Let it be known far and wide... DYSON vacuums are NO JOKE...

Got one of these for Christmas. The Dyson DC17 "Animal". Replacing a Hoover upright. Sweet jesus!

We did the YouTube-type thing where vacuumed our apartment with the Hoover (which we use weekly). Then we went over the apartment again with the Dyson. My GOD there was a TON of stuff the Hoover left behind. I had NO IDEA there was that much filth and cat hair being left on the floor.

Best vacuum I've ever used!

They suck so hard, your mama's out of a job. :D

Seriously, I am a big fan of Dyson. Expensive as hell, but the work mine does is a huge step beyond what the old Hoover was able to accomplish. There might be better vacuums out there, but I can't imagine needing one.

Really.

vacuum cleaners always lose the ability to clean (although Dyson says it does not, and I have no idea if this it true). That is how the door-to-door salemen were always able to sell vacuums. A new vacuum will amaze you every time!

BTW, does your vacuum have attachments? Are they easy to use? I have always had canisters since I spend more vacuum time with stairs and furniture than I do on the floors, and uprights do not seem set up to use attachments easily.

It will not run out of suction as it's being used. Physics is a wonderful thing!

http://www.espares.co.uk/advice/vacuum-cleaners/a/4/230/how-dyson-vacuum-cleaners-work.html

This design is heavily patented, so I don't believe anyone else makes a genuine cyclonic vacuum.

Let me preface this by saying that I love my five year old Dyson Ball "Ultimate" ball, but they do require some maintenance to maintain suction.

The real problem is that the cyclonic method removes 99.9% of dirt, but it's not perfect. After a couple years of regular use that small 0.1% will begin to accumulate on the inside (and to a smaller extent, the outside) of the cyclone tubes, which will increasingly disrupt airflow. As the airflow gets disrupted, the cyclonic action slows down. You will notice it very quickly, because the effect is exponential and you can go from having a perfectly running Dyson to a Dyson that wont suck rice off a hardwood floor in about a month of regular use.

Luckily, it's an easy fix. Just pull the cyclone unit out of the canister, drag it out into the backyard, and blast some water through the thing with a garden hose. The water won't hurt it, and the sun will dry it out in about an hour. I do this, on average, about once every two years.

Considering that I used to REPLACE my vacuum that often, I'm not complaining :)

Does it have attachments?

The hose/handle/extension thing is integrated into the handle of the vacuum. See in the picture there's the red bit at the top of the handle? Basically, the cap on that red bit flips up and you pull it straight up (it extends on an aluminum tube). Then once you extend it, the whole thing pops off and there's a VERY well-built compression hose that extends with it while you use it.

It's absolutely first rate how it works! It blew my mind when I first saw it.

The attachments are mounted on the side of the cleaner. In the pics you can sort of see them, there's a long wand thing for getting into corners, a circular brush, and a flat upholstery head.

The DC17 "Animal" edition comes with some extra components to help with animal hair.

Here's a refurb for $300:

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Dyson-DC17-Animal-Upright-Vacuum-Refurbished/3037773/product.html

I'm am unfamiliar with this type of....contraption.

LIKED IT TOO :D

vacuums like toilet paper just on a couple runners and the office carpet. they got a dyson and it was still working great after several years. they are tougher than horse shit.

All of them lasted for about a year, and were terrible at the end. I even bought a fairly decent one once, and that lasted about 2 years, but I had to get it fixed after about a year.

Finally broke down & bought a refurbished Dyson about 6-7 years ago, and it's still going strong. No problems, and very easy to use.

But you can get refurbs cheaply from Overstock.com

considering how well you and others say it works. This is good to know for future reference. Thanks! :-)

is it easy to clean?

They balanced it quite well. It's very, very light to use.

As far as cleaning... it's very easy. Just pop out the canister, and press a button by the canister's handle. The trap door opens at the bottom and all the junk falls out into whatever you want it to go into.

The DC17 has a lifetime filter, too. No need to buy new ones. It's not a canister filter or anything gross that you'll need to touch, either. It's a nice foam disc filter. I look at ours and after two months of weekly use, it's just barely dirty. That's because of how the cyclone technology works.

It's all simple physics, it's awesome!

I am so very confused.

:-)

and The Inventor of it, too :bounce:

Very pleasant.:)

He's this generation's Edison.

But his vacuum and fan are pretty effin' slick!

article, 9/20/2010, about him?
Very interesting fellow. He had to do what he is doing but they expected him to follow the family tradition of becoming a scholar of the classics.

The problem with both products is easily explained. They're both very expensive, and offer either very little or NO real advantages in exchange for the extra money. The bladeless fan is a novelty, but it honestly just moves air, the same thing that any $10 Target fan can do. Sure, it doesn't "chop" the air, but it replaces the chopping with an annoying hissing in quiet rooms.

The washing machine is the same thing. Most third party reviewers have rated it as being no better than machines costing half as much, and Dyson has lowered itself to SUING those reviewers to try and suppress that fact. It's not a bad washer, it's just not any better than any other average washer.

The Dyson Vacuum is worth the money because it delivers high quality, reliable carpet cleaning consistently over a long period of time. The Ball models are very easy to use, and the entire machine is a large upgrade when compared to other cleaners that are on the market. With it, you get what you pay for.

I felt like I had this layer of dirt-collecting mess on the floor that I could only clean with this huge machine and lots of noise and electricity.
It's too late now, but maybe if I'd had one of these I would have kept it!

We had one room with carpet and after the puppies came along, the carpet disappeared. I still have to vacuum up tumbleweeds of dog hair but it's easier than keeping carpet clean!

it sucks..to dam heavy and who in the hell wants to empty the thing into a bag then use a shop vac to clean it. then after a month ya have to wash the canister to get the rest of the dirt out. plus it does`t work on hard floors

yes it cleans but so did my 10yr old oreck before it gave up.

I swear by it. I had a Dyson DC14 that I took to my office when I got the new one. The DC 14 is still working like new and has outlasted 2 new cheapo models they bought after I brought in mine, in fact they borrow mine all the time.

I haven't used a Dyson, so I can't really compare the performance of the two, but I can tell you I picked up my Navigator for under $100 shipped from Woot.com a few months back. It's a bagless cyclonic just like the Dyson and the performance is far superior to any vacuum I've used in the past. The first time I vacuumed my tiny condo with it, it picked up so much dirt and debris I had to empty it out twice. The thing is very powerful. Also, it's the lightest and quietest vacuum I've ever used as well. It doesn't look to be quite as solidly constructed as the Dyson, but it's less than 1/3rd the price. It's a purchase I'm extremely happy with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yu-siq-p54

It was worth every cent for its performance, durability, simplicity in emptying the cylinder, & all the nice attachments for cleaning hard floors, drapes, upholstry, vehicles, etc.

The newer ones with the ball function are surely easier to manipulate than my older model; plus, now that I've changed all my carpeting to laminated wood or ceramic tile, I'm not as satisfied.

I have a Shark electric sweeper, which I like for quick clean-up, but your information about the Shark Navigator sounds like something I would enjoy using, especially if it has the same technology as Dyson. Thanks for the info!

Mine has been going strong for 6 months now, not a single issue as of yet. I know that's not a long time, but I figure if I could get a few more years out of it, at $100 I can afford to replace it. The attachments work perfectly and if you turn off the brush, it can be used on pretty much any surface. I usually don't get excited by household devices, but this one seems like such a good deal, I like to spread the word.

I had a Hoover bagless that I could hardly stand to use because it was so loud. I have had a series of Kenmore canister vacuums and am edging toward trying a Dyson, but not if it wakes the dead.

It has more of a low-pitched turbine type of sound rather than a loud roar. It's comfortable to vacuum our entire place with without bothering my tinnitus at all.

As I said, it's significantly quieter than the Hoover it replaced.

vacuum the basement floor from upstairs.

Well, not quite, but it really sucks!

but I'd like to try a Dyson someday.

I agree that is pretty egregious :o

My Dyson Ball vacuums up all their hair AFTER vacuuming fireplace ash in moderate amounts.

This vacuum SUCKS.

It sucked up a strand of my living room rug, wrapping it inside the vacuum cleaner. My Dyson lasted all of fifteen minutes. No thanks.

I trained as a vacuum salesman for a short time (curse of being a history major :) ), and that's what they did. They would offer a free carpet cleaning, and would first clean the carpet with the customer's vacuum, then with the brand spanking new one they were trying to sell. The new one of course picked up a ton of dirt left behind. My trainer told me that if he went back over it with their old cleaner, it would again pick up a lot more dirt, that carpets are just dirtier than people realize and that no vacuum gets it all even after a few passes. He assured me he had never had nor heard of a customer asking to go back over the same area with their old cleaner again.

Just curious how the Dyson would do. I hear they are great machines, I'm not knocking it. Just, you know, in the interest of science...

I have a Dyson knockoff I got from Costco. Eureka, I think. It's pretty good, but the canister fills up twice in my living room. I can vacuum it three times a day (not that I do) and every time it will fill the vacuum with dust and cat hair and I don't know what else. You'd think my darned cats would be bald to create that much loose hair, but no, they just grow more.