the aim is to get the water to boiling point as quickly as possible to avoid consuming more watts overall from a lower wattage element engaged in a slower process, or in a thermostatic appliance like an iron where getting the sole plate back to temperature quickly, there is a good case to put forward for high wattage consumption as the overall process will use less energy in total. With vacuum cleaner which have high wattage motors, the answer lies in vacuuming more quickly!
 
Perhaps there needs to be an energy labelling scheme for vacuum cleaners, to include performance ratings. Subject them all to the same standardised dust pick-up test, and show the result as a percentage. Grade the cleaner on a scale from A-to-whatever, according to how well it cleans versus the watts used on the maximum power setting.

Consumers would instantly be able to compare various models. Is it pulling lots of watts but doing a mediocre job? Or is it wringing as much efficiency out of a lower wattage motor as possible and still cleaning better than some of the competition?

I'm not so sure that vacuums are the first thing we should be looking at in the home in order to save energy, but if this is the path we're heading down, it may as well be done in a way that is easily understood by the public so they can compare apples to apples. Energy label testing costs money, but we're already doing it for white goods and many other products we buy today. And although lab conditions do not accurately reflect usage in the home, at least if they are standardised, every cleaner would be tested on a level playing field.

Somehow I doubt this is what we will end up with though. It's more likely there will simply be a motor wattage limit imposed, manufacturers will stamp ECO on all their cleaners and then say "Look how green we're being!", and the public will end up paying higher prices for something that has been greenwashed.
 
Now an example of a great, low wattage vacuum is a Kirby. It produces more than adequate suction, and it's carpet cleaning is excellent. On my heritage, the wattage is 515~660watts wich is perfectly enough.
 
Greenwashed

I couldn't agree more with what you said there, other than to suggest that people who are paying more for greener products are usually doing so gladly as they like to be thought of as being eco-aware. The problem with the 'green' debate is that it is multifaceted beyond most people's understanding, and of course in that statement I include myself. But at a simple level, a campaign to upgrade old energy-inefficient central heating boilers was seen by some as a great idea, whereas I read comments from others who asked what saving does one make by scrapping a boiler which still works, when paying a lot of money to fit a new one, and is it environmentally friendly to manufacture a new boiler and dispose of an old one?

Equally I read recently that a good deal of people were dispensing with the tumble-dryer as it was considered to be power-hungry, yet in their quest to be greener, they were hanging washing around the house and having to turn up the heating in order to stay warm and dry the laundry, making a damp environment to live in into the bargain. So it is of course about standing back and looking objectively at it all. It would be easy to say that, for example, a kettle or room heater running at 3KW was, on the surface, not energy-efficient, but when it completes as task much more quickly and then switches off afterwards, it is using less overall.

I agree entirely too that laboratory tests cannot replicate what one might call 'normal' usage, but are at least something to go on. I mean air-watts; that may well be the true measure of suction power, but how many air-watts are actually needed for each task the cleaner is expected to do?
 
I agree with you Spiraclean - but sadly I wish the ratings that are currently provided on washing machines were half as true as own experience.

Id be wondering who would actually test a vacuum cleaner to judge the best performance etc and how it would be judged not just by the water lift ratings, an aspect of info that usually isn't listed alongside all brands in the UK but seems to be quoted with brands in the U.S as well as other European countries.

If the government/whoever spent less time having to wonder about high ratings for vacuums and actually looked at proper Green issues of environmental change rather than brushing real issues under the carpet (pardon the pun), we wouldn't be clutching at straws for pushing eco-friendly power from domestic appliances. Brands shouldn't raise the price accordingly for having a lower powered vacuum cleaner against the standard high power, either. That's just nuts! Sending the message that you have to pay more to be greener isn't right at all!

Americans may well feel that they don't have this issue - but in actual fact they already did - cue the large limousine cars of the 1950s etc - beautifully long gas guzzling limo type cars (not the stretched ones Im referring to, here) like Cadillac etc - the U.S were forced to change down to smaller vehicles to save on fuel costs and costs etc.
 
Paying more to be greener

That's business. People WILL pay more for it, and so a niche market gets catered for at a price those consumers are prepared to pay. It may been seen by some as right, and by others as wrong. If the governments had taken a fuller and much more in-depth business-like approach to many things over the years, we may not be in the situation the country is in now.
 
Thank god banger cars and second hand vacuums are still on sale then - Autocar did an excellent piece last week on "Bangernomics," i.e banger cars that no one had fallen for the government incentive a few years ago to scrap old cars. Most turn out to be much more cost effective keeping on the road as well as being largely fuel efficient dependent on the engines etc you choose.

Roughly speaking then, the same could be said for vacuums - maintain and mend your old retro vacuums whether they are used as daily drivers or not.
 
Make do & mend

Repair is almost always going to be a 'greener' option than buying new, of course the efficiency of the appliance will always tip the scales one way or another, but repair is often not the cheaper way these days. It's only been the last 20-odd years that anyone started to worry about both efficiency of existing & new appliances, and also recycling of those which were scrap. Until then, consumers had been encouraged by many institutions (shops, manufacturers, governments and so on & so forth) to buy new and spend more, so as to keep the economy afloat.
 
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - in that order. That's what being "green" is all about, if it truly is your thing.

But that would probably mean going without, or having old stuff instead of something shiny and new. This would, of course, never do. Wouldn't it be better if we could still buy nice things, but with a picture of a tree on the box so we could more easily justify it to ourselves and others? That would also mean we've done "our bit", so could continue driving to Waitrose in the 4-litre Land Rover without feeling at all guilty.

I joke, but the sad thing is, that's what being environmentally friendly means to some people. All for show, and used to beat others round the head with.
 
I just don't think it is worth dealing with the power consumed by vacuum cleaners-for the most part its a machine that is used by most people intermittently.The power use isn't a major issue.I go this way --if someone wants to vacuum their house with a jet engine-thats their business-I don't make it mine and the gov't shouldn't either.
 
Well, in the UK many institutions from the manufactures of washing-powders to the government itself are clamping down on energy consumption. Whether we think it is right or wrong, we've no choice whatsoever and of course if we get worked up about it , it makes not a bit of difference. Governments have historically meddled in things which did not concern them and have made a big mess off it. Other times it has worked. I am sitting on the proverbial fence over energy consumption.
 
The total amount of power consumed by a vacuum cleaner is nothing in the power consumption of a household. The EU would be doing the world a greater favor by legislating a minimum lifespan, as measured by a warranty, to keep vacuums out of the scrap pile. They do the same to car manufacturers with their emissions warranty.
 
The total amount of power consumed by a vacuum cleaner is nothing in the power consumption of a household. The EU would be doing the world a greater favor by legislating a minimum lifespan, as measured by a warranty, to keep vacuums out of the scrap pile. They do the same to car manufacturers with their emissions warranty.
 
The EU begs to differ

They consider that everything which uses power is a potential opportunity for consumers to use less of it, no matter how small the usage per household. This is at the core of the matter, and I realise to an outsider looking in that it seems rather odd.

Sometimes the advice given is good, sometimes it is less so. A stock-answer to energy usage over this side of the pond is to replace older appliances with new. If the old appliance still works, there is a very good argument to say that one may as well stay as one is until the appliance breaks down, as otherwise there is the unnecessary scrapping and recycling of an appliance to consider. I believe that we all need to play our part, be energy aware, and recycle as much as we can, but in across of the whole of the EU, we are up against many other countries on this plant who are much bigger than us and for whom the dumping of rubbish is neither here nor there.

Our governments are getting really strict on recycling and energy usage, but again there is no point in us getting uptight about it, if only because it is one of their more tolerable polices at the moment.
 
Very good points made there Benny.

I'm of the belief that replacing a working appliance simply because it is advancing in years is a sin. Yes it is maybe using a bit more power than a newer counterpart, but think of the expence of buying a newer model, then the fact the old one will end up being scrapped (and thus costing more money) and it seems much more sensible to stick with the current appliance and replace it if and when it breaks down.
 
I bet Kirby are interested in all this, as they produce one of the most efficient cleaners on the market today, and one that also lasts a long time and is repairable too - just like the good old days. Kirby may just make a big inroad into Europe again when the new rules come in, as they still use the old style energy efficient dirty fan method, and what's more, Kirbys clean carpet better than most 2200 watt Hoover and Vax screamers, without deafening the user or heating the room into the bargain.
I find that the hose suction on a Kirby is adequate, and does most jobs well enough for its 700 watts input.
I totally agree that power consumption has got way out of control on vacs, and most just don't need this much power, indeed, it makes the cleaners without vario power harder to push or use the hose. 2000W plus also burns out the motors quicker as well, as they overheat due to users not cleaning the filters - that may make sense to manufacturers who sell more cleaners, but not for the planet.

Roll on the great Kirby comeback!
 
Roll on the great Kirby comeback!

Sorry, but I hightly doubt that. I wouldn't say Kirby are any more or less popular than they have been. More people have always bought budget cleaners that Kirby's - certainly in the early 90's, there were far more Goblin Laser's around than Kirbys.

I don't know anybody who would be willing to spend £1000+ on ANY vacuum.

Of course, once upon a time, you could've spent any amount of money on a vacuum and got a relatively decent performer. Sure, some were better than others, but looking back over catalogues at some of the cheaper machines, they all cleaned to an acceptable standard. It's only really in recent years that the cheaper end of the market has got so terrible.
 
If only Hoover would produce another dirty fan vacuum, but I know they never will as it would be a failure in terms of sales due to the modern looking bagless market we're in.
 
That's why a second hand Kirby always makes a much better buy - just like a second hand car - most folk cant afford a new car, but many more can afford a second hand one. All three of my Kirbys put together cost me less than £100! If only people would realise that a refurbed Kirby would last them so much longer than a £100 Vax, and would be a lot more energy efficient too, requiring only a few bags a year and maybe a couple of belts.
I realise Kirbys aint for everyone, especially the elderly or infirm, but able bodied younger adults can use them and they make such reliable buys.
Kirby has been so badly marred by bad pressure salesmen, and its not fair as the vacs themselves are excellent, classic cleaners.

Also, I am making a plug on Kirbys here as the point of this thread was to discuss the EU's limit on energy use, and the Kirby at 650W is about the lowest rated upright vac on the market today (Apart from Oreck, which I read is now in administration, and other rechargeable stick vacs) - a very green cleaner, as its also very long lasting and repairable, as well as being very energy efficient - how can you go wrong with a used Kirby?

(And no, I don't work for Kirby lol)
 
Jamie - Hoover is not the company it was in the 70's and prior. They are now owned by different people, and make cheap quality Chinese plastivacs - in stark contrast to the quality vacs of the old days. The brand name survives, but the quality of old has gone now.
The dirty fan debate can rage on and on, but they were certainly efficient. Dyson changed people's mind-sets against bagged cleaners, and it will take a lot of effort to change them again to the fact that bagged dirty fan cleaners although efficient, are better. The fact that Oreck may now be about to disappear, will take another dirty fan manufacturer out of the market, and Orecks were popular with the elderly, so will be missed if they do go.
 
RE: dirty fan

There isn't much market for them anymore. The introduction of clean air machines meant the user could own 1 machine that performed equally as well on the hose as it did the tools without having to own both a cylinder and upright machine.

Dirty fan cleaners were great for carpets, but the cleaners with on-board tools weren't that great as suction only cleaners and machines like Kirby where the tools need to be added on are far to inconvenient when compared with clean air uprights with built in tools.

Add that to the fact that more and more people have bare floors and low pile, hard wearing carpet, it kind of renders dirty fan a bit useless as they don't do so well without a thick, deep pile carpet to clean.
 
Sadly Im also inclined to agree - whilst I love my new dirty fan Vax VCU-02, Im more inclined to go with the clean fan method. I think the way things are going, dirty fan machines will soon be relegated to the commercial market exclusively, falling off from the domestic market.
 

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