Carpet Cleaning

Cheap and you get what you pay for - Dirt Devil SwivelGlide Bagged Upright Vacuum

Dirt Devil SwivelGlide Bagged Upright Vacuum Product SwivelGlide Key FeatureDesignUprightDirt CaptureBag MotorAmperage...

An OK Vacuum, Could be better - Dirt Devil SwivelGlide Bagged Upright Vacuum I thought Dirt Devil had a good reputation and that any vacuum with a 12 amp motor would pick up dirt. Sigh. The...

Update November 2003

Although it wasn’t a surprise, my sister’s Dirt Devil has already died. She hated it. It was noisy and did not pick up very well. She has replaced it with a bagless Hoover of some sort that she absolutely loves. She couldn’t believe how much dog hair was in her rugs that the Dirt Devil apparently missed.

*****

On a recent visit to my sisters I volunteered to help out around the house and I tested out her new Dirt Devil swivel whatever vacuum cleaner. As a disclaimer, I own an Electrolux canister vacuum and a Eureka dual cyclone bagless upright (4885) vacuum which are much better.

I use the following 3 criteria when evaluating a vacuum cleaner’s performance:

1. Cleaner’s ability to remove dirt from a rug (airflow, suction, beater brush/bar).

2. Sanitary containment of dirt (i.e. bags/container filter air)

3. Sanitary removal of dirt from vacuum.

My sister’s house has fairly thick plush carpeting. The beater brush belt seemed to be slipping a lot - apparently the flat belt could not turn the brush on the thick carpeting - even when I raised the height adjustment too high. Better machines use a cogged belt (like a timing belt) to keep the belt moving (Dirt Devil puts a cogged belt on their excellent platinum plus hand vac - why not the full size ones). This was the first strike against the machine.

Even when the beater brush was turning, it was not very effective for grooming carpeting and removing deep down dirt. On a good vacuum, if you stick your hand in front of the machine you can feel the carpeting being vibrated to remove the deep down sand and dirt. Strike 2.

Lousy attachments - although suction was adequate. Couldn’t get dog hair out of steps with tools. It was extremely difficult to clean steps with this machine - but this would be true of most uprights. Strike 3.

On the plus side, the bag was fairly easy to change. I didn’t see much dirt penetration through the bag; however, I did see a thin layer of dirt on the plastic bag cover indicating that the dirt is not being contained. The brush roll was fairly soft - so it wouldn’t damage berber carpeting like the really stiff brush rolls on some uprights. The brush roll does not turn off when using the attachments. If it actually agitated the carpeting, it would be preferable to turn off to prevent damage to the rug when using the tools.

The hose diameter was fairly small, so it’s likely to easily jam. This machine is a lousy choice.

I’ll suck and I’ll suck and I’ll break my belt in two! - Dirt Devil SwivelGlide Bagged Upright Vacuum All in all, this is a really good vacuum cleaner. It's very easy to push, it has all the tools you could ever wan...

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What were they thinking? - Dirt Devil SwivelGlide Bagged Upright Vacuum

The Vacuum that couldn’t stand upright. - Dirt Devil SwivelGlide Bagged Upright Vacuum