Uprights Or Canisters?

[DesertTortoise]

Bebring, I can't see the entire vac in your avatar photo, but the lid looks an awful lot like my 1971 vintage Kenmore I call the Avocado Bomber. Those were heavy duty vacuums, all steel beneath the lid. Simple and durable machines. I understand their effect on your choice of vacuums as an adult. Lol, boy do I!

 

[ronni]

It is easy for me to see why there are such a variety of vacuum cleaners after reading the replies in this thread ... there is a huge variety of users, flooring surfaces (sizes and materials), and room usages!

Just think how dull our lives would be if there were only one brand, type, style, and color vacuum cleaner--not to mention if we all had the same opinions.

 

[luxman107]

Since I have 70% hardwood and 30% carpet, and there is absolutely no other way to clean above the floor but too vacuum, canister(tank) for me.

 

[cb123]

I know exactly what you mean: I too have a two-story house, and I just can't imagine dragging a canister up the stairs, not when I can just sling a Kirb and get the job done - once and for all.

 

[bebring]

DesertTortoise, I don't have a picture of the vacuum , my mother was more interrested by it's boy than the vacuum. This vacuum no longer exist , 20 years later, the belt of the power nozzle break and after the motor run out, it was the bearing. The back of the vacuum under the motor was in steel. My uncle still have one, a blue color one.

This is the a vacuum how is almost the same, but the one of my mother was white and it was write simpsons sears on it.

http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?19829

 

[Gr8DaneDad]

Calem,


 


Honestly we get it. You love your Kirby. I like the 3 I have, but they just aren't the end all, be all vacuum for some of us. I find it nowhere as convenient or easy to constantly convert any Kirby to it's various uses as you seem to and even my D50 weighs more than many of my Electrolux tanks and I don't have to reconfigure them to vacuum my way up the stairs. By all means, enjoy your Kirby. Others just don't always share your devotion to the brand.


 


Tom

 

[cb123]

I apologize for my Kirby jibber-jabber, earlier. But I received some dyer news from my Internist, just today! He informed me that I had the most severe case of Kirbyitis he had ever seen in all of his 40 plus yrs. of practicing medicine. Of which he further stated, " There is no known cure!" But there is consolation, for it was entirely treatable, and what follows is what he prescribed, " You must acquire more and more Kirbys if you wish to stay alive!" Most happily, I must undergo this therapy for the remainder of my natural life. Now, as I'm inclined to think, it seems that most are afflicted to some degree with this very disorder, and if you need any further proof: forums like this exist.

 

[eurekaprince]

This is my strategy for using my "canister + upright" duo to clean a room: I use my lightweight, suction only canister (with lightweight hose and simple non-bulky handle) to clean the room from top to bottom. Then I use my lightweight, low wattage, fan-first Hoover upright to finish the job by deep cleaning the carpets. For the carpets, I begin in the far end of the room and work backwards so that I don't leave any footprints and so that the vac cleans up any dirt from my shoes.

I find it very difficult to work backwards with a power nozzle canister: you are always repositioning the main unit so that you don't trip over it as work backwards over the carpet. To me canisters are meant to trail behind you as you move forward - they are not meant for vacuuming as you "back out of" a room.

Again, just my preference.

 

[suckolux]

We clean a bit alike!

 

[DesertTortoise]

Bebring, the vacuum in your post is the model that came immediately after my Avocado Bomber. The lower body of the one in your post is ivory colored plastic, and darned good plastic at that. There were versions cast in blue and green as well as ivory. The wood grain on the lid is, um, so Plymouth Valiant dashboard. The last couple of years the lids were body color with some orange and brown graphics. Kinda disco but more subdued that faux wood.

I have two of those beasts. I think they are probably the best canister vacs Sears ever sold and one of the five or ten best canister vacs of all time. That is one rugged machine. I especially like how the motor compartment is arranged. Exhaust air has to go through a filter to exit the vacuum. There are no routes for leakage out the cord opening or through openings for switches like one finds on later Kenmores. I use bulk filter material from Electrolux behind the secondary filter under that plastic grid over the fan. It comes in big sheets. There isn't enough clearance under the lid for the HEPA dome filters that fit on top of the fan. I tried (I can however use one on the Avocado Bomber). I also use moder Kenmore filters in the exhaust.

Thanks for the tip of using a backpack vac HEPA bag. That is the last piece of the puzzle for me and my allergy suffering fiancee, except those red bag adapters shown so vividly in one of the images. I still need at least one (please, anyone, help me find one, I will grovel shamelessly and do embarassing and degrading things to obtain one).

I'll throw in a couple of images of the Avocado Bomber. The body is two pieces of very heavy steel but the lid is not so well made. The plastic hinge failed and I haven't yet come up with a replacement. There is no way of filtering the exhaust air, it comes out of every seam between the two halves of the lower body, out the cord opening and out a little round exhaust. It's kinda primative but it has sentimental value as I mostly grew up with it. A real bummer about the hinge. I sincerely do not want to have to retire this vac.

 

[Gr8DaneDad]

Calem,


 


I appreciate your enthusiasm for Kirby, just got a bit perturbed seeing it in every other post. My apologies for posting after a particularly trying day, I should have refrained.


 


Tom

 

[DesertTortoise]

The one quality of my Windsor upright that I cherish, and that a canister probably could never duplicate, is that ten meter long cord. I can plug the Windsor in at a hallway outlet and vacuum all three bedrooms without unplugging. For a canister with a cord reel to have that much cord the reel would have to be huge, or you would have to wrap the cord around the outside of the vac (fugly on a canister).

As for backing a canister out of a room, I have as much difficulty with the cord on an upright. The tactic I use is to go forward, not backward with either vac. You can also put long hoses on a canister with excellent suction, 8-10 feet, and somewhat ameliorate the problem.

 

[suckolux]

I had a gray Kenmmore Progressive, maybe 8 years ago? that had I think 27 ft cord, not sure where it put it,it was their TOL

 

[cb123]

Tom,

That's quite all right, no harm done. As you most probably already know, I collect primarily Kirby vacuums. I must confess, I leave one of them in its canister mode all the time. Why, I even have one dedicated to my sanding wheel, which also serves as a shop-vac. After vacuuming for yrs. with expensive junk, to no avail, I bought my first Kirby, and I've been hooked ever since. I'm just so glad, when I was a child, I didn't have a parent or someone prejudice me against such a fine machine. I never had any interest in vacuums, I just shell out a couple of hundred bucks every other yr. and simply buy a new "fiasco" , and think no more of it. But all that has changed now, and this time for the better!

 

[nycwriter]

I have both now ...

I have a brand-new (from last summer) Aerus Guardian Platinum canister which I love (LOOOOOVE being able to get the power nozzle under all my furniture without having to move it), the 8-speed motor for variable dusting, and the ease of switching attachments.

BUT .. the power nozzle just doesn't give me the deep-cleaning in my plush wool rugs that my Kirby D80 gives me.

I feel like I have the best of both worlds now. And the D80 is the newest of the "smaller" Kirbys; the 13-inch nozzle is downright diminutive compared to the much bulkier 16-inch post-1969 nozzles, and maneuvers just as easily as any other upright in my small-ish apartment.

 

[suckolux]

Sounds like a great combo there Matt

 

[DesertTortoise]

NYCwriter. Make up a wand to adapt your Aerus vac to a Hayden/Nutone/Centec powered brush or a Kenmore Powermate (they are all the same head from the same Panasonic plant in Mexico) and see how your Aerus does on carpet with that brush. I don't know who makes the head for Aerus or if they make their own, but from what I have seen the European brushes are miserable on deeper pile carpets (same for some of their uprights) but the Panasonic made brushes, while outwardly kind of crude and old fashioned, do better than most uprights (not sure about Kirbys but certainly better than Hoovers, Windors or Eurekas) in deep pile carpeting. I adapted a Kenmore wand to a Wessel Werk brush, so it can be done. Cost me $5 to do.

 

[ronni]

Another "wrinkle in the rug" regarding the terms "canister" and "tank" ...

It seems that Aerus (formerly Electrolux Corporation) calls the machines used with power nozzles "canisters" as evidenced by their model designations which all begin with the letter "C" as well as the "Canisters" tab on its website with no mention of "tanks".

So, as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" (from the motion picture "Shall We Dance" by RKO Radio Pictures, 1937).

 

[super-sweeper]

LOL Calem,a Kirby is an upright and a canister! However I don't like using Kirbys after the DS50 as a canister. I find the 2nd gear only creates more noise, the Kirby has enough power with one speed!


 


Kevin, when I get home I'll type out a list of what vacuums fit where! 

 

[kirbyduh]

Canister!

I Always find myself reaching for an Electrolux or Rainbow. My house is almost all hardwood floors with only a couple rooms of carpet and area rugs. A good Electrolux or Rainbow floor tool makes the hardwood gleam. I like to clean the upholstered furniture also when I vacuum, so it is just much more convenient to use a canister. I used to be crazy for Kirbys, but they are not as appealing to me now. They do clean well, but do not groom my rugs or carpet in a satisfactory way. To do any upholstery cleaning or to clean the hardwood would be a chore with the Kirby. I would have to switch between upright and tool mode constantly which is just annoying. Also, I tend to like the hushed tone of vintage electroluxes - I can clean anything without disturbing everyone. Lastly, if I'm too lazy to pull out the power nozzle, the combo rug/floor tool does a satisfactory job cleaning the surfaces of all our rugs.