cleaning technology

The cordless D** is a disappointment to us. It does get clogged up easily and emptying the cylinder is a nightmare, we have to use a carving fork to get all the fluff etc which sticks to the inner tube. Our son regularly takes it apart to give it a good clean and there is a lot of fluff etc in the parts that are hard to get at. Yes the filter does need cleaning more often than monthly as suggested. We bought a spare one so that when it starts pulsing showing that it needs cleaning we just insert the spare one and wash the other one. It is suggested that you rinse it under a tap but DH takes the fabric part off sometimes and there is a lot of debris inside so the filter isn’t as easy to clean as they suggest. We also have an issue with the extension tube when we want to take it off to use in the car or on the stairs. It is very difficult to take off, even DH finds it a struggle. All in all for the price we paid it doesn’t live up to our expectations. Since we bought it there is a later model which may well be better but for an award winning engineer there are lots of design faults in our opinion. When we replace it we will try another make of cordless vacuum. I have seen models by V** and one advertised on tv, S****. If anybody has experience of either of these I would like to receive feedback.

You are right of course shortlegs - some things are easier to solve than others....
We are lucky to have lots of the "problems" we do have. At least, I often think that when something small becomes an issue for me.

I worked in a refuge many years ago and more than once wept at my good fortune to have simple problems at my home. ... even the lego brick is not so painful when you see others with nothing. Humbling.

I have a cylinder cleaner and a very cheap upright. My cleaner prefers the latter even though the filter needs cleaning after almost every use. It copes with both hard and carpeted floors. It picks up hairs better than the cylinder.

How do you not notice that you've dropped cocktail sticks and paper on the floor, or does the OP ignore anything that noticeable and discount it as beneath her to stoop and pick up as it's the cleaner's job.
I'd certainly notice if those kind of things were lying on my floor but then, my floors are clean. Your home would have to be really messy not to notice.

I’ve never swept a floor BEFORE hoovering . I hoover carpets and ‘sweep’ my wooden floors! My grey/green VERY brilliant cordless is the best £299 I’ve ever spent!

The green eyed monster in me is just having a dicky fit. Cleaner WOW you are so lucky.
I have just sat down for a cuppa after working since 6.45 am cooking breakfasts and cleaning 7 bedrooms in my guest house. Tomorrow is going to be even harder as 6 rooms checking out.
I would love a cleaner as 62 with 4 more years until I retire and feeling particularly sorry for myself at the moment as my Arthritis is really giving me some gipp.
If she is a good cleaner and does a good job I wouldn’t worry to much as to if she sweeps up first why make extra work for her.

You must be joking that one cleans the floor before vacuuming it, anyway, cocktail sticks could you not have picked them up yourself? You must be a lazy person.

I could afford a cleaner and would love one, but knowing me I would rush around cleaning & tidying trying to avoid the cleaner seeing the mess!!
We use a gardener I fight with myself not to sweep & tidy the garden before his monthly visit ?
I worry about me lol and yes do realise how fortunate we are! But it was worked for!!

Must add as I forgot to say
I know nothing about vacuum cleaners ?

We use one of those chunky red vacuums that would swallow anything in it's path. I couldn't sweep because I don't have a long handled indoor brush, at least I don't think I have.

Why are those of us who have cleaners so ashamed to admit it. Mine are well paid; do an excellent job and fulfil a role more competently than I do. We can afford it and make a valid contribution to the economy.

Anyone who expects straight sticks (even smaller ones than cocktail sticks) and large gollops of paper to go round the sometimes quite tight corners in vacuum cleaner tubes and related gubbinses, is clearly not very... um... good predicting obvious problems (in short, the physical limitations of narrow tubes) before they occur and working out how to avoid them, e.g. by picking the gollops and sticks up by hand ?.

The word 'lazy' has just jumped into my mind.

Sweeping, as others have said, doesn't come into it.

I used to BE a cleaner and my employer had a D***n. It was a hellish piece of equipment. If the pipe clogged up -which was about once a week - it would overheat and turn itself off and I’d have to wait about half an hour until it cooled down before it would switch back on which meant cleaning could take twice as long. I believe their slogan used to be “100% suction 100% of the time” which is nonsense as every cleaner loses suction the minute you start to use it. Personally I wouldn’t have a D***n if you gave me one for free. I was glad when the lady I worked for changed the damn thing for a Miele. No trouble at all with that!

I have never swept floors before vacuuming them. However I do have a rubber broom to lift pet hair (we have a dog) and fluff off the carpets before I vacuum, works brilliantly. I think all vacuum hoses get blocked sometimes, there has to be a limit to the size of debris it can cope with. DH has an industrial Henry in his shed which has incredible suction and devours everything from dense cement dust to lumps of concrete and wood, just a pity he doesn't use it a bit more frequently!

Hmm - I do sweep up and then use my handheld to hoover the piles I've swept up - trying to gather it with a dustpan just seems to make it go everywhere - we have tiled and laminated floors downstairs - the large rugs I don't sweep. I love my Dyson and have both the handheld and cordless stick ones. I also keep a spare filter so that when one is drying the other is in the machine. It copes well with all I throw at it including lots of scattered cat litter (clean that is) but if there was something like a cocktail stick on the floor I wouldn't expect it to pick that up.

I'm envious of having a cleaner - I had an excellent one some years ago who arrived on a Friday and cleaned the house top to bottom for the weekend. Sadly she moved away and as my workload is nowhere near what it was back then I can't justify the cost. Same thing happened with my gardener too - I'm hoping to enrol that job to my other half when he retires next spring - ah yes - there goes that flying pig

I love doing a housework, good exercise and always check my dyson when I finished, granddaughters hair is invisible on the carpet but when I check there is loads on the roller, just carefully peel it off.

Barnet I have to agree with you, Miele make excellent vacuum cleaners. Yes, they are expensive but worth every penny. Mine is over 10 years old now and still works as good as new. Having said that it will probably expire now!

Sheilasue I have long hair and it gets everywhere! Yesterday I charged up the G-Tech upstairs I've had for years and thought I'd better clean it - it must have taken me half and hour to cut away all my hair on the roller

Not trying to teach grandma to suck eggs, but if your vacuum cleaner swallows a couple of cocktail sticks, they will get stuck because they are too wide and have pointed ends. Everything else will get stuck wherever the sticks have lodged. Surely that's fairly obvious? I brush the floors where I have vinyl (kitchen and utility) because, even on hard-floor setting, the suction pulls at the vinyl. When I've brushed, I just use the hose and nozzle to suck up the ten tons of dog hair that have appeared from nowhere! Even my three dogs can't explain where it comes from. They ought to be bald as coots!

My DD has the Shark handheld and loves it.

Sorry but can someone invent a vacuum cleaner that can do a decent cleaning? Want a really good powerful suction, that can cope with a few lumps of stuff, that does not throw a hissy fit that requires me frequently getting down and dirty. No I never thought that anyone sweeps with a broom before vacuuming, perhaps that is where I go wrong. Have tried many different machines and they are all rubbish at their job. Have three dogs so vacuuming is needed more frequently. In the years I had a cleaner, had to fiddle about with it, at her request, when it threw a hissy fit for her. As regards the filter washing, it is a pain. As regards that ardent Brexiteers offerings they ain't that good.

I wouldn't touch that company. I had one of their vacuum cleaners once and it was rubbish; poor suction and some of the plastic components were so brittle they snapped and they wanted a fortune to replace them even though it was only just out of guarantee. I have my friendly and reliable Henry now.

The owner is not a true Brexiteer. He accepted a grant to move his manufacturing base to another country; maybe not even an EU one. The EU have form for doing this to the UK which is one very good reason we should leave as soon as possible. They gave Ford in Eastleigh near Southampton a grant to move to Turkey; a non EU country, with a loss o of about 15,000 jobs.!

In the news today one of the car companies is moving to Slovakia with an EU grant. Who needs 'friends' like that. Perhaps some of you Remainers could explain it. I could attach a list of about 100 companies who have moved over the years of our EU membership with encouraging grants from the EU plus many companies have gone out of business yet Remainers say they are worried about business when we leave. In actual fact, you should have been more worried about our businesses while we were in the EU!!!!!

I would never dream of sweeping a floor before vacuuming either. I either sweep or vacuum. For years I used a world-renowned vacuum that is made in Denmark. Since moving I have used a bagless vacuum made by a completely unknown firm and sold through our local DIY store.

In my experience all vacuums tend to clog up - some (most) dislike cats' hairs others other things. None in my experience can deal with cocktail sticks or the like.

Try suggesting to your cleaner that next time the vacuum clogs up she checks the hose of it, or the plastic bit that goes into the tubing. I have a old curtain spiral that I use for un-clogging mine (if there is such a word, but you know what I mean.)

If you are not certain whether the tubes etc are clogged, take the smallest coin of the realm and "post" it into the hose and tubes when they are disconnected from the vacuum and from the brush. If it doesn't come out the end that is down, then there is a blockage somewhere.

You expect the cleaner to sweep before she vacuums? It's a different world.

Baggs and Gabriella -I'm with you