You Cannot Clean by Suction Alone! – a shocking photo play by Jack Copp

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vintagehoover

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Picture the scene – a relatively small guest bedroom. The room is mainly consumed by a double bed, with just enough space to walk round it comfortably. The carpet is relatively thick by modern standards – it’s the colour and texture of a plush teddy bear! The home-owners' vacuum cleaner is a Numatic Henry - a straight-suction canister totally unsuited to their VERY large house, which is carpeted throughout. The carpet has never been cleaned with the aid of a revolving brush.

All those years of feet passing over the carpet, grinding and wearing at the pile...let the drama begin!

4-15-2009-05-18-10--vintagehoover.jpg
 
Canister full x1. In fact, it's not x1, this picture is actually x3 - the first two times, I didn't take pictures because I wasn't aware what a saga this would become!

4-15-2009-05-32-9--vintagehoover.jpg
 
Vacuuming away...remember, this is only the space AROUND the bed - the majority of the floor is covered by the bed itself!

4-15-2009-05-35-5--vintagehoover.jpg
 
Now...some observations:

First off, surely it becomes evident from these pictures that cleaning by suction alone CANNOT be sufficient. Hoover weren't kidding; a revolving brush is necessary!

Second of all...it has been suggested that the Dyson doesn't compress bulky dirt like bagged cleaners. This is true - it's a side-effect of the cyclonic action. However, the suggestion that the cleaner is 'engineered' to do this as a cynical marketing ploy to 'make it look as if it's working' is desperate at best. Laughable at worst.

Consider, too, exactly how much could a bagged cleaner compress this dense fluff? How many bags would I have got through with a supermarket carrier bag's-worth of bulky fiber? Say, for instance, I'd used my Miele Revolution 500 with the new Hyclean bags...how much of this could they have held? I'd say it would have taken at least 2, as a conservative, optimistic estimate. At £7.82 for 4 bags, I would have had to throw away £3.91 in non-reusable dust containers, just cleaning a section of one small bedroom!

The Dyson cost me nothing but time - and not much of that, either! It didn't clog, it didn't lose suction.

~ END ~

4-15-2009-05-45-20--vintagehoover.jpg
 
It looks like it ate your carpet. If your carpet had been blue, half of your dirt would have been as well. Your could have gone over it until you had nothing more than commercial grade low pile stuff and still got the same results.
 
tolivac - most of the actual dirt came up the first time I filled the canister, and went straight to the bottom of the carrier bag. If you look closely at the pictures of the dirt in the canister, you can see the remaining fine grey dirt swirled within the fluff. Being an infrequently-used guest room, which has been suction-cleaned weekly for years, there will never be a huge amount of dirt in there to begin with.

The point of the photos was to demonstrate the vast amount of 'dead' carpet fibres, as you term it, which lurks within some carpets, even when the owners would claim, 'We've cleaned it every week!' Even a modern, powerful suction-only cleaner can't extract it. I could have used almost any upright/canister with powernozzle and obtained the same results - I only stress the convenience of the Dyson because it does not require constant, expensive bag changes!

lux1521 - it's certainly not my carpet, I wouldn't allow that aberration in my house! I can't stand that plush-pile stuff. As it happened, by the time I gave up and had to move on, the rate at which the fluff was coming out had slowed considerably. I think I'd got up most of it by that point. The first photo of the set is actually of the carpet once I had finished, and as you can see, no bald spots or threadbare areas - just well-groomed pile!
 
A couple of times over the years we had new plush type carpeting in our houses and what you see there is pretty normal. Now had you been vacuuming that with more common or generic bags it wouldn't have cost much. I know if I had new carpeting installed knowing what was going to be happening I would use the cheapest generics but otoh some people, most people probably don't have the choice of picking which vac they're going to use that can handle cheap bags and have plenty of them like we all do.
 
I believe it was all carpet fluff. Some types of new broadloom plush carpet have an amazing amount of cut fibers still in them when they are brand new. I help my partner out by going to vacuum his vacant real estate listing, some new construction and some older homes that have been re-carpeted to help them sell. When I take a bagged vac, I often take my Concept 1. And yes, it fills up the bag very quickly. Since I know I'm not picking up paper bag pore clogging fine dirt, when the bag gets full I take it out, open one of the folded ends and empty it. Then I just re-fold it and staple it shut.

I have also tried my Oreck, it filled a new bag in three rooms. I took the G3, same thing. Finally I decided the best vac for this job is a Sanitaire direct air with a shake-out bag. No worries about bags, and it does a great job.

Even the carpets in my own home, now four years old, produce a lot of cut fibers. Every few month when I empty the CV that is what composes the majority of the dirt. I have the Sentria parked in my office upstairs and use it on that level when I don't feel like hauling out the hose, its HEPA bag is currenty packed with carpet fiber.
 
That's alarming - should I be expecting this much every week, then? I hope I've cleared several years-worth of backlog today! I'd still rather use bagless for this sort of job, and spend nothing! Less environmental impact, too...if it makes people feel better, I'll throw a couple of £££ in the bin each time I visit, and chop down a small tree... :P

Although these photos concern the cleaning of one particular carpet, I have been getting bin-loads of dirt out of the other carpets as well. Actual dirt, not just fluff! Maybe I'll get a picture of that next week...
 
You Can't clean by suction alone! A shocking photo play

Jack,
Haven't you ever heard that old saying "the vac that goes last wins". Just kidding!
I built a new house less than 3 years ago which has heavy pile carpets in some areas. I used my Kirby and Hoovers but I can take my Compact or Air-Way with a straight suction tool and get lots of sand and grit that the Hoovers left behind. I learned this at my first vac convention. I was amazed at what they got up just using a 1950's Apex straight suction machine.
Also saw this happen using an old Rexair too.
I will agree with you that the upright will pick up the dirt faster. I have a Dyson. It's a great machine but it did ruin two different rugs because of the stiff brush in my house. As you would say "on this side of the pond" people would move,replace or update the carpet long before embedded dirt would end the life of a carpet. Thanks again for your fun pictures.
 
Oh yes, Rob - I'm familiar with the saying...millions of vacuum cleaners have been sold on the strength of this sort of in-home demonstration! But should the vac that goes last REALLY win by this much!?
 
How old is the carpet?

I remember when I had the carpet installed in this house it shed like MAD for the first few vacuumings. It seems like the really shaggy cut-pile carpet sheds even worse!

Like you said, a straight suction cleaner is completely wrong for that house. If it's been years and never seen a revolving brush cleaner, I can't even imagine what a machine like my Sanitaire would pull out of there! This house has only 3 carpeted rooms, and when it was installed, I FILLED a Kirby bag (we're talking PACKED here) in each room. I can't even imagine if years had gone by without sucking up that fluffy mess.
 
Hi all, as we said in kirby " You buy your carpet by the yard and throw it away by the bagfull.

I do agree with Jack. Straight suction alone don't clean as good as a vacuum that uses vibrate,sweeping action as well as good airflow/suction.

James
 
I used a Compact/Tristar w/PN & it got out FAR MORE dirt than the Kirby & Lux vacs--they did well in grooming but didn't pick up as much grit as the Compact (I had the VG2 brush roll on the PN) thanx 2 its metal beater bars & stiff bristles. If I put a Hoover Quadraflex PN OR a VibraGroomer 3 U wouldn't believe how much more dirt a TriStar can get out.
 
Ridgidvac

For once I agree with you! My TriStar will handily outclean a Kirby, and a Kirby will handily outclean a Lux. People can argue the point all they want, but all I say is do the tests yourself! You'll see pretty quickly.

That said, a 7 amp Sanitaire with the VGII brushroll will even outclean the TriStar/Compact. Absolutely NOTHING gets past those. It never ceases to amaze me how much crap the Sanitaire repeatedly pulls out of my carpets.
 
I know this sounds wierd but

sometimes I feel that when I use my Heritage 2 it does nothing. Maybe it is cleaning but I just cant feel it sweeping or grooming very well or maybe it just needs some brushroll adjustment or maybe it just doesnt do as god a job. The only thing I know is that the elite can still pick up stuff after the H2.
 
last vac wins

Again- last vac always wins.

An elite- I would say is nowhere near as good as an HII

The HII is one of kirbys finest- yet ugliest. lol.

Something may be wrong with it if its not doing too well.
 
Well Im not really sure

We had an elite. -head light and tools on the side (a tol if I recall)

I would say my old HII kirby was better any day than it.

It was ok. Just not the best vacuum.
 
Elites

While the Elites do have a good brushing action (provided they're the double row brushroll), they lack the suction and airflow of the Kirby. Although the Kirby may not sweep as well, if it's properly adjusted (read: brushroll projects through the nozzle guard) it'll groom well and pick up just about anything. The massive airflow does allow it to outclean the Elite.

Carpet grooming can be deceiving. Just because the carpet is GROOMED doesn't mean it's clean. Take the HouseKeeper for a perfect example...
 
Well I've had a Filterqueen,Tristar,Electrolux Sanitaire and the kirby has out cleaned them all as long as its set up correct.
Also Beater bars are quiet punishing on the carpet and can damage lino.

Why it is true last wins maybe true if you clean a patch of carpet with a vac till it picks no more up or filter pad/bin stays clean then co over with another vac is the better test to do.

James
 
'Also Beater bars are quiet punishing on the carpet...&#

Not so - that's an old anti-Hoover myth stirred up brands who couldn't offer beater bars because of Hoover's many patents on multiple variations on the beater design. You find it cropping up again and again in anti-Hoover propaganda:

Ohio-Tuec - 'Cleans without beating or pounding'
Compact - 'Gets all the dirt without harming the rugs'
Eureka - 'Gets the dirt, not the rugs'

After their direct and overt criticism of Hoover's beating action, it's interesting that Eureka were among the first to add beater-bars to their brush-rolls when Hoover's patent expired! Air-Way intially tried to promote suction-only cleaning, then tried to rip off Hoover's design, failed, and almost put themselves out of business! It's the same pattern as with the motor-driven revolving brush; until 1925, Hoover owned the patent on that, and all the other brands insisted that it was harsh and damaging to carpets. Then when the patent expired, they all rushed to copy it!

A beater-bar actually causes LESS carpet-wear than bristles, because it's a smooth, polished metal surface. If you had to run your finger back and forth over a beater bar, or a brush-strip, non-stop for an hour, which would you choose? The beater bar, because it's smooth surface which creates a lot less friction than the rougher bristles. Kinder to your finger, kinder to your carpets!

Another point which is important to note is the actual action created – despite its name, the beater-bar does not ‘beat’ as such. Rather, it pushes the carpet away from the suction opening for a fraction of a second. The ‘beat’ is created as the carpet, grabbed by the suction, snaps back against the nozzle plate, launching the trapped dirt into the air, where it is caught by the airflow. That’s the familiar ‘rumble’ you’re hearing when using a Hoover.
 

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