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Warning very boring thread alert.
Our Dyson stick cordless hoover thing has finally driven me barmy. To be fair, it’s never really excelled at cleaning and the battery life has been woeful at best even from new, but now it’s done.
quick google and there’s a tonne of choice, all they way up to £800 ! For a cordless hoover !
it does seem to be an overlapping deliberately confusing lineup designed to encourage you to buy the upgraded pro plus pet model that comes with the one useful attachment that no other model has. 🙂 also notice there are some Amazon clones now, that never existed when we first bought the stoopid Dyson.
any recommendations from the STW massif ?
I’m in no rush, and less is more in terms of budget.
I've tried a few, and like your Dyson (and mine) found them to be hopeless at actually cleaning anything
I've gone back to a plug in one and got a Henry, it just works. Do you really need cordless?
We have a Henry that we use for the whole house and the Henry just keeps going, but cordless for a super quick clean is so effective. If it had a longer battery life it would be amazing, but 6-8 mins at best is all we’ve got out of the current one.
We have a Bosch thing that works OK if you can be bothered to clean the filters.
The long floppy nozel is useless.
We've got from a couple of Dyson stick hoovers that in fairness have been good and lasted a decent amount of time (one even inhaled a load of water when I hadn't realised my boot was leaking!).
Decided to try something different and went with a shark. It's significantly better but then it ought to be given its much newer.
Can't remember the exact model but it's something like this with the motorised head.
I recently got a Shark cordless, it's really good and means the corded vacuum rarely needs an outing. The anti hair wrap thing works as advertised which is also a positive.
I think mine is something like an IZ200 but agreed that there's too much overlap. I think I paid around £200 with an RRP of ~£300
We got a shark one a few years ago* & it has turned out to a great for our dog hair situation on our tile & laminate ground floor. Never really used it in carpet, but it works on rugs, so should be fine. It has enough power that my partner has complete filled the main ‘tube’ packed full with hair a couple of times. The draw back is just that, they fill quickly & need regular de-fluffing, to have them work at their best. I’m not giving up my plug in Miele, for proper vacuuming, but to blast round quickly it’s brilliant
*ours look nothing like the current range but I’d hope there just as good
Happy enough with our Dyson. The older ones are pretty poor but the new ones have decent suck and pick up. Agree the battery life is a bit pants though. You can get an adapter to take tool batteries eg Makita or DeWalt. If you have a couple you can quickly swap them for much longer run time.
Might be worth a look at the Vax Blade 4 too - in our experience it's better than the Dyson's we've had and it's particularly good (for a cordless!) at picking up dog hairs from the car.
https://www.vax.co.uk/onepwr-blade-4-vacuum-cleaner
Shark IZ202/252 (not sure which) here. Not enough battery life to do the whole house in one, but fine for a couple of rooms per charge. The filters seem pretty good at keeping the dust inside too.
Needs a proper brush tool, comes with everything else
Got the Shark IZ252UKT to replace an old cordless Dyson.
Cleans better than the Dyson, battery lasts well and also came with a spare battery and battery dock.
Bought from Cheapest Electrical on eBay. Think I paid £90 2 years ago. Would buy the same again.
Shark have an eBay shop selling refurbished units and 1 year warranty. Link below is the one I have. It's £159.20 with code and comes with 2 batteries.
Get a a Dyson and a battery upgrade adaptor so you can use a decent battery from say DeWalt or Milwaukee.
A la:-
We have the same Shark as @flyingpotators above. It's our second shark, first one still going but battery not good enough for daily chore of hoovering up hair from two hairy dogs! We thought the doc was a gimmick but it's brilliant.
We do clean the filter every couple of weeks and have spares when they need replacing and - if you have pets - agree you need to keep on top of de-hairing the attachments. Our "dog and cat" Dyson has been relegated to my shed where I stuffed a bigger battery in from eBay and it's still nowhere near as good as either of the sharks.
I've got a Shark IZ251, came with 2 spare batteries - if you knew my vacuuming habits you'd know what a ludicrous overkill that is. I'm happy with it a couple of years on.
It came with an additional small motorised head which I think is supposed to be the pet attachment, I haven't any pets but attached directly to the suction unit it's great for stairs and quick spot cleaning, the nozzle attachment is pretty useless.
Having suffered asthmatic Henry's in the past I find it hilarious that they are more effective than your Dyson. Did you never clean the filter?
We have a V10 that picks up everything despite the brushes getting clogged up with hair. Thick carpet, thin carpet and hard floor.
You can get an adapter to take tool batteries eg Makita or DeWalt.
I've seen reports of a V10 adaptor that runs off of Milwaukee M20 batteries, M28 would actually hit the required voltage so would be more efficient but they seem to work. Not sure how long for mind.
When our Dyson handheld packed up we looked at the price of new ones and decided instead to go for a Vax Onepwr thing. Big mistake; it seems to combine the weight and unwieldiness of a corded vacuum with the short runtime of a cordless. As a bonus, the batteries rather than degrade just brick themselves after a while - fine if you're within the guarantee, expensive if not. When the power head welded itself together for some undetermined reason we consigned it to the garage and bought a Dyson V8 in a Costco special deal which is a far superior thing, particularly the hair-wrap tool for cat hair. They currently seem to be £210 on the Dyson web site.
Yeah I meant to say, we got our V10 from the outlet shop on ebay with an additional code making it significantly cheaper than retail.
Another Shark fan here. Got one of their cordless and corded and even a spot cleaning machine for dog vomit and the like. The corded recently managed to shake a nut from the motor off so the whole motor was rattling and was un-useable. It was 8 months out of warranty and after a quick conversation they sent out a new motor unit and also gave me a 30% off voucher without an expiry so I'm very happy with their customer service. I use the cordless for spot cleaning, like dried mud off the seat of the car after I've cycled home and quick dust spills. I prefer the corded for the whole house weekly as I have a dog and the weight of the machine means I find the brushes far more effective on carpet and cylinder is larger so can cope with our three floors without needing to be emptied.
Not tried a modern 'domestic' cordless but I've got a Makita stick hoover that isn't bad and has a floor style attachment. And just got a Milwaukee toolbox type wet and dry 18v at work, seems really good except it didn't include a floor head and the hose is a bit short if drilling at head height. But might be worth looking at those type of power tool options as tradies are likely to be less tolerant of mediocre performance.
Vax blade 4 over here and really like it.
If the only issue is battery life, it's a piece of piss to fix. It's two screws to drop out the battery and third-party Chinesium replacements claiming longer life than the original can be had for little money. Search for the model on Amazon, I've replaced two this year and breathed new life into nearly a grand's worth of vacuum cleaners.
Another Shark fan, replaced a rubbish cordless Dyson. 2 batteries so can easily do the whole house on one charge. It's rare for the corded Dyson to come out. In the garage the Nilfisk eats and drinks everything. Never understood the Henry love, they are terrible, is it an inverse snobbery thing?
Very recently bought a Shark Power Detect (can't remember exact model), but it seems to work very well.
Detects the surface it's on and/or the amount of dirt to be collected and adjusts power to suit. Battery is supposedly good for 60 mins. Put it on its charging stand and it dumps/sucks the dirt out of its chamber into a bigger reservoir on the charging stand, which is supposedly good for 45 days of hoovering.
Had many bad vacuums over the years but nothing bad to say about this one so far. It's footprint is quite large though which is something to consider as you have to leave it plugged in
I’m not giving up my plug in Miele, for proper vacuuming,
I’ve got one of those, inherited from my partner, recently replaced the bag and boy, does that thing suck! In the literal sense, it’s quite happy pulling the Lino off the kitchen floor. It’s just a bit of a faff having to keep plugging it in to different sockets, and doing the stairs is a pain, because the hose doesn’t reach more than halfway up or down, depending.
Which Is why I’m checking out this thread, a cordless would be a lot easier, I don’t have pets, or hair, so something that uses tool batteries would be ideal, and the Shark with a pair of batteries would probably be fine. Alternatively, one that uses batteries from something like Makita or something similar that’s standard across several makes so I can use them with a drill and a strimmer would be peachy.
With regard to battery life, my Shark has three power settings and two floor settings (head spin speed). If you have it on maximum suck mode and maximum spin mode then it goes through battery pretty quickly but medium mode is good enough for most scenarios and lasts a lot longer. I've not yet found battery life to be a limiting factor
We have a number of cordless vacuums at work and they get a pretty hard life.
Dysons - utter rubbish. Flimsy, poor performance, filters keep blocking, battery life is woeful.
Shark - basic model you get for around £180. Excellent. Great cleaning, reliable, don't block and when someone dropped a bookcase on one we got a new head next day at a good price.
Vax - works well, just not quite as good as the Shark.
Henry corded. Hateful things. Keep falling over, non powered head so don't clean carpets very well, long metal pipe means it's awkward to store and always falls on you when you open the cupboard. They do last forever though, mainly because no one wants to use it.
I have a Shark at home.
So far Ryobi are the only ones I can find that use common batteries and have a strimmer - I have a very small patch of grass passing itself off as a lawn, I’ve used long handled hedge shears to trim it but it’s hard work, so a cordless strimmer that can use the same battery as the vacuum, and a drill as well, because the Aldi ones I bought years ago just aren’t up to much anymore.
I bought a Dyson v8 advanced for £189 in a BF sale, seems pretty effective - had a v8 absolute previously that I left at my old house.
Girlfriend has a shark but I don’t like the attachment fittings which are push-fit - have had some attachments get stuck because they have got knocked against something, like the stairs when cleaning, and have had to smash them off. Happened with one attachment, replaced it, and it happened again even though care was taken with it. Different plastic types might not have helped.
You only need normal suction for most of the time, with short blasts of max, so battery life is not as low as some people say, and the v8 advanced is supposed to have a bit more suction than the old v8, so if I fit one of the dewalt adapters it should remain useful.
Thanks all
current cordless Dyson is a v10 animal. Which we’ve had for 4-5 years probably more. Batteries have been replaced a few times, battery life has never been its strong point. I do clean the filters, if you don’t this model just stops picking anything up. The sliding mechanism to empty the bin (which is quite small and fills up really quickly) is broken, so when you empty it, the whole assembly comes apart. It’s still functional, but needs replacing.
i did see a good deal on the latest greatest Dyson v15, but a quick google suggests you can’t get a battery adapter for the more recent models. Dyson have protected their battery revenue stream. So that’s out, even though I’m sure it’s a great machine.
From what I can tell the only mainstream vacuum manufacturer that uses their core battery packs is Bosch, which no one ever recommends.(I’m not including ryobi, makita etc they really are tools first)
one new fact I learnt is ryobi and hoover are made by the same manufacturer.
oh the Henry. Not my choice, never use it, I think it’s a pita to use, but this was what the cleaners at our old house insisted on us buying. And it will not die, it’s not amazing, but it just keeps going. I wanted to get a Miele, but had to get the Henry. It’s even a pain to store the damn thing.
given how many manufacturers there are in this space, Samsung, Bosch, Miele, Dyson, hoover, b&d, ryobi, shark, etc and the countless Chinese clones on Amazon Marketplace, very few other than Dyson and shark ever get recommended.
What batteries are you replacing them with? Ours is a few years old at this point and still on the original. Never really use the Max setting though as that does kill it quick.
Either way I'd still be selling it, there's enough money in old Dysons that you could probably get a fair chunk back.
this was what the cleaners at our old house insisted on us buying
Lolwut?
£40 wired Titan that leaves plenty of spare cash and time (not unclogging hair and extended hoovering time from poor cordless performance) to enjoy stuff.
Life is too short for expensive vacuum's.
Samsung, it's brilliant, I wish we'd have got one ages ago, and I firmly believe we should all stay away from anything Dyson.
What batteries are you replacing them with? Ours is a few years old at this point and still on the original. Never really use the Max setting though as that does kill it quick.
As above, whatever popped up on a search on Amazon. The replacement was something like £30.
We have a V8, on Max the battery life was down to seconds. Swapping the battery as made it as least as good as new. I can do the whole house on Max, if I get a wriggle on.
Shark.
No idea which model we have but it's been brilliant. The fact that it's cordless means it's used loads more than the corded one we had before.
Batteries were whatever popped up from fleabay, worked for a good while, then run time really dropped off, so replaced them again. I do think the original battery was probably a Friday afternoon special.
i do have a wired titan for the garage, when screwfix had a special at £30, but that’s not exactly in a great state to be used on anything but a building site now.
its not only the battery on the current Dyson.
Dysons have a two-year warranty and I find that battery life degrades at around that point so I get in touch with support and they send a new battery out. I did just that before Christmas and it arrived next day. I have never had an issue with it not picking up effectively. I *think* it is a V10 Animal (bought on a deal as it was an older model at that point).