EU Bans Powerful Vacuums in Name of Environmentalism

[joe_in_philly]

How many watts do Euro vacuums use? Those of us in North America are already somewhat limited by our 120v power outlets. I can't imagine a US vacuum using more than 1800 watts.

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[iej]

Some go up as far as 2200W

The issue isn't as clear cut as the tabloid papers in the UK in particular would have you believe.

The EU's actually moving to a situation where they're going to be labelling vacuums in accordance with how powerfully they suck up dust and how well they clean rather than just the power consumption of the motor.

Over the last couple of decades there was a bit of an arms race between vacuum cleaner makers here where they started advertising wattage of their motors. Some companies, notably Dyson and Nilfisk didn't really participate in it, although Miele (if you pardon the pun) got sucked in.

If you've got a poorly designed filtration system, particularly a badly designed HEPA filtration system, the one way to make the whole badly designed pile of junk actually suck anything up is to jam in a huge motor. That's what a lot of cheap machines were doing.

The other issue is that you can design machine with small, relatively inefficient fans and still achieve high suction by just spinning them extremely fast. That results in a small, noisy vacuum which consumes a lot of power but doesn't suck all that much.

For example, the entire Dyson range is all <1400W
Nilfisk has machines that perform excellently at <1200W
The quirky and famous British "Henry" range from Numatic is only 850W and does an excellent job.
Also, a lot of commercial vacuums used for cleaning in hotels and offices are considerably less powerful (motors anyway) compared to their domestic counterparts. Many commercial machines are <900W.

So, I think there's some method to the EU's assumed madness.

I think cutting the limit to just 900W in 2017 is probably a bit too tight, but it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next while.

Companies like Miele produce 2200W machines that are also very well designed from a technical point of view. My question though is if those machines are actually needed. I find at maximum setting our Miele actually just sticks to the floor, especially on carpet. Our old 1600W Miele and our 2000W Miele in my experience perform almost exactly the same. I can see really no great advantage to the 2000W version and we use them both interchangeably all the time.

I honestly think that a lot of the wattage stuff has been about marketing and not about how well the machine actually works. Similar to the way that some people just want a car with a huge engine for no logical reason.

The European Commission's explanation is below :

http://https//blogs.ec.europa.eu/rebuttal/consumer-will-get-better-vacuum-cleaners-ever

 

[washman]

Someone should ban the EU

and while they're at it, I would add the DOE to the list as well.

Nonsense. Utter, complete, nonsense.

Wait till they tell you what day you can drive your vehicle. Mark my words, it will happen.

 

[davetranter]

"What day you can drive"

Already done!!! By stealth, of course..... The rate of duty on our fuel is now so high that many of us (myself included) have to plan journeys with almost military precision, including driving through the night in order to avoid traffic and thus maximise economy. We are being forced back into that old wartime 'Is Your Journey Really Necessary' mindset.

I'm not exactly sure how much of that is down to the E.U. 'green levy', and how much is down to our own government's greed, but between fuel tax, road tax, and allowing the insurance companies to charge any amount they like, motoring is fast returning to being a passtime for the rich, and quite out of the reach of the 'ordinary working man'... :-(

All best (under the circumstances)

Dave T

 

[mrb627]

Euro vacuums are

Part of the reason we have a hole in our ozone layer.

Malcolm

 

[iej]

Bear in mind that 230V on a 13Amp or 16Amp socket outlet can deliver a lot more power than a US 15amp 115V outlet.

USA outlet : 1440Watts is the recommended maximum on a 15amp plug/outlet (80% of rated load)

European outlets can safely handle up to 3000W in the UK and 3680W on continental outlets.

The socket outlets in Europe are actually tested to handle 20amps normally, so they're quite safe at their rated load and UK plugs are actually individually fused so they won't allow you to go beyond 13amps without blowing the plug's internal fuse.

There's a huge difference in the amount of power available for small portable appliances like kettles, irons, vacuums etc.

 

[tolivac]

Something on the motor ratings of vacuum cleaners and others that use "universal" brush type motors.These rating are derived in a laboratory with the motor in a test stand-not the actual machine it will be used in.The wattage rating is the maximum tthe motor can be loaded to and run continously without overheating or damage.The actual wattage used in a machine-such as a vacuum cleaner-is much less.This legislation is really a big tadoo about essentually-NOTHING.Most households use their vacuums for not more than a couple hours a week.Yes,we can discuss that lower power machines can do just as well-BUT this sort of senseless rules take away YOUR freedom of choice-what will it be next???Honestly there are bigger fish to fry than the wattage ratings of vacuum cleaners.Note how in the US--the lower water and dumbed down temp ratings are causing washers to work less effectivly and using MORE time in their cycles.Too many people TIME is a more important "resource" than the power or water used.This same things is happening to dishwashers here-When will this nonesense stop-and being done by people that know NOTHING about appliances or vacuum cleaners.VOTE THE BUMS OUT!!!!

 

[washer111]

Its great that they want to save energy, but for goodness sake, find another way.

 

It only takes us about 15-20minutes out of every week to vacuum our house - so it can be done almost daily if dirt necessitates. So our 1800w Miele Cat/Dog Vacuum isn't wasting electricity.

In actual fact, we rarely use it above the "Sound Sensitive" speed (Which is about Medium-High), since it just sticks to the floor, as others have said. The highest speeds are meant for use with the Cat/Dog-Brush attachment. Since I'm on the topic of sound, even though Dyson use lower powered motors, they are still incredibly loud and obnoxious when running (haven't experienced the newest models - but still certainly ones going back about 5 years).

 

While it may encourage better design, it may also price the Black Plastic Crap machines out of the reach of people seeking a cheap choice.

 

Really, the EU should keep their nose out of peoples lives. Here are some "fun facts" about them:

~ Bent Bananas must be sold - This has destroyed a market for some Mediterranean banana that was a large export

~ Cucumbers cannot be more curved than some certain amount

~ Banning of products that assist people with stop-smoking ("Swedish Snus," whilst addictive as they are, a lot of people find these very useful when they try to give up smoking.)

~ Probably other stupid mandates.... This is the problem with people being so complacent, as the government can then slowly, slowly, slowly (But surely!) erode your freedom of choice. Its a shame people put up with such idiocy. {Scandinavians count their lucky stars they aren't in the EU!!!)

 

[artcurus]

Don't get me started on the light bulb ban...

 

[gizmo]

there is little connection in vac design between performance and power consumption. I believe the big numbers appearing on vacs are all about marketing to uninformed consumers who believe more watts = better performance.

I'm going back many years now but some time in the late 70s here, Sanyo (I think it was Sanyo...)had an ad for their little plastic fantastic vac which featured a silhouette of a rival vac (clearly an Electrolux) and a Sanyo having their actual suction measured, with a graph showing actual suction for each machine. The rival vac used about 850 watts and the Sanyo about 600 but the Sanyo had way better suction.

About the same time Choice magazine pointed out that the best performing vac on test, a Hoover Turbopower Lark upright, also had the lowest power consumption at 550 watts. In the same test the worst vac on test was also an upright, and used over 1000 watts. (a Hitachi from memory.)

now every damn machine has multi stage HEPA filters, which were only ever of benefit to asthmatics. Hauling all that air through the unnecessary extra layers of filtration uses more watts - you can get 2400 watt vacs here now which is the max allowed wattage on an Australian power point.

When I was a poor university student I did a course to sell Electrolux vacs door to door. (I was hopeless at it - couldn't get into trying to convince someone with a perfectly good vac to throw it away and buy a new one...) They demonstrated what a difference floor nozzle makes in airflow. Many cheap Japanese vacs of the time had a floor nozzle that concentrated suction on the centre, it would clamp down hard to the floor and superficially feel like "strong suction" because it was hard to move across the floor. Australian Electroluxes at the time had separate nozzles for hard floors and for carpet, rather than retractable brushes. Each nozzle optimized for its own task. I still use an old Aussie Electrolux with separate carpet and hard floor nozzles, they are easy to keep clean and don't clog up with fluff and hair like retractable brushes tend to do. Well that's for downstairs - mainly hard floors, upstairs I use a Hoover Concept One upright (all carpet).

some current vacs use a bigger floor tool with two suction slots across the bottom, in an H shape. Why? I reckon it's because they are so over-powered, they have to dilute suction by splitting it over two slots. With a single slot the suction would be so strong you couldn't move it across the floor. (well that's my theory...)

I support the EU move. the manufacturers will start producing some low power vacs that work just as well as the power munchers with the big numbers on the top.

It has worked here for refrigerators. Australia started out with a "star rating" of energy efficiency on fridges (1 to 6 stars), the star label had to be on all fridges in the showroom. When it started, the highest star rating available was a 3 out of 6. Next step was that all fridges with less than 1 star were banned from sale. Soon manufacturers were refining existing designs to achieve 4 and 5 star ratings. The machines were visually identical, just more efficient.

Some years later the star ratings were realigned to account for improvements in technology. A previous 4 star fridge became a 2 star. Guess what? The star rating was such an important part of marketing a fridge that the manufacturers all improved their efficiencies again, to get back their 4 and 5 star ratings.

My house is not connected to the mains grid, we have solar power. Previously we couldn't run a conventional fridge, we had to choose between a special low power solar fridge at over $2500, or a gas fridge. We had gas. Now we have a basic 2 door conventional fridge which cost $288, and our solar power system runs it easily, all year round. With out the benefit of a government star rating, we would still have fridges using 2kwh a day instead of under .05 kwh/day.

 

[foraloysius]

It was time something was done against that marketing hype. More wattage and more wattage, never enough. That was not necessary at all, but they increased power on and on. If such a high wattage would be necessary to get good suction, you wouldn't find a decent vacuum in the whole USA! Even Miele got "sucked up" in this marketing hype. 2200 Watts for a vacuum is totally ridiculous.

I have a more efficient Electrolux with "only" 1000 Watts, bought it three years ago.

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?34489

It's the best vacuum I ever had. I always have to turn the power down to prevent the brush from sticking to the floor. It sucks very well on the middle position of the power control. And the best thing is, it's way more silent than those 2200 Watts shrilling things. Peace at last!

 

[liamy1]

What is funny

Is that I can tell you first hand, it has caused panic buying of Vacuums (at least here in the UK).

Even I have fallen victim to it *embarrassed*. However, I have wanted a Miele Upright for ages, so used this as an excuse to get one.

The below maybe of interest.

Panic buying hits shops as deadline looms for Brussels ban on vacuums

Many stores and websites have already run out of the most powerful models of vacuum cleaner, with one reporting its busiest day for sales in more than a decade.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[mrb627]

Vacuum Bliss!



Malcolm

 

[launderess]

"EU is now considering measures to ban most powerful hairdryers, lawn mowers and electric kettles, it was revealed"

How one does love the Daily Mail!

 

[liamy1]

Yep,

Daily Mail, one of the worst corporations on Earth

 

[launderess]

Pity Of The Matter Is

That because of differences in electrical frequency and power it won't even be possible to smuggle or otherwise import from the United States.

 

[iej]

All someone would have to do is buy a >1600W vacuum cleaner from another 220-230V 50Hz market and there are lots of those.

Although, the EU is such a huge market (largest in the world in financial terms) that it's more likely that you'll see all the good quality machines complying with EU standards in other countries too.

I suspect the 900W target will be just overridden as pressure comes on from various lobbies. However, the 1600W max seems very reasonable to be honest and I think they genuinely do need to push people to look at the performance of the machine rather than the power consumption.

There still too much focus on engine size in cars too. I'd rather see cars advertised in KW output rather than seeing the fact that it's a 2.0L engine which is a rather pointless piece of information really when you just want to know the power output.

We need to start thinking about light bulbs in Lumen too rather than Watts, especially as technology's changed so much.

There would be absolutely no point in banning more powerful electric kettles or any other heating appliance as there's no efficiency issues with an element heating water. A lower wattage electric kettle will just take longer and use just as much energy.

The HUGE are that energy could be saved in Europe though is still in building heating and cooling.

Europe's energy usage works out like this:

45% heating and cooling buildings.
26% Transportation (mostly cars and trains, aviation is quite a small %)
20% Electricity (used for purposes other than heating/cooling or transportation)
9% Wasted in transmission losses.

All the focus goes onto stupid the issues making the least impact - e.g. there's uproar over aviation all the time which is only a small % of overall use and is not really replaceable by anything else.
Likewise, transport is increasingly efficient.

So, really the two issues I'd look at there are the 9% on "non-energy use" which is mostly wasted energy... things like using HVDC power lines instead of HVAC can do a lot there.

and the BIIIIG one is heating/cooling and insulation. All very non-sexy topics compared to aviation and cars and probably less controversial than telling people they can't use a powerful vacuum!

 

[washer111]

@gizmo - "Energy Stars Program"

From what I've come to understand, the logic that is used when calculating these "stars" is dreadfully flawed:

 

Each category of Fridge - SxS, Bottom/Top Freezer, Single, Chest Freezer, Frost Free etc apparently ends up with its own "scale" for each star. This means, just looking at the stars will not be enough to determine if one fridge is better, you have to look at the kWh rating also provided. Unfortunately, it seems that the Government is bent on educating us to "use the stars...."

 

While its great that they do this for our benefit, you end up with someone thinking a 4-star SxS model being better than a 2 or 3 star Top-Freezer model...

 

[combo52]

Vacuum Cleaner Efficiency

A lot of really good information has been expressed in this thread and a lot of the usual crap as well.

Vacuums are not one of the biggest users of power in the home that is fairly certain, but getting away from equating performance with how many watts the motor draws would be a good thing, we saw this with certain small appliances here in the US as well. If a higher wattage motor is doing the same job as a smaller more efficient motor not only are you wasting power but the higher wattage motor will not last nearly as long either.

With That In Mind

No one has the RIGHT to waste power or pollute the environment and governments around the world DO have the right to regulate power consumption on ANY product they like, partly because the majority of voting citizens around the world [ such as myself ] have voted them in office giving them the right to regulate consumption any reasonable way they see fit.

This Thread Should Be Moved To a Private Forum.

John L.