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Mrs AJ has decided our old vacuum is in need of replacement (I'm not entirely disagreeing with her, but as I'm a skinflint I disagree on principal).
She shortlisted 3 or 4, and not a single one is under £200, and most are £250ish! Bloody Nora, that seems expensive.
I did a quick bit of internetting, and yes, it does seem that that's the going rate for a half decent sucking machine.
OTOH they seem terribly over complicated. One of them even has led lights so you can 'see' under the sofa.
I suggested buying a Henry, and got 'The Look'.
I'm off to grumble in the garage whilst working on my expensive bike.
Why would anyone need anything more than a Henry? Even they're expensive.
Apparently too heavy and ugly. I nearly responded with a joke, but value my balls.
Why would anyone need anything more than a Henry?
Because they’re shit.
Worse, the quality of (most of) the devices is nowhere near the price comanded. It takes the Micky.
Dyson are my bete noir. >£600 for something you have to push around yourself and still feels like it’s made of the same nasty plastic as the kid’s toy one. It’s a joke.
The margins are eye-watering. They (Dyson) sell them at cost to staff and retailers. That’s when you realise there’s £400 to share between JD and the retailer. For (in his case) something that will end up in landfill in a couple of years.
FWIW, the best I’ve had have been SEBO (upright) and Miele (cylinder). They are still a fortune. But simplicity and effectiveness make it less painful in the longer term. And at least it is a longer term.
Sorry, rant over.
Dyson did well because he realised people feel rewarded when they see the dust they've collected. The vacs are shite, heavy, noisy, complicated and unreliable.
By cheap buy twice? I have meile vacuums - great bits of kit but at a price.
People want to clean their new lockdown bikes with a dedicated bike vacuum cleaner? 😉
I’m a Henry (hetty actually) pleb and marvel at how impossible it is to break, how it’s sucked up everything from sick (not entirely intentional) to builders rubble...
Wonder what sick looks like going round a dyson? 🤔
I worked for Dyson for 6 years and I'm still amazed at what emotion a domestic appliance can elicit.
The margins are crazy though, Curry's made less on selling a £250 Dyson than a £100 Vax. People paid the money though as Dyson somehow made something that you keep hidden away in a cupboard in to a lifestyle accessory.
I have a superduper top of the range dyson that I was given as it was broken. Fixed it and it worked for a while (light duties, one carpet and one rug in my house), currently waiting on some spares to get it working again. It’s around 2 years old. Utter garbage, thing feels like a toy, if that’s premium then give me cheap any day
Said this before but local tip has an ISO full of Dysons, lots are not that old. They apparently get a good bit of cash for a container full, seems people need the parts. Counter to this we have had a Miele, whole family liked but lasted 3-4 years. We have two Henrys. The blue one is well over 20 years old, still going strong in the workshop now. It was only replaced in the house as it looked so battered after two house rebuilds but has never had anything done to it.
If one ever has fix one, all parts are available and it’s easy, doubt that can be said of many others.
My Dyson has been going for 10 years now so I've got no complaints.
I remember the bad old days of bags. No thanks!
Where abouts are you OP?
I have a lifestylers Dyson vacuum (corded) for sale.
Since we got a cordless it hasn't had a look in.
We got nearly the cheapest (£<150) Miele over 10 years ago and still sucks all the dust amazingly. Need to buy the special Miele bags but I think we're probably still quids in over a Dyson that would be dead by now.
Also have had a cheaper £60 battery job that can be upright or dust buster style for about 5 years that is light and easy for everyday cleaning round the kids rather than the weeklyish proper clean.
Instant dismissal at Dyson if you dare to call it a Hoover.
I have no probs with James Dyson. As a designer/inventor he's amongst our best,and has done a lot, created jobs, an industry about dead breathed with new life and directions.
But way overpriced. Stupidly so. And the entire thing is based upon technology already in use, which was industrial cyclonic dust extractors. He just shrank them down to become mobile cleaners that were more efficient than previous.
So now every cheapo mass produced in China battery operated vacuum cleaner gets a £150 mark up. If you didnt have them selling at 400, none of these landfill specials would cost as much.
Theres another company now advertised where the owner presents himself as an inventor, etc etc but his machines are just bog standard made in China to a nothing design and he has the audacity to charge originally £300.
This one is now offering instead of a simple crappy plastic box to catch the dust, but no layers of filtration or cyclonic effect as with a Dyson, obviously spewing fine dust back out he's released the TRIPLE filter.
Ye gads is that not going backwards ?. 3 bags inside eachother and you dispose of it when full and INCREDIBLY...fit a new bag.
Battery operated, of the cheapest quality there, and the poorest a/h rating, and he is still charging £200.
I worked for Dyson for 6 years and I’m still amazed at what emotion a domestic appliance can elicit.
Try working in a bucket factory.
I don’t like James Dyson, he’s the worst kind of greedy billionaire who pretends he acts benignly whilst shafting local workers and shipping his money overseas.
Having said that, I can’t kill our nearly 20 year old Dyson HOOVER. Probably speaks volumes about how little I clean our house rather than reliability.
Yeah hydrocyclones have been used for years in oil and gas and mining to separate out solids from a liquid medium. Same principle.
@Drac
I'm genuinely interested in why you think Henrys are shit. We have one at work - it's pug ugly, and it's awkward to take up stairs, but wow can it suck.
We also have some sort of Dyson - an 'animal' I think. It's light and pretty (if you like that sort of thing), but unless at anything other than light dust on hard surfaces.
I'd take the Henry every time.
I’ve got a shark and rate it highly. I want to buy a robot hoover but the shark refuses to die
Buy Miele, run for ten years. Send back for full refurbishment for £125. Repeat.
I have a Vax thing thats a bit like a dyson, paid £60-70 for it. Does an amazing job on the carpets. Its hose is worse than useless as a hose alone, so I use an old henry that just wont die for that. But yes, its perfectly possible to buy a decent vacuum cleaner for sub £100. I imagine the more expensive models that nidge the ton the hose is good too.
Parents had a Sebo. Refused to die until my sister ran over the cable whilst using it. Sent it back to Sebo and it got a full refurb for not much money. For some reason they got rid of it and got a rechargeable dyson.
I borrowed the dyson to give the car a clean whilst visiting, it was awful. We have a Henry and it is a bit bulky but can suck a ping pong ball through a hosepipe and refuses to die even after cleaning up after knocking walls and chimneys about.
Edit: Every hotel I've ever stayed in have either used a Sebo, Industrial version of Henry or a Miele. Never seen one use a dyson.
I’m genuinely interested in why you think Henrys are shit. We have one at work – it’s pug ugly, and it’s awkward to take up stairs, but wow can it suck.
I suspect he's referring to the current breed of power-restricted models, of which I have one. Something to do with EU regulations I believe.
And it's not shit, but it's not great. I'd swap it for a 20 year old Electrolux in a heartbeat 🙂
I’ve found the polar opposite that’s why easily. We’ve a 15 year old dyson that was relegated to cleaning out the log burner. The newer one is 9 years old and gets used for everything else. Clean the filters or replace them once in awhile and they keep going. People through them away without checking this when they’d function fine.
Another vote for the Vax fake Dyson thing. And Henry. Henries are ridiculously robust and suck up EVERYTHING.
Henry here with an extension hose which makes the weight much less of an issue!
It's only used for doing the stairs these days because we replaced the increasingly eccentric cleaner with a robot vacuum/mop, which, granted, lasted about a week more than the warranty (see other thread) but even so is much cheaper and does not leave strange underwear in the tumble drier.
They don’t have to be: £60 gets you a bagless Hoover cylinder cleaner
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/4556938?clickSR=slp:term:vacuum%20cleaner:19:144:1
Why pay Dyson money?
£50 Gumtree Dyson here, bought because everyone else falls for the marketing of cordless and 'better'.
It's our second Dyson in about 15 years.
That one was also second hand.
We've had a SEBO K1 for at least 15 years. So far as I can tell it's working just as well as when it was new. It's also interesting the the current SEBO K1 looks identical.
I hate Dyson as much as the next guy, but cordless vacuum cleaners are pretty useful.
Dyson early adopter but binned it as I wasn't fitting another £100 motor when it threw the windings off the commutator for the second time.
Had a quite good Samsung cyclone thing for a few years but it needed filters washing every few weeks so messier than bags. Then the motor went bang.
Henry since then (10yrs) and has been indestructable and suction perfectly good. The oe bags take ages to fill, don't lose suction and very clean to change. A new Henry is less than the Miele refurb mentioned above - and never needs a refurb 🙂
Another Henry owner here. My mrs sent me to get a new (Dyson) vacum cleaner so instead of buying online I went to the local place that repairs them and sells new one's Got chatting to the guy who has been repairing for 20 plus years and asked him what the best model of dyson to get, His answer was none of them. Told me the first 2 models were great then after that they were as he put it great for the repair buisness! asked him what he had at home and low and behold a Henry.
The mrs was a little underwhelmed when I took it home but now thinks it's great.
Most professional cleaners use them so that must count for something!
I don’t like James Dyson, he’s the worst kind of greedy billionaire who pretends he acts benignly whilst shafting local workers and shipping his money overseas.
Do you know anyone who actually works for Dyson? Do you know how much of his own money he spent on the Government’s ventilator debacle? Or how he treated the staff who were working on the project?
I do. You’re talking prejudiced bollocks.
Nobody here bought a Kirby then..?
Managed to get a half price Dyson through a staff code
still not worth £250 as pointed out above
plastic is awe fully breakable and no bearings or grease to be seen
SHAME ON YOU DYSON
I've got a Vax thing. Picks up dirt and dust and that's all I ask of it. Henrys are great and I've never owned a Dyson as the price is comical for something that sucks up dirt. Used one of those ball ones though and it was shite.
Henry's are ok, they suck ok, are fairly small and light for the type of vacuum they are and are relatively cheap which is why they are used commercially, they are effectively consumables.
If you want a proper vacuum for all jobs you need one of these:
Great for the car, carpet, hard floors, rubble, connecting to power tools (separate power socket on the vacuum) and also does liquids, used mine for pumping out the pond. Still only £150 from Screwfix. Best tool I ever bought.
One of them even has led lights so you can ‘see’ under the sofa.
My mum's Hoover from the 60's had a light on it, even the kid's toy hoovers in the 70's did. I've inherited 3, a Miele that's around 12 years old and going well, an Electrolux that judging by the colour is late 70's early 80's and best of all this
Why are Henrys consumables?
I've worked the same place for 25 years and never seen the cleaners kill one.
They are made in the UK and all parts available as spares.
Surely the exact opposite of a "consumable" product?
Because since some time in the last few years they've been restricted to 92W or something, like all vacuum cleaners.
Old vacuums are of course brilliant; they're 2500W of carpet sucking max power. New ones just seem to be full of complicated trickery to try and talk dirt out of the carpet.
That's just Thunderbird 2.
as good as Henry's are and we have loads of them at work I bought a Screwfix own brand wet and dry vacuum - the motor was a lot more powerful and bags are as the same price as Henry's. It's been great and we a mega shedding dog so is in constant use.
Ms Eyestwice thinks that bike parts are a rip-off so I just buy what she wants when it comes to things she's after...
The Henry is 620W, the Nilfisk is 1250W, and does water as well. £30 more for double the power and extra functionality.