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Personally, I think the whole "hepa thing" is largely a matter of sales hype -- just like vacuum cleaner sales hype of the past -- moth infestations that must be dispatched with highly poisonous and carcinogenic chemicals; bedding loaded down with dead skin cells; vacuum cleaners that pick up a bowling ball, etc. etc. etc.
Unless a person is allergic to stuff in the air such as pollen, hepa bags don't really seem to me to be necessary; and, due to the more-restricted air flow, hepa bags and filters can cause the motor to overheat if used for long periods of time.
The greater advantage of paper vs. cloth bags is a matter of convenience -- which doesn't take into consideration bagless machines. If you've ever emptied one of them at night with a flashlight beamed across the dirt chamber, you probably couldn't get away from that machine fast enough.
I have -- and have had -- quite a few Electroluxes over the years. The only ones that were "caked with dirt" inside were ones that had been misused or abused. (One day I found a Model E at a thrift shop that had just the cardboard top in the bag chamber to keep the cover closed ... and had been used that way for a very long time. Imagine the horror.)
I've said this before: For decades, people used vacuum cleaners with cloth bags. I don't recall any reports of homemakers falling ill left and right as the result of using those terrible old "dust belchers and dirt breeders."
"Salesmen gotta sell" -- there will always be sales hype regardless of the product and regardless of the veracity of the hype.
[this post was last edited: 12/29/2015-15:25]
