which do you prefer

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Depends

If there are large particles involved then clean air or if i plan to use the tools quite a bit, but in terms of pure carpet cleaning power there is no beating a direct air
 
Daily cleaning of carpets-Dirty Air (Sanitaire or Kirby)

Specialty uses (large pieces of things, bare floors, or attachment use)-Clean air (Hoover Whisper Cyclonic)
 
For me-carpets-dirty air-Kirby,metal Royal,or Sanitaire.Have some Riccar tandom air machines in my collection-like the simplar direct air ones better.airpath on tandom air machines to complex to be efficient.for other things-canister-but for real dirty and volume hose jobs--the NSS M1-direct air canister.Large bag-high volume airflow.
 
For uprights, a dirty air vacuum uses less energy to get the same excellent deep carpet cleaning as a 12amp "bag-first" upright. You don't need 12 amps to deep clean high pile carpet, if the upright has a "fan-first" configuraton.

Two vacs are best: upright for carpets, canister for everything else.
 
"...For uprights, a dirty air vacuum uses less energy to get the same excellent deep carpet cleaning as a 12amp "bag-first" upright.."

It really surprises me that energy is a consideration for vacuum cleaners - unless you use your vacuum 24 hours a day, 7 days a week then yes, perhaps it can be costly to run. But, vacuum use so little energy compared to an electric stove or larger appliances, does it really make a different to your power bills?

In the UK, and my experience I haven't noticed much of a difference between use of a clean air vac versus dirty fan - and that was at a time when I used power card meter for electricity.
 
I am on the fence -- I hope it doesn't stick me

If you have a high quality machine with a robust fan, then direty air and top fill bag is probably the best -- I have an Oreck XL and Kirby with that set up and it works great.

However, even with a pretty full bag, the Aerus Lux Classic maintain excelent suction, which is prety impressive, and it is quieter than either the Oreck or Kirby.

Johnathan
 
My daily driver is a clean air machine - either a Tacony-style Dustcare 5600C, a Sanitaire cyclonic bagless, or a Windsor Versamatic. For weekly or bi-weekly deep cleaning, however, it's a direct air Sanitaire.

The reason I use clean air for daily use is because it's much more versatile - it allows me to use a long hose and attachments. That's a must for vacuuming apartment stairways.

A direct air Kirby would let me do that as well, but the process of setting up the hose and attachments on a Kirby is much more cumbersome and it's too heavy to move from floor to floor with any ease.

So direct airs, while superior on open carpet, are reserved for the occasional deep clean in my situation.

I've never used the tandem air, so no input there.
 
Tandem has me guessing also. For my heavier carpets, dirty air, seems to move more air and pick up the erant cat litter off the side so easy compared to clean air machines I have, not even a need to get close with the Concept 1.Floors and tools, clean air for me.
 
Tandem Air...

Isn't Tandem Air a proprietary technology featured in some higher end Riccar machines? IIRC, it combines both a direct air motor and a clean air motor in one machine to get extra cleaning power. I could be wrong, though.
 
Have to 99% of the time I'm a clean air man. Everyone I vacuum I need the use of tools, for hard floor bit mostly edges, pet hair that rubbed of on the side of furnishings, chewed up bits of dog toy..

I like dirty air, but as stated, with a Kirby it takes longer to clean. If I have time it's not a problem, but usually have a lot to get done in the day.

I would like to try to try a tandem air, but don't think we have anything like that in the UK. Am I jealous? Yes!
 
Though I understand fully the principle of tandem air cleaning, I cannot for the life of me (what's left) imagine how it works in reality and what difference it makes. To me, it is a case of clean-fan sucking away blown air from a dirty-fan? Surely the suction of the clean-fan machine would over-ride that of the dirty-fan? Or does the dirty-fan compensate for loss of suction on the clean-fan motor as the bag fills?
 
Yeah I did think that it was possibly a Clean Fan set up with a Dirty Fan behind the brush roll to give extra suction. Could be wrong though.
 
Well i can't see it myself, in useful terms, because the air coming away from the dirty fan would be limited too as the bag filled up, therefore it would impede the suction from the dirty fan. Its a strange one. Though not avaliable here, it would be so very easy to make a power head for a cylinder which combined the two styles of suction motor. I saw a video of someone attaching an Oreck to a cylinder in order to try this.
 

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