Trash vacs

[fan-of-fans]

Anyone seen any curbed vacs recently? This week I've seen two in my neighborhood, one was a cheapo Bissell Powerforce bagless purple. It was still there the next day, along with some ride on toys.

Today I saw some kind of Dyson - or at least what was left of parts to one.

I do wish last year when I saw that Kirby G4 down the street I'd have gotten it. But I would've been in big trouble!

 

[gregvacs28]

The "ride on toys" sound interesting.

 

[gregvacs28]

I did see a medium sized Shop Vac brand cleaner dumped with some old kitchen cabinets on a dead end road. And the spot was within site of a house. Strange to be dumping like that.

 

[justjunque]

Last one I saw was a Shark.
I'm not up on my newer vacs, so I couldn't tell you anything about the model or anything.
It was a very light blue color. Quite a nice color, actually, and it looked like it had just come out of the box. Clean, shiny, all the feature stickers still on it.
I'm out of room, not into new vacs, and not into bagless, so I didn't take it.
I know, many here think the trash is exactly where Sharks belong. Even though they're not my cup of tea, I still hate to see what's probably a perfectly good vacuum end up trashed, when it's most likely that someone just didn't maintain it properly.

 

[huskyvacs]

There is always money to be made in cleaning up, fixing up, and reselling vacuums. I have seen 90's Hoovers going for over $200 on eBay fully restored. Also Sharks going for about $80+. It's pretty lucrative.

I have not seen any trash vacuums yet. I am just happy to see vacuums showing up in Goodwill again - sadly models I either already own or not that special - but it's at least something.

 

[fan-of-fans]

They seem to come in spurts here. I'll see two or three in the span of a week, and then none for many months.

Last week I saw some kind of bagless Hoover at the curb. It was there for a day or two and then someone must have picked it up. Rarely does anything stay on the curb until bulk trash pickup anymore. And with the new automatic trucks, the company won't pick up anything outside of the carts unless it is monthly bulk pickup day. So it stays there until someone comes along and takes it usually.

I have as yet not picked up any vacuums. Most of the ones I see are newer bagless stuff that just doesn't interest me.

And I'm practically at the point where I have to say "enough is enough" and only get vacuums that I am truly interested in collecting. Right now, for me that is mostly vintage metal vacuums.

I've tried cleaning out multiple times, I've gotten rid of most of the vacuums that I wasn't that interested in, or needed too much work.

But invariably I bring in more. At least now they are ones I really like though.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I saw a maroon soft bag Hoover Elite on the curb down the street this morning. Had the hose with it, didn't see any attachments.

 

[human]

I haven't seen a trash vac worth taking a second look at since I nabbed an Electrolux Diplomat LXE canister with replacement hose, wand and lighted power nozzle about a year ago. Somebody had cut the cord off of it but I lucked up on a cheap cord winder on eBay and had it up and running a week later. I'm still missing the suction control knob but I've disconnected the tubing that goes to it so the machine works just fine without it, even if it looks a little ugly with the knob gone. It's funny, you can get the suction control valves all day long but not the knob that attaches to it. I obsessed over it for a short time but at this point, I've pretty much accepted that finding one is just not meant to be.

 

[human]

Update: I found my knob!

Last night, after posting the above, I took another look on eBay and what did I find but an Electrolux 2100 (essentially the same machine as my Diplomat LX) being parted out so I finally got my knob. It's light gray, whereas the original was dark blue but it'll look just fine. It cost a bit more than I would have liked to have paid but given that I've never seen one for sale before, I went ahead and bit the bullet.

Okay, sorry for hijacking the thread. We how return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

 

[jo]

Saw one

Saw something black plastic upright with blue accents in the top of the bagless dust bin peering from the top of a dumpster when I was driving home. There are some apartments on the way home and the dumpster is easily visible from the main road. Guessing it was from someone who moved out. Often people throw away the cheap vacs when they move out if they are clogged with dirt and hair on the brush roll than bother to clean them out. I didn’t bother to stop and check it out as I don’t have much interest in the plastic vacs and there could have been something wrong with it too making it be an expense to get going.

There’s always all sorts of furniture, or household items in that dumpster piled high, I’ve seen toilets, kitchen sinks, lots of furniture and the like there when passing by. Amazing to me how people just use the trash for convenience rather than donating to a habitat for humanity or other organization to reuse the item if it’s generally reusable. Things don’t get broken down and dissolved and recycled when we put them in the trash, they just get moved to another location and stored in a giant pile then covered with dirt. Not good for the planet. Whoever thought this was a good idea was wrong. Recycling should have been the norm from the beginning of time.

Jon

 

[jo]

Saw one

Saw something black plastic upright with blue accents in the top of the bagless dust bin peering from the top of a dumpster when I was driving home. There are some apartments on the way home and the dumpster is easily visible from the main road. Guessing it was from someone who moved out. Often people throw away the cheap vacs when they move out if they are clogged with dirt and hair on the brush roll than bother to clean them out. I didn’t bother to stop and check it out as I don’t have much interest in the plastic vacs and there could have been something wrong with it too making it be an expense to get going.

There’s always all sorts of furniture, or household items in that dumpster piled high, I’ve seen toilets, kitchen sinks, lots of furniture and the like there when passing by. Amazing to me how people just use the trash for convenience rather than donating to a habitat for humanity or other organization to reuse the item if it’s generally reusable. Things don’t get broken down and dissolved and recycled when we put them in the trash, they just get moved to another location and stored in a giant pile then covered with dirt. Not good for the planet. Whoever thought this was a good idea was wrong. Recycling should have been the norm from the beginning of time.

Jon

 

[justjunque]

Our neighborhood just had a bulk pick-up day this week.
Someone around the corner had some version of Oreck out on the tree belt. I'm guessing it was a version of the XL, because the overall shape looked like the one we have.
This one, however, was green. I've seen white ones, and ours is the common blue. But this was the first green one I've seen.
I can't tell you any details about it, because I didn't look at it up close...just drove by at a slow roll.

Barry

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

I just picked up a three Motor Italian made

Commercial wet dry vacuum, the most common use that they have are in car washes here, so that is absolutely awesome and I only paid $120 for it, It was originally 150 but since the store that it was at was closing sadly I got that

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

I’ll see if

I can get some pictures of it for you G&G’s

 

[thevacuumbarn]

Interesting what you will find.

Friends of mine have given me trash finds over the years because they know I repair vacuum cleaners. One of them was a red Simplicity Machine, and it worked fine other than needing the bag compartment seriously cleaned out and the filters, belts, brush strips and bag replaced. Wound up selling that one.
Another one I got was a Shark NV-355 someone found in a college dumpster, (some College students throw everything out even if it’s still good). I wound up parting that one out, as Sharks don’t have most parts available, and thus are not worth reselling most of the time; besides, both of the motors, The microswitch, the circuitboard, and a lot of other parts were still good though the hose and the brush roll were both shot. I recently got a Hoover bagless, just had a clog and needed its cyclone and filters washed, as well as probably a new HEPA filter. Probably going to part it out though, as I don’t really like selling bagless machines, and it’s cheap so I probably won’t get much for it if I try to sell it.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I saw some kind of red and black bagless upright vac down the street a week or two ago, it disappeared before trash pickup.

This week I've seen a cheapo blue and black bagless Bissell upright on one road near me. Hasn't disappeared yet.

I won't pick up these cheapo Bissell or Hoover bagless vacs from the curb, they are all I ever see thrown out. If it was a Hoover Windtunnel or something older I would. For a while there it seemed like the most common vac I saw were bagged self propelled Windtunnels. Now I'd rather one of those than these cheapo BOL bagless stuff.

 

[fan-of-fans]

One find this morning

I went out to several yard/estate sales this morning (but managed to miss the one I intended to go to).

Anyway while I was headed down a street to one of the sales, I happened to see a blue Kenmore Progressive canister vac parked next to some trash cans. One the way out I came back up the block and grabbed it.

Usually all I see in the trash is cheap bagless Bissells or Hoovers so I was surprised to see something a little better.

At quick glance throwing it in the trunk, it looks in pretty good shape, and it was at a nice looking house, so it might be ok. It's still in the trunk, I didn't have time to see if any attachments were with it. But it does have the hose, wands and Power Mate, which was neatly parked in the hanger on the bottom of the canister.

 

[ladydobermann]

Haven't seen too many recently either. They usually get thrown out in the spring. Half of my collection is trash-picked and the other half is stuff I bought. I got a couple of Bissells and a Shark Rotator from the trash, but nothing good or interesting.

 

[mjhoshaw]

I see throwaway vacs all the time, but

I don't even stop to see what make/model they are. If I were to see an older machine that holds promise, I would grab it. I've lived where I am full-time since 2014, and I'm still waiting for the first one. I did much better when I lived in Northern Virginia and Baltimore.


 


I attribute the kinds of vacs being tossed to the demographics of where I live. Right after we bought our current house the roof needed replacement, and the roofer was surprised that we wanted to fix it the right way. He said that most homeowners in my area just want to patch it up. That same mentality probably plays out in what folks are willing to spend on a vacuum.


 


Joel