Choosing a vacuum cleaner: which dust collector is better?

Vacuum cleaners with a dust bag

These are “con­ven­tion­al vac­u­um clean­ers” in which dust is col­lect­ed in bags inside the body. There are two types of bags: dis­pos­able (paper or syn­thet­ic) and reusable (fab­ric). When buy­ing such a device, it is nec­es­sary to clar­i­fy com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the type of bags. Some mod­els are com­pat­i­ble only with brand­ed ones, oth­ers are designed to use any type.

Fab­ric reusable bags are used if dis­pos­able ones are over. Their fre­quent use is not rec­om­mend­ed, since the size of their pores is quite large, so it pass­es more fine dust. And clean­ing them often turns into a dis­as­ter, because there is direct con­tact with dust.

Dis­pos­able bags are bet­ter at col­lect­ing small par­ti­cles, but as they fill up, they need to be thrown away, replaced with new ones, and this is an addi­tion­al cost. The capac­i­ty of such bags ranges from 1.5 to 6 liters. When clean­ing once a week, a vol­ume of 3 liters is enough for a month.

The advan­tage of such vac­u­um clean­ers is low pow­er con­sump­tion with good clean­ing per­for­mance. Minus — a drop in suc­tion pow­er when the dust con­tain­er is full.

Vac­u­um clean­ers with dust bags are still the most afford­able and easy to use, and there­fore the most pop­u­lar. A good qual­i­ty car can be pur­chased already for 1.5–1.8 thou­sand rubles. More advanced mod­els with addi­tion­al fea­tures cost 4–8 thou­sand rubles. and high­er.

Cyclone vacuum cleaners

Such mod­els began to be mass-pro­duced only 25–30 years ago, but have already gained pop­u­lar­i­ty. They dif­fer from con­ven­tion­al ones only in the prin­ci­ple of fil­ter­ing and col­lect­ing dust, which accu­mu­lates in a spe­cial­ly designed con­tain­er. In it, the main air purifi­ca­tion is car­ried out due to the unusu­al cir­cu­la­tion of dust.

Air con­tain­ing dirt and dust enters the con­tain­er, where it spi­rals from top to bot­tom. Under the action of cen­trifu­gal force, the dust is sep­a­rat­ed from the air and set­tles on the walls, since it is much heav­ier. Puri­fied air pass­es through a spe­cial hole in the cen­ter of the bot­tom of the bowl, goes up and out.

The undoubt­ed advan­tage of the “cyclones” is the easy clean­ing of the con­tain­er. As soon as the dust reach­es a spe­cial mark, the con­tain­er is removed from the body and the dust is poured into a garbage bag. There is no need to wash the con­tain­er, it is enough to wipe it once a month and a half with a slight­ly damp cloth. Minus — high­er pow­er, high­er pow­er con­sump­tion, they make loud­er noise.

The suc­tion pow­er of a cyclone vac­u­um clean­er remains unchanged, since the dust dis­persed along the walls of the con­tain­er does not inter­fere with the pas­sage of air flow. And if sud­den­ly you acci­den­tal­ly sucked some nec­es­sary tri­fle into the vac­u­um clean­er, it is much eas­i­er to remove it than from a bag.

The cost of such units is some­what high­er, and starts from 2.5–3 thou­sand rubles, some­times reach­ing up to 25–30 thou­sand rubles.

Vacuum cleaners with water or aquafilter

These are per­haps the most mod­ern and effec­tive, but capri­cious and expen­sive. The prin­ci­ple of col­lect­ing dust in them is based on pass­ing air through water in two ways. In bub­bling vac­u­um clean­ers, air pass­es through a flask with water so that dust set­tles there, and in sep­a­ra­to­ry vac­u­um clean­ers, the dust is first sep­a­rat­ed from the air, then it is already deposit­ed in the water.

Vac­u­um clean­ers with aquafil­ter pro­vide high-qual­i­ty clean­ing, retain­ing any debris by 99.97%. And for the final purifi­ca­tion of the air, they also use fine fil­ters. In addi­tion, air is humid­i­fied, as a result of which dust set­tles and does not enter the body dur­ing breath­ing. Humid­i­fi­ca­tion is espe­cial­ly impor­tant in win­ter, when, due to the oper­a­tion of cen­tral heat­ing, the humid­i­ty decreas­es and all the unpleas­ant prop­er­ties of dry air appear. Many mod­els ion­ize and aro­m­a­tize the air in the apart­ment. An impor­tant advan­tage is con­stant suc­tion pow­er.

Recent­ly, there has been an increase in pop­u­lar­i­ty steam vac­u­um clean­ers, which pen­e­trates deep into the pile, elim­i­nat­ing dust mites and microbes. Of course, such cars are more expen­sive, but what can you do for the sake of health, espe­cial­ly in fam­i­lies where there are aller­gies or asth­mat­ics.

Main The dis­ad­van­tage of such mod­els is rather large size and weight.. With each clean­ing, it is nec­es­sary to fill in fresh water, and then drain it, wipe and dry the con­tain­ers and com­part­ments, oth­er­wise you can get a breed­ing ground for germs, bac­te­ria and mold in the com­part­ment with dirty water. Do not use such vac­u­um clean­ers for par­quet, musi­cal instru­ments, wood­en fur­ni­ture. They work a lit­tle loud­er than their “dry” coun­ter­parts, and they are more expen­sive. Their price starts from 3.5–4 thou­sand rubles. going far beyond 40,000

Washing vacuum cleaners

The clean­ing qual­i­ty of such mod­els is slight­ly high­er than that of oth­er types. If dry clean­ing needs to be done a cou­ple of times a week, then a wash­ing vac­u­um clean­er can be cleaned once every 2 weeks.

Prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion wash­ing vac­u­um clean­er next. Inside the case there are two reser­voirs, one of them (2.5–10 l) is filled with water with deter­gent. A solu­tion is sprayed through a spe­cial tube in a noz­zle under pres­sure. Pol­lut­ed water is col­lect­ed through the side chan­nels and enters the sec­ond tank (5–30 l). 3 func­tions are per­formed at the same time: spray­ing deter­gent, wash­ing the sur­face and suc­tion of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed liq­uid. The final purifi­ca­tion of the out­go­ing air is pro­vid­ed by fine fil­ters.

Advan­tages wash­ing vac­u­um clean­ers are obvi­ous. This is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of both dry and wet clean­ing, gen­er­at­ing steam, mop­ping, clean­ing sinks, bath­tubs, win­dows, col­lect­ing spilled liq­uids. Arom­a­ti­za­tion of the room will be car­ried out at the same time. And if the water is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, a sig­nal will be giv­en to replace it.

But lim­i­ta­tions also quite impres­sive. First of all, these are large dimen­sions, high weight, insuf­fi­cient maneu­ver­abil­i­ty, high pow­er con­sump­tion, and noise. The next incon­ve­nience is the manda­to­ry fill­ing of suf­fi­cient­ly large vol­umes of clean water dur­ing each clean­ing and drain­ing the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water, dry­ing the tanks. Sur­faces do not dry imme­di­ate­ly after clean­ing. Do not use wash­ing vac­u­um clean­ers for nat­ur­al par­quet, wood, car­pets with nat­ur­al pile. And man­u­fac­tur­ers insist on using only brand­ed deter­gents, which cost from 600 to 1000 rubles. for 500 ml.

All this leads to a fair­ly high price. A good device of small vol­ume can be pur­chased for 6–7 thou­sand rubles. These are vac­u­um clean­ers for a 1–2‑room apart­ment with a clean water tank of 2–4 liters. For a 3‑room apart­ment you will need a tank of 5–8 liters. And top mod­els for clean­ing large hous­es can cost 200 thou­sand rubles.

Built-in vacuum cleaners

Not many peo­ple know about them, because. These mod­els do not apply to domes­tic pri­vate appli­ances. They are inter­est­ing in that the col­lect­ed dust is removed from the room along with odors and aller­gens through air ducts built into the walls. The motor of the vac­u­um clean­er is tak­en out of the room, so the clean­ing process is silent. There is a spe­cial sock­et in the wall where the hose is con­nect­ed. The result is the high­est degree of purifi­ca­tion.

Such vac­u­um clean­ers are installed by com­plex instal­la­tion dur­ing over­haul or when build­ing a house. Their cost is very high, and such a device con­sumes ener­gy, like a dozen ordi­nary ones. As a rule, such mod­els are installed in hotels.

A pho­to: man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies