What's "The Vacuum" of the 2010s?

[human]

According to one of the HVAC techs that serviced my Singer system, Singer sold off their HVAC business to American Standard. I had a pair of American Standard heat pumps in another house I owned a few years ago. Although I hate heat pumps (blowing cold air to heat the house makes no logical sense to me), they were pretty trouble-free.

 

[vexorgtr]

In terms of reliability........

Simple designs usually last longer, because there is less to go wrong that will cripple the whole system. 1 stage furnaces have a simpler motor (on/off) and that eliminates all the circuits to slow the motor to half speed... less to fail.

The public has been bonkers for stuff with blinky lights and fancy screens.. (even refrigerators have screens!)....

Think about those old Nokia phones from 2000... hard plastic, simple screen, long battery life, makes calls, hard to kill.

 

[djub85]

Here's a question... was there ever "the one" from any other era? Growing up, I thought the 1521 Electrolux models were "the one" from the late '80s and early '90s because I saw them in so many friends' houses, but I'd wager that the only people who agree with me would be other Electrolux fans. Some people probably even think the 1521 was the antithesis of "the one" from that era because it was based on 60s tech and ushered out the last days of the company being widely popular.

Dyson and Shark vacs are the only ones that get much commercial space today in magazines and especially on TV, so maybe they're "the one" that people will remember from ads, but I really don't know. My parents had both recently. The Dyson didn't fit where the old skinny Electrolux wands went (lucky me for inheriting the DJ), so they replaced it with a Shark that died after 3 years. Recently they went back to Aerus and got a battery-powered Lite Cordless.

A lot of the most popular new stuff (Shark, Dyson, etc.) has, like you guys have mentioned, some degree of planned obsolescence, so the most popular models will be few in number down the road. But then the well-built stuff (Miele, Aerus, etc.) has minimal advertising recognition, sells in small numbers, and lasts so long it rarely gets replaced. There's just not going to be much left in 20-30 years. The popular stuff will have mostly died, and everything else sells in small quantities. It's not like the old days when the Rainbow vacs, Kirby vacs, and the model G Electrolux vacs were both most popular and long-lasting. Now it's kind of one or the other. Either way, there won't be many copies left of anything over time.

 

[huskyvacs]

@ DJub85

....and that is why we collect vacuums.

 

[huskyvacs]

@ human

The best way to make your furnace more efficient is not to replace it - it's to seal all the gaps and butt-joints in your ductwork with mastic or foil tape, and make sure all the door and window seals around your house are 100% perfect and hold the heat in. Accomplishing that, you won't have any issues. You could have a million dollar furnace but if your ductwork is garbage and your house has more drafts than a barn, then it's all going to waste.

I used to have an old 1960's GE furnace in my basement, but it had to be replaced because it developed a gas leak and for liability reasons the company that inspected it had to replace it. They said if we didn't believe in God, that we should because it had every reason to have blown up, but somehow it didn't. The furnace I have now is an Amana from the early 2000's (this was installed in 2004) and it's been good so far, but the burners like to melt off for whatever reason after so many years, cheap pot metal. But other than that it seems OK. My great grandmother's house had a gorgeous 1940's Coleman with all the art deco flair and streamlining, it must have been one of the first gas furnaces, it sure looked like it. It was also killed off by gas leaks and the fact that the parts were so obsolete they couldn't even find anyone to fabricate replica parts for it.

But the people that installed the furnace in my own house must have been in elementary school because the fit and finish is so sloppy and poor. The idiots even tore a lot of the asbestos tape off my ductwork when fitting new ducts (they didn't even change the main trunk), I bet they have cancer by now.

I like to watch "Holmes on Homes" and I have learned a lot from that show on how to do basic repair on HVAC at tidying it up and sealing gaps. It's improved it somewhat. I did find that the duct to the kitchen line is crushed like a fortune cookie somehow and the duct to the bathroom is just not even attached, so those need fixing (beyond my skills), but they've been like that for about 40 years. I guess it was fine in the 80s when stuff was cheap but now the price per therm has gone up, can't afford to waste any.

 

[human]

My house is surprisingly tight for being spec-built and I've made it even more so a couple of years ago by adding good vinyl replacement windows. Winters are short and mild down here, but the summers really give the air conditioner a workout.

When I was buying the place, the inspector actually had the gall to suggest I replace the whole HVAC system because the original thermostat was on its way out. It did indeed fail a couple of months after I moved in and I upgraded it to a programmable digital unit--the only circuit board in the whole system.

 

[robsmith1977]

Unfortunately I would have to say the Shark navigator blah blah blah and the Dysons, usually in stick vac form. The chinese seem to make all the vacuums that everybody wants these days - along with microwaves and shoes.

 

[cmbcool01]

Some bagless plastic crap

Probably a Dyson or Shark probably a cordless stick mabye vacuum facts will be in euphoria and it will be the Dyson V11 or whatever all i hope is we see more bagged vacuums the next decade or at least see the ones thats exist now marketed better