If Skoda made hoovers I’m sure i’d know the answer but …. I’m working from home and the noise my wife was making was slightly higher pitched than the Dyson which has been sh1te, stinks of dead dogs despite being stripped to its component parts and basically doesn’t work very well.

I’m thinking Henry ?

Henry. They’re really, really robust; I’ve dropped mine down the stairs and it didn’t miss a beat.

I’ve got a Henry, it does the job fine. Only stank once, until I ditched the bag which I’d had to use to clean up a dropped jar of Oregano and tbh that was quite nice.

I have a Charles which is wet and dry version of Henry, for really heavy stuff.

Sebo for the normal stuff. It’s at least 10 years old and still going strong.

SEBO – win

+1 for Henry. Don’t get hung up on the motor rating thing which seems to be a ‘big topic’ amongst Henry buyers. The model we have I bought 2 months ago has been incredible, and so much more powerful compared to the POS ‘bagless’ Electrolux upright i put up with for 7 years.. bombproof as others have mentioned. The only minor negative i have with it is that the handle sections are prone to falling out/apart when using it in a long wand configuration for the majority of flooring, or carpet with a little resistance in the motion. You deal with it but it could be improved. Doubt i’ll ever buy another hoover though that’s not a Henry ever again.

As I have said before – Henry is great but not suited to people with restricted strength or ability to bend down to pick it up when it falls over.

Henry sucks

Miele dog and cat.

Sebo!
Sebo!
Sebo!

Henrys are very much like my msr whisperlight stove. Bought ages ago and do the job but better options now exist if only either would die!

Henry’s every time.

I backed down and let the missus buy a Dyson, its a pain in the arse for anything other than straight forward carpet.

Shit on stairs, small gaps, cob webs etc.

don’t get me started on trying to vacuum the car with it!

I’m getting a Henry for the garage.

i’m also flabbergasted at the method of emptying a Dyson, for what is supposed to be a high end product with super tech.

Why would i want to touch what i’d just vacuumed up?

I made the mistake of vacuuming plaster dust while decorating, that was a fun 3 hour strip down and rebuild!

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/dyson-vs-miele

Miele, Miele, Miele

Cat & Dog can be had for £180 at the minute too.

I dont think anyone doubts that henry is best for the money, just not as good as Miele

Borrowed my parents Dyson and its very cheaply made, difficult to use on stairs / cleaning cars etc.

Edit: Latest which report, I think it was 7 out of top 10 all Miele.

Henrys are very much like my msr whisperlight stove. Bought ages ago and do the job but better options now exist if only either would die!

Indeed. Underwhelmed by Henrys; there are definitely better things out there but the sodding things keep on trucking on giving a 6 or 7 out of 10 performance. Which I guess is a virtue in itself.

We just replaced our old Samsung (perhaps 10 years old) with a Vax. The Samsung still worked, but seems to be getting louder & louder every time it’s used. Last time I used it, I actually put my ear defenders on.

I was a bit unsure about the Vax, but we wanted something it was easy to do the stairs with and they do a vacuum with a lift off bit that you can carry on the stairs.
We considered a cylinder, rather than an upright but they don’t seem to do pet hairs very well.

Not had it long, but so far, we are really pleased with it. Got it from AO reduced to £134.
It has so much suction on carpets that there’s a slot to let some of the suck out. You can turn the brush bar off for hard floors and it has a 10m lead so you get a lot of reach with it – possibly a bit too much.

Downsides so far – still trying to fathom out what tool works best for what – the turbo tool thing does actually work very well.
And the dirt container seems a bit small, but it’s easy to empty so no big deal.

This is the one we got….

http://ao.com/product/u84alpme-vax-air-lift-steerable-pet-max-upright-vacuum-cleaner-silver-40593-60.aspx

According to Which? reviews, Bosch, Miele and Dyson are the top three brands that regularly get top scores.

If you have a pet then Miele and Dyson both do animal specific ones which are very good at what they do.

I personally have a Bosch and have had it for around 5 years now and it still feels like its new. I treat it quite badly and use it suck up any mess I’ve bought into the flat from cycling (my bikes live inside) which includes regular bits of sand and mud, the odd twig or fern, the occasional small stone and of course that little tiny screw you dropped while fixing your shifter and couldn’t figure out where it went anyway and it still runs totally fine never skipped a beat.

Henrys while being very durable and have a cute face only get average scores.

Why would i want to touch what i’d just vacuumed up?

Press a button and the contents fall into the bin?

We have a cleaner (natch) who used to bring a Henry. We weren’t impressed with the results, especially cos we have a dog, so immediately after she’d left one time we used our Dyson. It picked up loads, and I mean loads of stuff that the Henry had left.

The cleaner is now asked to use our Dyson.

Henry’s may be more robust, but they’re just not as good at doing the job that they’re supposed to do.

Dyson handheld. Cordless vacuuming is a total game changer. Henry for the workshop and diy

Dyson handheld. Cordless vacuuming is a total game changer.

+1 – quickly vacuumed up the mud on the landing before leaving for work this morning…

Almost thinking of getting another so I have one upstairs and one downstairs ready to be grabbed for spontaneous hovering on a whim.

Have provided my wife with the vote of Miele, new Dyson or a Henry.

She has now informed me she has ordered the Miele. Thanks all !

Dyson handheld here as well, compared to my old Dyson it’s very easy to use, charge, empty, it’s very effective on carpet and hard floors.

Dyson handheld. Cordless vacuuming is a total game changer. Henry for the workshop and diy

Is it though? Intrigued but concerned they don’t look man enough. Currently living in pretty substantial accommodation (sadly not mine, comes with the job). What sort of floor area can you do in one hit with one and could they handle the long hair my wife likes to cover the carpet with (no idea why she is not bald – physically impossible to shed that much and still have lovely long locks) and those annoying bits of black fluff that somehow get ingrained and need the sort of suck only normally received on the back streets of Coventry to remove.

Do a search – comes up regularly.

I can only imagine Henry users have never used a good vac. They’re great for the workshop but hopeless as a house cleaner.

Is it though? Intrigued but concerned they don’t look man enough

Suction is really good and powered brushes do a good job on animal fur and the like.
Heads are a bit small so takes more ‘strokes’ to clean the floor than it does with our Miele. While ‘system’ weight is low the weight your pushing back and forth is higher than with a cylinder cleaner.
Battery doesn’t always do the whole house.
Emptying has the usual Dyson issue and it’s a small container so needs emptying most times you use it.

However, lack of a cord means you don’t pull over funiture and its’ as easy to get out and use as a dustpan and brush so you use it more often for doing smaller areas

Ta. Will give it some thought. Employer provides cleaner(s) who are rather heavy handed and to be honest not brilliant. House gets a lot of footfall because of the job so even with help in the week cleaning at the weekend is a dyson and a half worth of ‘sweepings’. Sounds like it could be a win for quick tidy ups with a bigger more robust machine for the during the week when others are doing the job.

Dyson were doing £100 off the V8 absolute, and also had one £60 cheaper on their ebay outlet the other day. Only 1 year warranty on the ebay one, 2 years on the main store.

Although NZCol’s missus has bought him a hoover, I’m contributing anyway.

I have a Harry. Which is a Henry with a filter in it for pets and have brush for doing the curtains/sofa. I don’t know if that’s Harry specific though.

I live in a flat with laminate or tile floors all through it, so the cleaning is done well.

However, it’s a pain to store/drag out and maneuver around the flat. Wouldn’t be worth buying an upright or anything instead but those Dyson cordless ones would be a better bet. I know I’d use it a lot more – i.e. just for quick clean ups as opposed to setting aside time to do the whole house

Drac
Why would i want to touch what i’d just vacuumed up?
Press a button and the contents fall into the bin?

not with long girl hair in it.

Plus it coats the inside of the cylinder with dust, which nicely creates a dust cloud as you try to knock the dust out into the wheelie bin.

That’s the other thing, i have to empty it into the wheelie bin as otherwise my house would be covered in the dust.

I’m not a fan of this stupid vacuum.

the only thing it does well is clean my car mats, obvs when they are out of the car.

had a henry for 16 years…he worked reliably and did the job very well until around september time when we could smell electrical burning inside his motor…he carried on like that until november when he died in a big stinking puff of smoke
wanted to get another one as it would have made perfect sense given the use we’d got out of it but i opted for a vax bagless one instead.
the vax is more powerful at 800w compared to the 600w of henry and theres no more messing about with bags and its more compact…it only cost £65 too

I have a GTECH air ram for floors and stairs, like an old powered ewbank if you can remember them. I use a dyson hand held for car, awkward places and cobwebs. Works for me.
GTECH running promotion on Air ram and hand held for £299 at the moment.

Although NZCol’s missus has bought him a hoover, I’m contributing anyway.

You are so right….

We had a Henry which I thought was great compared the old stand up Vax thing we had. It was also very quiet (so much so it didn’t even scare the cats).

For various reasons, we had to buy another, I bought a tiny little Vax bagless cylinder thing that was a manufacturer refurb. It’s awesome compared to the Henry.

I know in reality the Henry will literally suck up anything – we used ours when renovating the house & it just kept on going, so they do have their appeal, but other than that, there are better options IMO.

Plus they always, without fail, fall over.

I have a Bertie which is a bigger version of a Henry. It has never fallen over. Agreed they suck up anything – screws, rocks, plaster dust and just go “yeah whatever dude give me a REAL challenge”.

I do prefer an upright for the house though as they are better for larger nice carpet areas.

Our church has about 15 vacs in use constantly. We’ve had Dysons and they were beyond crap as far as longevity goes. The SEBO one we bought after trying a few cheap ones have been faultless.

I helped out a professional carpet cleaner friend once (not a £99 for your whole house bloke who turns up with a hired RugDoctor, my mate had £50k’s worth of diesel powered machinery and weird chemicals to clean with – his brother owned Signature carpets – google it – and he could clean those properly) and he said the only vacuums worth having were ones with separate motors for the brush bar and vacuum bits. He did say that he only used Karcher vacuums at home though as they were the best household vacuums.