henrys are lovely machines. they will last for ages (apart from my 2008 one which went bang), have strong suction and huge bags. and there is a huge family!
james, hetty, henryXtra, henryMicro, harry, charles, basil, George, nuvac, and whatever other ones they have now!
Ok, so when Numatic started out they were making cleaners without names or faces, but they noticed that a lot of customers were returning the vacuums, from customer abuse, broken cables, split hoses etc.
So they thought, if they give the cleaner a name and a face customers would treat it better, so turning out in less returns. And it worked.
When I was touring Europe with a group of my students several years ago I happened upon the Numatic vacuums. The Henry was used in so many restaurants and hotels, that even my students became interested. Of course, upon my return I had to have one of these little guys. Found the best price at govacuum. Since then have used Henry and Charles quite a bit with no problems, great quality machines, last forever, simple design, and yes the face makes them hard to leave out in the cold. If you have never owned one I highly recommend it - an investment you will enjoy.
In fact, you can get Numatic's on Govacuum.com, I've put a link to their website.
It's a bit more expensive than in the UK, but it's cheaper than importing one.
Just scroll down the page and it'll show you all the Numatic's.
The Numatics sold here in North America have plugs suitable for our 110V outlets, while those sold in the UK have larger, fatter 3-prong plugs (for the UK 220V outlets). So there is no need to import one from the UK (theirs could not plug into North American outlets anyway).
I lived in London, UK, for 3 years (2004-2007) as a student at King's College London. I lived in one of the University of London halls. There, I first encountered Henry--and have never forgotten him. I recently moved to Canada from the US, and was pleasantly surprised to see the Numatics available here!
Yeah, I know. Way more expensive than here in the UK, but I promise, you won't be disappointed at all. They are great little cleaners and I couldn't recommend them enough.