Thinking about getting a vacuum..what are your thoughts?

[OccamsTazer]

I have a Roomba and I love her more than is healthy. They cost an arm and a leg, but I got mine refurbished on Amazon for $100.
I hit the go button every day when I leave, and she gobbles up all the pet hair. Her name is Dora...
The container is tiny, it has to be emptied after every use, but all I have to do is dump the container in the garbage, no big deal.
Love the thing.

 

[The Chicken Lady]

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I want a Roomba!

It would freak my cats out.

 

[mjdtexan]

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I too will not have carpet. Its nasty. I have just installed bright white ceramic tile in the house next door. It looks great. Its my house I just cant bring myself to rent it out. I host the family gatherings there and I use the garage as my wood shop. And my tractor lives there.

Sorry for the hijack

 

[CMV]

I am a bit OCD, so I have 3 types of vacuums at my disposal. The Kirby is great for deep cleaning whether it be the carpets or vacuuming the cracks between boards in my hardwood floors, but the Kirby cost an arm and a leg. The Electrolux does a decent job and is easier to haul upstairs, but is getting old and also was pricey. It has aged well as long as you keep the vacuum hose in good working order. Then I have my Roombas which I love! They are not meant for deep cleaning, but they do a good job at keeping the day-to-day small messes cleaned up. The one I have upstairs can be scheduled to clean each day at 2 pm. So, each day it turns itself on at 2 pm and runs through each room by itself for about 25 minutes per room and then puts itself away to re-charge for the next day. I have 2 of the shedding-est dogs on the planet, so I need to empty the collection bin each eve before I go to bed or else it won't work the next day due to being too full, but that is a small price to pay. I also have an old Roomba just for my hardwood floors. It doesn't have the scheduler, so it has to be started manually but then it just goes to town unattended. It also works in a random pattern and doesn't leave any marks on wood floors.

If I just had wood floors to deal with I'd say to get yourself a decent Roomba with a scheduler. It's worth its weight in gold.

 

[Rosalind]

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+2, one from me and one from DH.

Our $50 shop vac can deal with two giant double-coated dogs and their puppy accidents, three barfy cats, an insane amount of gardening mess, construction dust, spilled paint, mud, snow, exploding beer experiments, swimming pool, potting shed, enough spiders to cobweb the Empire State Building and other sundry challenges with ease.

Before the shop vac, we went through a new $100 vacuum every six months. No kidding.

 

[Amyable]

I was just going to start a thread like this. We are also in desperate need of a new vac. The house is half carpet, half linoleum. We've got a GSD and 3 house cats - big time hair. We have a Eureka now - pure junk.

After reviewing online, I narrowed it to the Bissell Velocity, Hoover Platinum, Dyson All-Floors Cyclone, or the Hoover Windtunnel. All are between $150-380 and got 4+ stars on Amazon. Does anyone own any of these vaccums? Looks like several people like the Dyson Animal, but we can't spend $500 on a vac. There is a store that sells rebuilt Kirby's in the next town, but haven't checked their prices.

edited to add, I would use the ShopVac, except for the carpet, and lugging the thing up the hill to the house.

 

[ChickenToes]

I have a Dyson DC07. There's a switch on it to change from bare flooring to carpet, it lifts the brush up off the floor. Whenever I vacuum the living room carpet, I flip the switch and vacuum the tile in the kitchen. Much easier than sweeping!

 

[chrisf]

I have a Miele that is super quiet, powerful and works on my hardwood as well as area rugs.............

 

[McCord6]

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My mom has the purple Dyson DANIMAL vaccum and it works REALLY good on both carpet and hard wood floor. Just make sure you adjust the setting accordingly or your in for some really bad ear aches!
She also have some kind of vaccum that is made for hard floors. It sweeps and mops. I dont remember what it is called but it does look like a steam cleaner.

 

[Acre of Blessings]

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How much would shipping be?