Vacuums

Medopine · July 2009

So I want a new vacuum. Mine is really annoying to clean and gets dust everywhere.

I can't afford dyson prices - so, what kind of vacuum do you have?

Any Roomba users? Does it actually really work like it seems like it does on the TV?

SmallLady · July 2009

I have a roomba
and I love it

LOVE IT

it does a better job than any vacuum i've ever owned.

krapst78 · July 2009

I have a 3rd gen Roomba 550 and I would not recommend it. The thing about the Roomba is that it depends on your living situation. I live in a small studio apartment with hardwood floors with a depressed entry area. The area is not low enough for the "cliff sensor" to detect and the Roomba will fall off and become incompacitated. This causes the robot to continually sound off a loud annoying warning signal until it is picked up and placed on level ground. The Roomba also does a very poor job of avoiding non-tethered obstacles and loves smashing repeatedly into the wall over and over again. If you have any lightweight chairs, lamps, or anything with an extension cord going across the floor, be prepared to have them "rearranged". Basically I have to adjust my room for the Roomba instead of having the Roomba adjust to my room. Owning and operating a Roomba is just like having a really stupid one-eyed accident prone dog.

Djeet · July 2009

I've a Roomba 530 (no scheduling capability and comes with virtual walls, not virtual lighthouses). We no longer sweep or manually vacuum. If it ever breaks (hasn't yet) and I can't fix it we will buy another one.

There is maintenance expenditure for Roomba: Main brushes (one's a brush and one's a rubber roller thing), side brush (spining multi-armed brush the sweeps areas that the main brushes cannot reach), a filter, and the battery. You'll need to clean the main brushes (mainly hair/fur or string that gets wound around them and impedes the turning of the brush) regularly

We've had ours since Christmas and it's basically in operation every day; it only cleans every other day or so, but the baby will not leave it alone, it's like his best friend. We have hardwoods, some tile, no carpet, and no stairs. Replaced the main brushes once (about 6-8 weeks ago, and we delayed replacing it as long as we could, it cleans much better now). Replaced the side brush at the same time (the six-armed brush was crap and started losing limbs immediately, the 3-armed brush is much more robust and hasn't lost any limbs yet). Replaced the filter at the same time, but before that I had cleaned the filter by tapping the dust off it into the bin. Haven't replaced the battery yet, and charge/run times seem to be 90%+ of new.

Bought 3 full sets of replacement brushes (main and side) and filters for about $65 on Amazon. You can score the 530 off woot for about $150 if you wait for it.

It's a bit noisy so we basically turn it on when we leave for work or go out. Though if it's in the other room and the door's closed noise isn't an issue. It seems to clean well though it takes 2-3 times as long as if we were to clean the room ourselves. It does bump into things, but I've never thought anything of it, that's how it knows not to continue in that direction; It doesn't bump very hard, I've fashioned a wall for it by lining up sneakers end-to-end. It's strong enough to push baby toys around, but it's not going to move chairs or knock a glass off a table.

It doesn't deal with wires or power strips very well, we've learned to keep those off the floor. It cannot get under furniture unless there's about 3.5-4" of clearance.

Djeet · July 2009

Double post.

Hypatia · July 2009

What's your budget? Roombas aren't that inexpensive either, if you give a price range it'd be easier to recommend something

Wezoin · July 2009

Roombas can be very good, or very bad. My mom likes decorative rugs. For us, this is a problem, because the roomba catches the corners of one of them every time and just gets stuck there. If you have fairly flat floors (no rugs, stairs, etc) then its perfect. It won't get everything every time, but if you put it on a schedule your floors will be continually clean. Yes, it doesn't go in the most sensible route all the time, and yes its just randomly moving about the floor, but with the help of lighthouses (most models come with two) you can make sure most of it gets done.

I have had mine since Christmas as well, and other than getting stuck on that rug haven't had any problems.

Deadfall · July 2009

To change the direction a bit, I have this guy.

Don't let the cheap price tag fool you. It does great in my house, even with a dog that sheds constantly.

Saddler · July 2009

Man, fuck the Roomba. The lint trap is tiny, and you have to empty it after every use. And the brushes get clogged with cat hair, which you have to pull out (gross).

ihmmy · July 2009

Deadfall wrote: »

To change the direction a bit, I have this guy.

Don't let the cheap price tag fool you. It does great in my house, even with a dog that sheds constantly.

I have one similar, dirt devil bagless, and I lurv it. Mostly because I hate dealing with vacuum cleaner bags. Just make sure you clean it out either before or after use each time, otherwise it has shitty suction

Szechuanosaurus · July 2009

Roomba just seems like it would be even more work than just vacuuming the normal way, plus it isn't going to move furniture around so it won't vacuum under the coffee table or beneath the couch, so you're going to have to own a regular vacuum to periodically do all the areas that the robot can't get to or stand there and watch it cleaning and move the furniture when necessary. And the amount of maintenance described above is just o_O.

We have a 15 room house (counting corridors and stairs as separate rooms). At a clip, I can get the whole house vacuumed in under 20 minutes and I don't have to spend my weekend tending to a vacuum cleaner like it's a vintage fucking automobile.

In conclusion, save up and buy a Dyson. At least you won't have to buy two vacuums - one robot and one normal to reach all the spots the robot can't - and the cost is easily off-set by the time it will save you. You only get one life, why would you want to spend it caring for a pet robotic vacuum cleaner?

Djeet · July 2009

My roomba can clean under the beds, couches, coffee tables and nightstands (and it does it without moving them, so long as it can actually get under them). I didn't expect it to be able to clean under my couch because of the metal bar construction of the legs/runners, but it can. The only things it doesn't clean under is the bigscreen TV and the piano, but since it does such a good job on pet hair around the edges, I don't bother moving them.

Sorry if I may have mis-represented what it can do. It keeps the floors cleaner then we ever did with brooms and manual vacs. Emptying the dust bin is not unlike emptying a bagless vac, and you can just replace the filter, but I clean it cause I'm cheap. As far as the main brushes go, assuming you run it regularly (every day or two) the most maintenance will be the first cleaning since that's when it picks up the most amount of stuff you've missed.

Personally I'd never go back to cleaning now that I got a robot that'll do it. My investment in cleaning is the 45 seconds it takes me to clean Roomba (check main brushes, empty collection bin, tap the filter against the trash can).

Edit: I'm sure there are dwellings or lifestyles that wouldn't be best suited to Roomba without some accomodations made, some of which may be unacceptable to the dwellers. And it's not for you if you like vacuuming/sweeping (no joke there, I like ironing).

Disenchanter · July 2009

I have had one of these for around 4 years now.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11040055

It still picks up like a champ even when the canister is almost completely full. Works better than the 500-600 dollar vacuum my mother picked up around the same time.

Viscountalpha · July 2009

Medopine wrote: »

So I want a new vacuum. Mine is really annoying to clean and gets dust everywhere.

I can't afford dyson prices - so, what kind of vacuum do you have?

Any Roomba users? Does it actually really work like it seems like it does on the TV?

What is your price range? 50$ should get you something that doesn't get dust everywhere and 100$ definitely should get you a decent vacuum. That being said. I do not regret buying my dyson.

You get what you pay for most of the time.

DrZiplock · July 2009

Hello, ms. pine...long time no chat.

Recently I asked the same thing, here are the responses.

Hope you're well!

Medopine · July 2009

thanks all, and Zippy

100$ is like topping out, 50$ sounds better to me, so I will look at these options and probably forego the Roomba

Penny Arcade

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