More internet insanity - This time about vac'ing carpets.

[48bencix]

With Dogs in the House

I vacuum the whole house once a week, with my 1980's Electrolux canister vacuum. We have all hardwood, tile or vinyl floors. When I moved here the Family Room, which opens via a 8' sliding glass door, to the backyard, was carpeted. We cleaned the carpet with the sink connected Bissel carpet cleaner every few months and the amount of dirt was incredible. Mostly from those dogs walking in and out. Next we removed the carpet and had new commercial glue down carpet installed. That was better but we still cleaned it with the Bissel and yes, lots of dirt. After that we ripped it out and had the Vinyl Asbestos 9"x9" green tile floor for a while. We removed that and disposed of it a the local landfill per local regulations in double bags. Then we had 18" porcelain tile installed. So no carpet.

I had purchased a 1968 Kirby at one point and did enjoy using it on the carpet and even hardwood. I lived in a house with all carpet and fortunately had a built in central vacuum there. I liked that setup and vacuumed the garage with it also. No motorized head on that unit just the brush.

 

[henene4]

Exhaust

I still can't get that argument.

A sealed system HEPA filtration vacuum expels air cleaner than it sucks up.
If it can catch pollen it's good enough for house dust.

An exhausted system is technically still better - but that's kind of like saying 2 billion dollars is better than 1 billion dollars.
Sure it is, but at that point, does it matter?

I have all hard flooring, a robot vacuum AND a cordless Dyson V12.

The robot runs daily and keeps most dirt in check.
I can get away with vacuuming every 1 or 2 weeks - mostly just edges.

But everyone who ever had carpets professionally cleaned knows that no matter how much you vacuum, there will still be a lot of dust trapped there.

AFAIK there are hypoallergenic carpets that keep dust mites from "existing" so even dust allergy sufferers could happily live with carpet.
But no matter how much you vacuum - a hard floor will ALWAYS be better there.

And yes, slow vacuuming has been taught as the standard for carpeting since the dawn of vacuums.

Just like with laundry - the longer you let the constant mechanical action attack the dirt, the better the cleaning results.

But there is a certain drop off and you will never get 100%.
If you ever had a runner or rug you vacuumed religiously, you would still get more dust out by taking it out an beating it over a clothes line.

Fun fact: Shampooing your carpets, vacuuming them well with true mechanical agitation and/or getting them professionally cleaned regularly WILL increase their lifetime.

Dirty dust and sand have very "jagged" edges and are incredibly hard.
Meaning the longer and the more of it you "tread" in the more damage they do to the fibres by abrasion.

Not having any non machine washable carpets I found that a cordless cleaner actually makes me clean more.
I can grab it, vacuum and store it back before I would have even got out ANY kind of wired/hosed cleaner and plugged it in.
And it is 100% capable of getting my flooring just as clean as a plugged machine.

And another interesting note: Many types of vacuums are actually designed to not be as easy and as as quiet to use as possible.

Many people think a cleaner that isn't loud or heavy dosen't clean.
Cause if you don't hear it, is it doing anything?

A year before her death I bought my grandma a new vacuum because hers started falling apart after 20 years of use.
It was/is the most silent cleaner on the German market - quieter than most dryers.
And it is eary how well it cleans with so little noise. It takes getting used to it. My mums new Miele is technically almost twice as loud and still is incredibly quiet. These new hyper quiet machines are really great for hard floor only flats!

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

In my house (my mums)

She always used to use a rainbow D Series Vacuum, she always loved the amount of dirt it pulled out of the carpet, we still use it but not as often simple is because my mum had to recover from a bunch of everything, but we do use it and if we don’t want to set it up and fill it up with water and all that jazz, we would use my Kirby G6 2001 addition, as I can physically see it’s pulling the carpet up when I pull the vacuum back and both me and my mum we thought that once a month we would vacuum with the Kirby and for every other three vacuums we would use the rainbow D4 Although that honestly doesn’t really seem to have come to fruition, Oh well

 

[bradfordwhite]

Exhaust

Vacuums don't just expel dusty air.
They also expel chemical off-gassing that carpeting does A LOT of.
And biological contaminants.
and just general stink.
and heat.
and 100% of all dust regardless of what type of bag one uses.

When you exhaust outside you can use a simple $2 CV paper bag and change it every month if you want.

A hepa bag is woven plastic. They are expensive, don't break down well, and don't trap all those things mentioned above.

An exhaust hole through a wood framed exterior wall can be done with a simple Walmart bit and a cordless drill. Then just slide a piece of CV pipe through and cap with a 90" facing down.

Loading…

www.walmart.com

 

[bradfordwhite]

#21

J.F.Y.I.
Rainbow is really not a healthy option. The worst is when people don't take all the pieces apart after each use, rinse them all off, let them dry....and it starts growing mold inside the machine.

Then the next time one uses it, it spits out thousands of mold spores.

But even when those are working as they were intended, tests have shown they don't trap dust like they advertise.

 

[petek]

A Hepa filter is only as good as it is sealed throughout the air channels and mounting. . If it's not sealed well then dirty air is going to bypass it.

The best vacs I've ever used have always been the full size Hoovers and Eureka's with their full size brushrolls and beater bars. The older Royals were also very good along with Kirby's. Any of the new vacs with those skinny brushrolls, even my expensive Miele allervac cannot deep clean a carpet nor can it handle long dog air.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Reply 23

My mum always takes it apart and Rinses the bowl, She puts the separator in the dishwasher and once that’s all done we put the separator back on but we put the bowl on top of the machine we’re not crazy About leaving everything attached and clicked on to the rest of the machine, as we know it’s better to leave it all separated and to dry out, I haven’t noticed any sort of mould after using it since we brought it used It probably does need a check up to be taken apart and completely cleaned out because they’re still a bunch of find dust from the previous owner that rainbow isn’t really sold or dealt with here in Australia any more, I think you can only get some of the belt from Godfreys the vacuum cleaner giant in this country

 

[circlew]

We got a Rainbow in 1965, and it was used until it stopped working about 15 years ago. At no time did we ever have a problem with it getting moldy, except once when I left water sitting in it for a few days. My mom was very particular about cleaning it after use. She (or I) would remove the part called the separator after use, and scrub it with a brush. The container was washed with detergent and rinsed. It wasn't reattached until completely dry. She knew how much it had cost, so took very good care of it.

 

[ea56]

Re: Reply#23

When I married David he had a Rainbow that he loved. We used it all the time and never had any problem with mold. And we never left it open to dry out or put any of the reservoir into the dishwasher, we didn’t have one then. We just rinsed it out with fresh water and wiped it dry with paper towels. Just because some dissatisfied Rainbow owner posts a YT and says it spits out mold spores doesn't make it so. There’s plenty of opinions on YT that aren’t necessarily so.

We sold it for $200, along with several other household possessions in order to come up with the $2500 down payment plus the closing costs on the FHA loan for our first condo. David misses it to this day. It was one of his most prized possessions. The first really expensive thing he’d ever bought for himself.

The day we closed escrow we had exactly $250 left over from the money we’d saved for the closing costs. We went right to Macy’s from the title company and bought a new Eureka canister with a power head with that $250. This was in 1987. You could say that the Rainbow helped us to become homeowners and provide a secure retirement for us.

People that own Rainbow vacuums swear by them. We used to just fill it with water and let it run in the middle of the house for awhile the freshen the air and it really did make the air smell cleaner. And you could actually see the dust and dirt that it captured from the air in the water when we emptied it out, even though we hadn’t vacuumed the floors, just cleaned the air with it.

We now have a Miele C1 compact canister with a Turbo head and David really loves it. It does an excellent job on our plush pile off white WW carpet. Its light ,maneuverable and has really powerful suction. He does all the house cleaning and prefers a canister, especially because we have stairs and venetian blinds which he dusts with the Miele.

Eddie

 

[stan]

Eddie

I have a friend that has two rainbow vacuums that she’s had for years..she’s in her 80s now and still uses them.
She always empties and washes out after each use.
She swears by them.
Here’s a pic of my old Compact. (I was taking it apart to deep clean it)
I don’t have carpet and my vacuum doesn’t have a beater just a attachment for floor and one for carpet.
The bag can be taken out and the hose reversed..turns into a leaf blower or a hairdryer LOL
Good enough for me.

 

[askolover]

I have two Kirbys...an old blue 70's Tradition that I keep the hose attached to and a G5 self-propelled that I keep the carpet nozzle on.  I just use the one that fits the job.  Love my Kirbys.  I want to try an old metal Royal sometime but can't justify getting ANOTHER upright vacuum. 

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Alas, since the husband dislikes carpeting it's none for us.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

I can't imagine how a rug can get to this state.

 

Bonus, he's easy on the eyes too.

 

 

 

[circlew]

The rug in the video looks like it's been in a building that had a fire. My neighbor's furniture and carpeting looked like that after their basement fire.

 

[bradfordwhite]

#32

Yes, building fire or it's been dredged from the river where it sat a few years.

The hot thing on YT these days is people doing stuff like cleaning carpets or mowing lawns, or power washing, etc.

Stuff that both teaches and is comforting in some way. The vid above is only a few weeks old and already has over half a mill views.

This one's only 2 days old and has over 50K views. That's awesome money for them.

 

[sudsmaster]

Why would anyone vaccinate a carpet?

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

To prevent stains

Why else would you vaccinate your carpet? And wouldn’t you use Scotchgard or something else?