Don't like the mess with emptying bagless vacs and cleaning the filters? I know exactly what you are talking about. "Overwhelmed by all the choices?" No kidding.

I used a Hoover Windtunnel Bagless upright for the last decade and something. Got it from Costco because it was at a great price, the vac was highly rated, claimed to have HEPA filtration, and came with a lot of tools including an extension hose for the hose attachment. Last week, I replaced it for a variety of reasons. Those included the noise level, the awkwardness in my smallish uncarpeted old house, the hassle with stairs, and the hassle of cleaning the bagless canister and filters frequently. What I bought was one of the Miele C2 canister vacs. You can find my rather lengthy dissertation on how I wound up choosing the particular model for myself in this rather long post from last week. (BTW, other posters commented about another Miele canister model and a Riccar).

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3710956/seeking-canister-vacuum-miele-aerus-electrolux-or-other

Of course, you have a different house and situation, such as having two flights of stairs and both hardwood and carpet. Also, you may have different preferences and your own budget. A little more information might help focus advice better:

* How much carpet do you have?

* How much bare flooring do you have?

* are the stairs carpeted?

* do you have high ceilings you need to reach with a vac?

* Do you have shedding pets or children?

* You are talking "carpet" and not area rugs or knotted/oriental rugs, right?

* What kind of carpet is it? (Low, medium or plush pile or, gawdhelpyou, shag?)

* Do you have a strong preference/prejudice for or against either uprights or canisters?

* What is your budget?

There are some wonderful vacs out there --- I can't believe that I just said a vac could be wonderful --- but I fully understand "it's a vacuum cleaner, fer gawds sake, who in their right mind would pay more than $xx for a vacuum cleaner?"

In the meantime, here are links to three sites that I found helpful in sorting out my choices and my own preferences in choosing my new vac:

http://thesweethome.com/reviews/which-vacuum-should-i-get/   

http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-vacuum-cleaner/

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/316tx6

Great post, thanks JW!

While I think an ancient Electrolux canister vacuum is light enough for stairs, DW does not agree. A recently purchased Miele canister vac is much lighter and has greater air flow (depending on setting). It uses bags much like the Electroluxi of the historical past ('50s, '60s, ...). The Miele is mainly plastic surfaced, unlike the more metallic Electrolux canister or similar year Kirby upright vacs.

Many tools are available for the Miele. The passive floor tool switches from rug to hard surface with a control on its top. Changing it for the surface is marginally faster than the Electrolux scheme of reversing the tool head. However, if one also changes the flow rate with the control on the canister to match the tool setting, total changeover time will be greater. Usually, hard floor cleaning can be done using the flow rate intended for rugs, thereby saving time in a room with many small rugs.

Miele vacuums are sold at various price points depending on what tools are included and possibly other factors.

kas

Load canister!

>>>"Load canister!"<<<

Good one, kas.

I love my Miele Olympus. Does the job on my bare floors and my area rugs.

JW, thank you for your reply and for the links you provided, I appreciate the time you took to ask more questions. Here are some answers:

*We have a three-story house with about 1000 square feet on each floor. The main floor (middle floor) is all hardwood with two area rugs. One of the rugs is a long, shag-type of carpet (I say shag because I don't know what else to call it. Each of the strands is very thin, not thick like I think of a regular shag carpet). The other rug is more low pile. We have a (20-year-old!) low-pile carpet on one floor and on one set of stairs. On the other floor and second set of stairs, we have a longer pile carpet.

*Ceilings are eight or nine feet high, with the exception of one of the stairwells that is twice that. I usually just "dust" up in there with a long-handled duster.

*One dog (non-shedding) and two teenage boys.

*I have never used a canister vac, but am open. In my mind, I feel like it would be a pain to pull the canister around -- doesn't it bump into furniture, corners, etc.? How do you balance it and use the hose part on the stairs? I know lots of people like them, so maybe (probably) I'm missing something here.

*Budget is a tough call. I am a believer in getting what you pay for and want a vacuum that does a good job. I guess I'm looking for that sweet spot where good performance meets a reasonable price. Aren't we all?

I hope those answers give a littler clearer picture of my needs. As I said, I appreciate your thoughtful response.

Kaseki, thanks for your reply. Which Miele do you have? I have a Miele dishwasher and washing machine and love them! I always say they are the two biggest workhorses in my house, so worth the investment. I feel like a vacuum is pretty high on that frequently-used workhorse list.

Cpartist, thanks for the comment on your Miele Olympus. I'm not sure (from what I've read online so far) that it will be the right one for my carpets, but you're inspiring me to go to my Miele showroom and check out what they have and get some education.

Our Miele is labeled as "S2 Homecare." Its red. It is from the lower price end of the range of canisters of different body colors. I didn't really pay attention to the naming conventions. It will operate both the passive floor tool I described as well as a power floor tool. I think some mixing and matching of parts was involved during the purchase, but I have forgotten the details, or maybe I suppressed them on the spot due to boredom.

Canister vacs can bump into things, but are generally designed so that if the bumping is gentle, the effect on both objects is benign. The Miele is light enough that it is easy to just swing it in the right direction using the hose.

The Miele has a handle that can be used for carrying that should work for stairs. I'm not sure I've ever used it on stairs because I still use an Electrolux that is more conveniently stored for the stairs I take responsibility for.

kas

ecf1216:

Adding to what Kas said, here are my follow-up suggestions and responses.

With all that floor space, a bagged upright will mostly work for you, but the good ones tend to be heavy and some can be awkward to maneuver for getting under beds and furniture, and moving around corners. With that long-fibered carpet, you absolutely want adjustable height functions. You will want to set the height as high as it will go to avoiding beating up that rug. Fortunately, a lot of uprights have that kind of adjustability.

The advantage of a beater brush/agitator for pile carpeting is that the brush helps lift and groom the carpeting while assuring that your vac is sucking as much dust and etc. from down deep. (Supposedly, they will pull from the pad up thorugh the pile.)

For me, though, the uprights would be a pain for vacuuming the stairs and hauling them up and downstairs. Also, the beater brush that makes uprights good for carpeting can make them a pain for bare hardwood areas. The spinning brish tends to scatter as much as it collects from the bare floor. The more expensive (and more capable) uprights from the likes of Miele, Riccar, Sebo, etc. allow you to switch off the brush and that can help a lot.

With a canister vac and the amount of carpeting you have, I would go for one of the models with a "power head." Those have adjustable brush heights and do as good a job on pile carpets as uprights. Personally, I find the power-head style with a canister vac to be easier for me to adjust and maneuver around and under furniture. I also find them noticeably quieter than the uprights.

You can switch off the brush in the canister type vacs' powerheads, too, but if I had as much bare floor space you do, I might be inclined to get a vac which includes one of the so-called "parquet tools" heads, or buy one as an add-on. The Miele ones that I'm most familiar with are the SBB300 and the even larger SBB400 model. They have larger swaths than standard tools and have brush bristles around the base which sweep and collect well and won't cause concerns about scratching or marring. They increase the pickup area so you can make 13" or wider swaths. Riccar has just come out with an even better version than Miele's. I'm not sure, but I think you can mix and match it with other lines. The Riccar one that I saw is a new product which was included with their new "Butler" small/portable vac but I think the tool will be sold separately.

For stairs and hauling the vacs around, the canisters have a handle that makes them easy to lift (like picking up a lunch box. The canisters are not very heavy . At least, I don't think they are heavy. My Miele "compact" C2 canister -- is a slightly unpdated version of Kas's S2 model and also bright red --- weighs around 10 or 11 pounds. A bit above hand vacs but much less than most uprights. Far easier for me to haul up and down stairs. Easily held in one hand while hold while vacuuming the stair steps with the other. (FWIW, the hose on many canisters will be long enough to reach a long ways up the stairs while leaving the vac at the bottom or the top.) The bigger Miele canisters, which are the C1 and C3 models, ) are slightly heavier as are, IIRC, the power-head equipped Ricars and Panasonic/Kenomore canister models. Within a product line, such as the C2 canister models, the various models designations represent different mixes of tools and attachments.

I find it easy to hold the Miele canister in one hand and the hose in the other as I go up the stairs. Without hose extensions, I can reach about 2/3 of the way up my stairs with just the hose. Previously, I was using a hose with a hose extension and wands from my upright Hoover Wind Tunnel. That worked okay on my bare-wood stairs. but could have been a royal pain with carpeted stairs.

The downside for getting canister vacs with powered wands/tools is that the power wands and hoses are an additional and not insubstantial expense.

All of these vacs have very good and excellent cleaning power. Indeed, like Kas and Cpartist, some owners report using regular floor tools on low-pile carpeting with good results. For myself, I've find that my Miele's tools for bare floors tend to suck down onto my wool rugs which makes it harder to push and pull across the rug.

You have a long handled duster for the high ceilings and stairwell ceilings? I had wand and hose extensions for my Hoover upright. These worked but it was a hassle to get the vac steadied and to position the wands to get high enough that that I resorted to fabricating an extension for a Swiffer. With my Miele, I can combine the adjustable wand length and the long crevice tool (which came with my particular model) and reach up with one hand while holding the canister with the other. For me, this cleans better and less awkwardly than my previous kludged solutions for my stairwell's ceilings. To be sure, this is a YMMV thing.

No doubt that the Miele, Riccar/Simplicity, Sebo, etc. are expensive. Panasonic canister models (which include the canister models that Sears sells as Kenmores) are a good deal less expensive, though not cheap by any means. I checked out the Kenmore versions and wound up with concerns about durability and longevity. I have no doubt that some folks get 10 or more years of use from theirs, but there seem to be a lot of folks who don't get more than a couple of years. The biggest weakness seems to be the durability of the connections through hose and wands for power heads.

Further adding to what was said by all of us above, I have not found the canisters a pain to pull around. They are light, they sit on swiveling wheels, and don't seem to jam up against furniture, much less damage it. Nothing like the Electrolux canister beast I grew up with or the Kirby G you have in the attic (or wherever you have it stashed.). Seems to me that a pushed upright is as likely to cause problems as a pulled canister, which is to say, rather unlikely. But, if you have amazing antiques, there are several brands (including Miele, Riccar, et al.) that have velveteen bumpers around the casing.

You mentioned maybe going to a vac-shop showroom. I strongly recommend that. You don't have to buy there, but hands on time with tell a lot more about specifc vacs and features, and how much they matter or do not matter to you than 50 pages of posting here.

Vacuum repair businesses having storefronts often sell new and used vacuums, and may be more willing to negotiate.

I also have an upright '50s Kirby vacuum cleaner, bought at a garage sale for $25 in the early '70s. I use it in the basement for collection of dust, wood chips, and metal chips. It works very well for that purpose, and bumping it into tool pedestals, storage or relay racks, etc. is not a damage issue.

kas

"*light enough to manage on two flights of stairs"

I own two Miele canister vacs. I was tired of the various other big name brands that worked, but exterior body parts always broke, etc. After much research, I splurged for my first one in 2008. I bought the second one for the upstairs, after owning the first for a couple of months. . These are the absolute quietest vacuums I have ever owned, and a bagged vac is a must for my allergies.

What I really like about the Miele on stairs, as opposed to any other canister I've ever owned, is that the exhaust is on the top of the canister. This means I can place the canister "upright" (on its end)/perpendicular to the floor without obstructing the exhaust.

I really like the push-button telescoping wand feature of the Miele canister vacs.

One of my Mieles has the attachment tools hidden "under the hood". The other only has them mounted on the top. I prefer the hidden tools, but this is only personal preference.

I know you said no bagless....but....a year ago I purchased a Dyson DC65 Animal multi floor and LOVE IT! I've got a cat that sheds....it really picks up! Paid $279...

I looked at the Mieles, but ended up with a Sebo Airbelt D4 Premium
Canister instead. The Sebo was a little less than the Miele I was looking at. It seemed similar in power, ergonomic swivel handle with power controls, filtration, and attachments compared to the more expensive Mieles. It is a little bigger and heavier than the Mieles, but I liked the soft foam/fabric bumper that surrounds it so it doesn't hurt walls or furniture, longer power retractable cord, larger cheaper bags, and it's made with quality. I've read through various vacuum forums that some of the less expensive Mieles are made in China. I got a good deal on it from a local vacuum shop with a trade in. I've had it for a few years now and haven't had a single issue with it, it works just as well as the day I bought. If you go with any canister, a power head is good to have if you have carpet or lots of rugs.