Looking for recommendations on a vacuum purely for garage use so brick dust, stones, just general workshop crud! I use a shark vacuum inside but if you use it in the garage the filters get blocked up and I have to shuft it outside and get the motorbike blower on it and blow out all the filters before it works well again. A henry comes to mind but a little pricey. Ideally looking to spend maximum of £100 but ideally less.
Screwfix do a Titan range of 'heavy duty' vacuum cleaners that are 'Henry'-esque.
They start at £50 I think for a pre-dominantly plastic bodied version. £60 gets you a metal bodied one that I think is a little more powerful.
B&Q seem to do the same ones, but branded as MacAllister rather than Titan.
I 've been looking to get one to clean up after our builders.
Just had a look & the cheapest Titan plastic one is currently reduced to £40. Might grab one at that price....
https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb774vac-1300w-16ltr-wet-dry-vacuum-220-240v/826kh
Got my Henry off Market place, thirty quid. They seem to come up a bit if you can hang on.
Why not look on Freegle – I often see old vacuums being given away. Failing that, Facebook Markeplace for something cheap. I don't see the need to spend £100 on something like that.
FWIW, I got a free vacuum about 10 years ago that gets used for car cleaning duties and suchlike – it's perfect for the job and it doesn't owe me anything.
I have a Screwfix Titan, it's great. I bought a better HEPA filter for it on Amazon. If you use it with a bag (which you don't have to) the filter doesn't get clogged up. It's superb at trapping sawdust. It has a switched power output so I can plug my table saw or mitre saw in to the vacuum and connect the hose to the dust extraction port. Then when I switch the saw on, the vacuum comes on automatically. I've had it for 6 or 7 years, it takes a lot of abuse and just works. I'd buy another if I needed to.
Vacmaster - £69.99.
You can vacuum into a bag or into the body of the machine - so dry stuff or wet stuff. I’ve vacuumed up glass / mud / dust / wood shavings etc. Just plugs away.
Also has an automatic mode where you plug a power tool into the machine and connect the hose to the tool outlet. Whenever you switch the tool on, it starts the vacuum automatically for extraction.
I just had a quick look and there's dozens of Henrys on marketplace. We've had one for about 5 years and I use it for everything. It's just a game now to see what it will suck and it keeps coming back for more at full strength.
@GolfChick motorbike blower?
When you wash a motorbike, if you don't dry it properly afterwards water can sit in the various nooks and crannies and cause issues. You can buy small hot air blowers for this purpose. Some people use dog dryers, I use a leaf blower.
I've got a Titan - must be 10+ years old. Used for wood shavings / saw dust, rust and mud from car tinkering and doggo hair. I use cheapo eBay bags.
Its dented, it often fails over on its daft little wheels but it keeps sucking unlike long time married MrsRNP........
I've got 2 Henrys, the older one is a pre-EU-nanny-state 1200w monster & notably better at hoovering up garage detritus! So if you're looking at 2nd hand maybe look out for one of those. I think they'd be at least 10 years by now, although mine's still fine - there's not loads to go wrong on a Henry and they're generally repairable.
When you wash a motorbike, if you don’t dry it properly afterwards water can sit in the various nooks and crannies and cause issues. You can buy small hot air blowers for this purpose. Some people use dog dryers, I use a leaf blower.
I've had bikes for years. I have never blown them. (I'll set them up)
I had no idea that was a thing. I used a chammy it seems fine.
Everyday is a school day.
You need a sister that kills vacuums because she uses too much talc. Although that supply has now dried up since she get married and her husband can fix stuff. My last garage hoover was from my sister - a Dyson cylinder - she'd killed it. Just needed a darn good clean of the filters, and it's now on garage and car duty - manages sawdust etc.
Other option - garden blower - blast the lot outside !
Yeah, long time Titan user here.
Got the small placcy one and the bigger metal one with the power takeoff.
Used on all manor of dusty woodworking and rubble clean ups.
I hate the Henry we have at home. The small Titan has to be about a third the weight of it.
A friend had flooding at his workshop the other week in the torrential rain. He was there until 10.30pm vaccing out the area where the water was coming in with his small Titan. Reckoned he did over 175 full sucks with it, and it kept on going and saved his workshop.
Recommended.
I bought a Karcher a couple of months ago which is decent and wasn't mad expensive. The reason I didn't go for a Henry is they're not wet/dry vacuums and the ability to suck up spills or evacuate a toilet bowl or cistern is occasionally useful. It'll do blowing too by plugging the hose into the exhaust port.
Just something you may not have considered.
Edit - wish I'd seen that Vacmaster of Joe's before I got the Karcher. That looks brill with it's power take off function.
I've got the plastic Titan one and that's plenty , if the metal one is more powerful it'd probably start stripping the paint off my garage floor.
The blower function is pretty handy. We have a small garden and the 25+ year old Earlex unit blows the leaves etc., off the rough stuff onto the concrete, quite well.
As above, it's also handy for drying bikes.
If the Earlex ever packs up I'd replace it with a unit with the auto power-on feature.
I’ve had bikes for years. I have never blown them.
😆 Your poor neglected bikes! Go on, spoil them!
@Merak they're also good for drying off mountain bikes and the like, get in all the nooks and crannies, and talk about a dry drivetrain ready for fresh lube!
I’ve had bikes for years. I have never blown them.
Your poor neglected bikes! Go on, spoil them!
2nd hand henry, I Just run mine bagless in the garage.
I have the small Nilfisk Buddy that is used for all construction work that normally kills domestic vacs.
They are about £60 I think
Dust pan and brush?
The cleaners at work were more than grateful when I asked if they had any old machines that I could have to fix.
The cheap titan.
Its cheap, but very powerful. Wet or dry. Used for cars, rubble, mud, dirty water, all sorts. Very durable. Also does 'blow' mode. literally no reason to spend more. Brilliant bit of kit.
Titan with a triton dust/rubble collector prior to the titan dust bag (saved me a fortune in replacement bags). That said i use a titan compressor for blowing crap out of the garage door and the titan/triton combo is doing a good job elsewhere in the house.
Any vac attached to a cyclone separator, you can DIY them like this or probably use a gutted Dyson or similar in tandem.
https://www.jpthien.com/cy.htm
Just about the only decent Wickes product .... Their cheapo Vac
Although its a bit more expensive then Screwfix one, its also a bit bigger.
Never thought about using the blow function ... might give that a go
The Wickes one has worked fine for years for me. It's now been replaced with a monster 3000w triple motor vac as I found it's limits trying to vacuum the gutters. For everything else it just works.
Screwfix Titan here too. Hoovers up brick dust, saw dust, plaster, nuts bolt, pens, coins. Nothing seems to stop it. It does wet vac too which I've never used. I got some hepa bags for it to stop it blowing dinendust out the back. I just empty the bags when they're full because I'm too tight to throw them away.
I found the Sealey range if accessories work well with it and are plentiful in ebay/amazon. I got a 4m hose so the vac just sits in the corner covered in crap and I can waggle the hose all over the garage.
I don't dare empty it at the moment. I hoovered up a massive spider the other day who's probably having a jolly old time in there plotting his revenge for when he gets out.
Tell you what, you can buy mine if you want? Please? Comes with all accessories and a bonus spider.
Thanks All, I'm going to nip down to screwfix after work and grab the cheapo one. I tried the cleaners at work but seeing as I work from home, the dog just looked at me like I was a lunatic.
On the back of this, and my own thoughts at the top that I have been considering getting myself a Titan one for ages....I've bought one, so will be picking it up on the way home. :o)
Titan from screfix... can also blow as well.
I have a cheap Draper one, it's fine and can do wet and dry and in principle can blow (but you need to clean it first so I'll never do that). It's quite bulky though. I ended up with a cheap cordless one that got retired from the house, and I use it almost every time these days, the convenience factor just beats the cable and hose.
My brother has a modern henry and tbh it's just not very good. Adorable, of course.
No experience of this one but looks a good price. I've had a refurbished (looked like a return to me) Titan pressure washer from this seller.
Currently £36 with a code.
My solution - just watch from about 45 second to 1:10. The ceiling mounted extractor was a waste of time and money.
I have a lidl/aldi one, can't remember which! Mine is an ash hoover rather than a wet dry, but it bag less and dumps it into a metal container. Bought because it does get used to hoover up ash, but it's mostly used as a workshop vacuum
Would get the same again if it died, but I'd definitely consider the screwfix version too
We had a Henry in the foundry I worked in when I started working there. It was used on sand, swarf, chunks of aluminium, oil and water. It was still there when I left 27 years later
I have a very old Dyson dc02 which essentially just runs as a motive force for this thing that I made. It’s a dust commander cyclone mated to a standard NATO container. You can hoover up all sorts of crap all day safe in the knowledge there’s no filter or bags to clog up. Really pleased with how it works and how little gets through to the Dyson.
thanks to this thread I just bought the vacmaster linked to above so that I can stop ruining our cordless with The Great Doorframe Sanding Of 2024
Dust pan and brush?
Bruce, my thoughts entirely. M-class vacuum for filtration when sawing stuff
I have a Nilfisk Aero 26, sucks like a dirty girl, nothing has stopped it so far.
Bags can be a bit pricey though, and i dont trust the cheapo versions, super thin.