(Untitled)

[beckyc]

So, I was thinking of buying myself a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Specifically, the DC20 seems to be quite good for my needs. But I can't seem to decide between the Allergy one and the Animal/Allergy one, which has extra tools, including a Hard Floor tool

Comments

[crazyscot]

I don't shed that much, but I was surprised at the amount of hair in my Dyson's chamber when I hoovered the other day...

[hairyears]

The 'animal' version will contain extra tools like a detangling comb for unclogging the brushes. This is not the same as being resistant to becoming clogged by long hair in the first place. But still useful, as I know from the (mostly pleasant) experience of letting a long-haired girlfriend loose in the house.

[_nicolai_]

As far as I understand you can still get the rotating-brush tool, etc, separately and they fit all the Dysons, so you can buy the one without gadgets now and change your gadget-mind later if you want without needing to buy an entire new vacuum cleaner.
I bought an, er, DC05 (I think, this was 6 years ago or so) and the "turbo brush" (rotating brush) head separately about a year after when I realised the cat hair [1] wasn't coming up with the normal brush. The rotating head does sometimes need the long human hair removing from it, yes, but also anything like pieces of string you may happen to pick up with it :)

[1] I was hosting my mother's cat for a couple of years

[simont]

I'm faintly curious to know what a hard floor tool is. I can think of two mutually contradictory possibilities off the top of my head, and I wonder if it's either of those or something else again.

One possibility: some kinds of dirt might be more likely to adhere to a hard floor due to being in contact with it over a large surface, so a hard floor tool for a vacuum cleaner might usefully include a scraper to dislodge them so the vacuum could then suck them up.

Diametrically opposed possibility: some kinds of hard floor might be insufficiently hard and scratch easily if you run the wrong sort of vacuum cleaner attachment over them, so a hard floor attachment might have a soft edge to carefully avoid scraping the floor :-)

[beckyc]

Yes, those were pretty much my thoughts as well. But, if something were stuck, I have a whole *bunch* of scraping devices already that I can use (knives, spatulas, fingernails), and I don't need to pay for some snazzy tool. And if it's not very robust or is all uneven (eg concrete), then I am gentle on them anyway :-).

[simont]

Yes, but a hoover attachment with built-in scraper means you get to detach the stuck bit of dirt while keeping it at the far end of the nozzle, instead of having to interrupt your hoovering to get up-close and personal with it and clean your fingernails afterwards :-)

[beckyc]

Ah, but there's a sekrit with the sort of hoover that I've used (cylinder) that the end of the device is actually hard plastic with a hard edge and if you bash most things that are likely to be removable with a built in scraper hard enough with a hard plastic edge, then they give.

And, anyway, I was brought up to think that hoovering some hard surfaces (lino, cork tiles, ceramic tiles) was vastly inferior to mopping them.

[kaet]

Have you thought about getting a Henry Micro instead. They're supposed to be good against alergies, and Henrys are incredibly reliable, and only cost a hundred quid.

I must admit Dysons annoy me in the way that Prius's do: it seems to be pointless sophistication. But if the Dyson really is better, I'm prepared to be proved wrong, :).

[kaet]

I forgot to mention: they look silly. But next time you see a professional cleaner, I'll lay money that they're using a Henry (or a George). It's the difference between professional equipment and equipment which looks professional, :).

[rmc28]

During my year out I worked for Dyson and ran a six-month field-test program of their vacuum cleaners versus 6-8 competitor models. So I can tell you first-hand that in the mid-nineties both the then-available Dyson models were significantly better than their price-bracket competitors, in terms of the amount of dirt they picked up and retained in the cleaner, and they really did maintain the suction over time while the bag cleaners really did reduce quite dramatically after a week or two

[kaet]

That's pretty cool: at 18 I was writing down the prices of electrical outlets on card index files, and arguing with Newey and Eyre. It seems very strange to be amongst all these people who've changed the way things are, won competitions, etc. Someone I know was writing a speech for the Davos thing last week. I sometimes think I should do something useful like that, if I could, but I'm actually reading lj, eating chocolate, browsing deviantart, and watching Shameless, :). One day I'll do that creative writing course... (not