Popularity of uprights

[fan-of-fans]

I was wondering about this earlier. It seems to me that uprights are very popular these days. Almost everyone I know with the exception of a few people has an upright, and often when I go to estate sales I see uprights.

This could be a regional thing, but I think it has more to do with convenience. When I was a kid, my mother did most of the cleaning with a vacuum, but I know a lot of people don't and aren't so picky about the housecleaning. Many people vacuum only the carpet and sweep the hard floors and dust furniture once in a while with a wet cloth. I can see how uprights can be more convenient in that scenario as there are less parts to deal with and move around and they store more easily, but I prefer a canister. I have both canisters and uprights, but when I want to do a thorough cleaning and do it quickly, I go for a canister.

Another reason I can see for uprights' popularity is that they are more common in the stores and they are typically much cheaper than canisters that have a powered brushroll. Kmart and Sears are the only stores in my area that sell many canisters. Walmart has none, unless you count the Shark lift-off style vacuum.

Of course I realize too that people have their own preferences on machines, and that's fine too, but it just seems that most people in general who aren't collectors have uprights these days, and I wonder if that is something that's been true for many years.

 

[godfreys_guy]

Interesting..

I think you will find its manufacturer driven. In Australia, in the early 90's uprights dried up here and it has become a canister saturated market. The main manufacturers here that still retail uprights are:
Miele
Vax
Dyson
Kirby
Bissell

Most of the manufacturers other than the above either only make 1-2 models (including Hoover) and even then, hide them in the back of the range. When I worked for the main retailer of cleaning appliances we had only 5 domestic uprights and in excess of 30 domestic canisters!

I think that Dyson and Vax would be the only ones who actually make a dent in the market with uprights, i know where I work now - 50% or more of my customers leave with a DC41 or DC33 in hand

It's all very disappointing because power brushes aren't all that common here and as such most machines are straight suction and we all know how good that is for carpets. To get a power-brush machine here you are looking at the Vax zen $599, Dyson DC23 motorhead $898, Miele $1099, Sauber (lux) $1499 so you can see that they are not in most peoples pricing range.

 

[sebo_fan]

In Europe it differs from country to country. Some countries prefer canisters only to uprights. The UK seems to have a split share but we're only beginning to get other brands now with PN heads on canisters. Wertheim only came here last year (or may have been the year before) with their PN canister. Miele and SEBO have dominated the market here for canisters with PN's but they're not a big seller compared to the uprights.

 

[gsheen]

This is so funny I was just thinking about this today aswell.


In the end it comes down to user preference and allot to do with what your mom used when you grew up to according to research, 


 


I for one prefer an upright due to its better cleaning of carpets over a standard cylinder vacuum. 


If you fit a PN to a cylinder you get the same performance but for me I can not figure out why you would want to fit a great big heavy PN to the end of a heavy hose( with power cables in it )  and then still drag the machine around behind you when you could simply use an upright.


This is my personal view though and I am not knocking any cylinder with a PN I just don't understand it, Not these fays in any case when most uprights have on board hoses anyway.


 


Just My view on an interesting Topic 

 

[jmurray01]

I can't speak for everyone (if I did sebo_fan would have a field day) but here is why I prefer uprights:

- Everything is on the cleaner (hose, tubes, nozzles etc...)
- Most of them glide over carpets easier than "scrubbing" with a straight suction cylinder's floor nozzle
- Wider cleaning head in most cases, thus quicker cleaning
- The bags can be more than double the size, likewise for Bagless bins
- Brush rolls beat the carpet opposed to a cylinder's straight suction nozzle just scrubbing it, as aforementioned
- These days uprights tend to have lower wattage motors compared to cylinders, completely paradoxical to what you'd think but oh well...

 

[sebo_fan]

"la-la-la sticks fingers into ears, does an Evita and turns a blind eye..."

 

[pr-21]

In the 70's and 80's I always had a ......

Upright for carpet and a straight suction canister for hard surface floors and above floor cleaning. I would always us the canister first and then put it away and then finish with the upright.

Now things seem to have changed for me. I seem to only use the uprights for a quick pick up in between thorough cleanings. For a thorough cleaning I seem to pick a canister. Partly due to the style condo I have. Vaulted ceilings with different heights of ledges that collect dirt and Ceiling fans that are very hard to reach. I can use a Sebo extension hose or a Miele 10 ft non electric hose. Either one of these canisters can be sat on the couch or bed to reach the ceiling fans while I am on a ladder. My rainbow hose can do the same thing.

Now a days I have almost as much hard surface as carpet and a canister seems a better fit....

I do think what you grew up with has an influence on what you choose as well. My mom had an Electro Hygiene canister in the late 50's and most of the 60's. It was a work horse. It was my job to empty and shake out the bag when it was full. I did also run it for mom sometimes. When mom and dad built their first house they gave the Electro Hygiene to my aunt and bought a Westinghouse Canister. Absolutely the worst vacuum we ever had. Terribly hard bag changes, even for me....

I don't much care for an upright with a hose and attachments as I always felt they compromised the cleaning power of the upright by adding on a onboard hose and tools. WITH the exception of the Felix Sebo Upright. I absolutely love this vacuum......and I can actually use the extension hose of the sebo and leave the upright on the floor and still clean my high ceiling fans and ledges.


Bud Mattingly
PR-21

 

[gsheen]

I think that canisters with a Pn made more sense in the 70"s and before when uprights didn't have built in hoses. If you wanted to clean your house easily under furniture with out having to go and fetch the hose and attachments then it made scense to get a canister with a pn, back then they also had more suction for above the floor cleaning too

 

[jmurray01]

That's true Gareth. These days most uprights have fitted hoses and lots of tools, so there isn't actually much that makes a cylinder better than an upright these days, except for cleaning stairs perhaps, but even then, some uprights have stretch hoses that can reach up all the stairs.

 

[sebo_fan]

Well, in the UK 1970's homes had all the rage of wall to wall thick carpeting. It was a trend that everyone wanted to feel the luxury of pile between their toes. I go by the experience here of the Observer & Ideal Home magazines my father hoarded that show off homes with carpets. But I can also remember a lot of my friends homes had those fangled carpet tiles that can be individually taken off and washed down.

gsheen - a lot of people go by what their mum/parents used. In that sense as far back as I can remember, my parents and grandparents had Hoover uprights. But, it wasn't until last year I was going through the loft putting new insulation down with a builder that I came across a butterfly upholstery tool from an original Electrolux canister and eventually the material covered hose that must have come from the "brown" Electrolux my mother recalls she had when she got married. Of course I was too young to remember or possibly wasn't around by then. I wasn't fan of canisters until later on in life, so in a way it is probably true that whatever your parents used - that you yourself can remember - you end up using yourself in later life.

It's a pity the hose had deteriorated so much though - it would have been a fine article to sell on EBay. I did keep the tool though!

 

[fan-of-fans]

I think too that canisters are popular in other countries, is because hard floors are more common. Here in the US, homes often have lots of carpet, so you either need a PN canister or an upright, and uprights are typically cheaper.

Although most uprights now have on board tools, I don't use the ones on my upright usually. For one thing, they are nearly impossible to use. When you stretch the hose too far, it springs back, and will cause the vacuum to fall over. Also, it is much easier for me to do above floor cleaning with a canister, as with most uprights, I have to push it around by the handle while I hold the hose in the other hand. The older uprights with bottom tool conversion such as Eurekas and Hoover Convertibles and Concept Ones actually allowed you to pull the vacuum behind you which was much easier, almost as convenient as a canister. The uprights with built in hoses, this can't be done with.

The other reason I prefer canisters is they are easier for me to get under and around furniture with, such as reaching under the couch or tables. My canisters are also much quieter than most uprights I have seen.

I think in a lot of cases people that use uprights don't use the attachments that much, and same with canisters. I see a lot of used canisters that the attachments all look brand new. I guess few people actually do any dusting with their vacuums, but some people's homes seem to never get very dusty either.

 

[vintagerepairer]

My mother had a Hoover 370 junior which she sold when she was given the chance to buy a much newer second hand Hoover 262 for a stupid price. There were no tools with the 262 and most cleaning was done with damp brushes and brooms anyway as our carpets were not fitted, rather we had floorboards and linoleum, with a covering of carpet squares in the middle of the rooms. I think the only thing mother could have used attachments for was when cleaning the soft furniture. I do remember her borrowing a dustette off of a neighbour now and then and giving the furniture a good clean. The stair case in our home only had a narrow strip of carpet running up of the middle. This was cleaned regularly with brushes, although my mother did ask me on many occasions to lift the Hoover 262 up and vacuum the stairs, which I did. As my mother could barely lift the cleaner to take up to clean the bedrooms, she had no chance of vacuuming the stairs in this fashion.

As Sebo fan has indicated, by the 1970's fitted carpets were taking over and my parents did go in for such flooring at the end of the 1960's. This, coupled with the fact that mother was getting no younger, meant that she wanted a new, lighter vacuum cleaner, and I think I said before that she had her eye on an Electrolux 152. She was still deciding on it years later, by which time the 152 was now the 170. However, she was housekeeper to a doctor and looked after the family very well. She nursed the father (also a doctor) until his death, something which was way beyond her original appointment, and her efforts were rewarded when the family bought her an Electrolux 504 with all the tools. The family needed a new vacuum cleaner and asked my mother to accompany them to the electrical store to choose a new one. That is when the doctor placed an order for two machines. I remember well how my mother came home and said the doctor bought two cleaners, which she assumed was so they had a vacuum cleaner for both floors of the house she cleaned. Little did she know that one of them was for her. This was the first time she had ever owned a cleaner with tools and she loved it.

Her Hoover 262 was put upstairs and used to clean the bedrooms, although they never had fitted carpet up there. Eventually something happened to that cleaner, but I don't know what, and it was taken to the shop and traded in for an Electrolux 302 cylinder, which became mothers upstairs machine, although she did often ask me to bring it downstairs when doing a deep clean as she said the suction power on the hose was 'more useful' than that of the 504. My mother kept both machines until her dying day although the tool kits did get muddled up somewhat as she preferred the 504 floor tool over the one supplied with her 302 cylinder and used the 504 floor tool on the 302. I did get her a Panasonic upright during the 1990's which she liked, but hated with a passion the short stretch hose, I think possibly this was because the cleaner fell over and hit her on one of the first occasions she used the tools. She only ever really used the cleaner as an upright machine.

 

[trebor]

Stretch hoses on an upright are intended to be used...

with one hand on the cleaner handle at all times, and for quick spot pick-ups. Just not practical for thorough cleaning of upholstery or wide expanses of wall.

 

[jmurray01]

I know what you mean about the Panasonic hitting her when using the stretch hose, as I had that happen to me recently with my Turbopower 1000.

I was vacuuming the settee when all of a sudden the damn thing toppled over on top of me, all five tonnes. HOOVER didn't make it lightweight that's for sure.

To say I initially felt like throwing it out of the top floor window was a damn right understatement.

Now I always keep my left hand on the carry handle to ensure something like that never reoccurs.

 

[vintagerepairer]

I know the best way to use an upright with a stretch hose is to hold the cleaner with one hand at all times, but that is only something we have adopted for ourselves as instruction books rarely mention doing so. It is also not that easy to do either, especially if like my mother was at the time the user is rather old. She didn't have the strength to handle the stretch hose one handed as it was.

 

[gsheen]

I find they slaken up after a while, however I do have a dc29db that I use for my above the floor cleaning once a week , but for everyday vacuuming I find you cannot beat a upright with a built in hose. I have allot of animals and two sons so everyday vacuuming even around the edges is a must for us. 


 


One of the reasons I like my dysons so much is that the pipe is built into the hose so It makes cleaning faster than having to attach a pipe aswell. It may sound trivial but when you have a son who is semi autistic and adhd and another son who is just naughty like his dad , cleaning is a time limited necessity that needs to be made as easy as possible

 

[vintagerepairer]

It doesn't sound trivial to me. I see your problem. I think cleaning is trivial full stop. I clean, yes of course I do, but no more than I have to. I also have a woman who comes in at least once month and cleans all through my apartment in somewhat more detail than I could ever have asked for.

 

[gsheen]

My wife and I also run a business together, a vacuum shop and I have a business with my Dad , a cleaning company, and I am a consultant engineer to a vacuum company here in SA, so we are pretty busy and Josh my eldest who has severe asperges and is severely adhd, odd can be a handful, hence I work from home. we don't have a cleaning lady at all we do it ourselves so it can be "fun" yep its trivial but I like a clean house so I live with it. I just find the best tools to do the job and use those it makes it allot easier  

 

[vintagerepairer]

Hi there, oh I quite agree with all you say (I hope you didn't think otherwise). Cleaning can be fun, it is just that it ticks few boxes for me now that I am retired. I live in a sheltered housing development, which is very small. One bedroom. But that makes it easy to clean and I have few worries about home maintenance as I only have to manage the inside of my home. My girl who comes in, Linda, she is like a breath of fresh air. She attends to all the jobs I cannot actually do now, like moving furniture and cleaning the shower tray properly. So what I don't do myself, she does when she comes in.

It is the best money I spend and I do look forward to coming home on the day that she comes to me. I see you said that you run a cleaning service. I used to have a much larger company do the work for me, they are a franchise outfit and are very expensive. I paid a good deal more for the work, which wasn't the problem, the problem was that the company were not able to do a lot of the tasks which I needed help with. So I gave that one up when I was told about Linda who was more able / willing to do what I need. But with that, I have to say I found she does do a much better job in general and seems happy to charge me less than the other people did.