Article Written By: petercvefi
What features are essential when selecting a healthy vacuum cleaner? The key points are how well it removes the dirt plus the way it retains power and also how well it captures the soil.First up is how well it loosens the dirt. The best for this are the upright vacuums which have one or two sets of brushes for agitation As far as I am concerned the most efficient are those where the brush has it's own power source. These really lift the pile (which is what most people want, a great visual result).It's what gives them more "oomph" to shift the dirt. You can often see the difference when you compare a machine with a separate motor to one without. If it's got two drives it produces a better result.The second thing to look at is how the machine lifts the dirt.Just how effective is it and what factors have an effect on it's performance?On an upright you are restricted to either paper or cloth bags or some kind of dust spinning system such as a cyclone.Bags, whether paper or cloth tend to work well for a short period. Once they start to clog, their performance drops considerably.Their suction drops dramatically, once the bag has started to fill with dust.Cyclonic separators are a advance in air cleansers. These can have a number of filters in line, each removing a different size of dirt particle.The cyclone, in comparison, extracts the dust by spinning it really quickly so that it gets thrown out of the side.This method ensures that the machine operates at nearly full effectiveness most of the time.The third thing to look for is how well the machine contains the extracted dirt.If you do not contain and remove this dust you could be breathing it back in almost straight away. Some can be fine enough to cause you some real problems.This fine dust can cause all sorts of breathing problems.Minimizing this "re-distribution" of dust is really importance. A simple yet incredibly effective approach is to use water in the filtration process.This method works by directing the dirt filled airflow down on to the surface of the water where it is captured and cannot be sent back up into the air.The best type of vacuum cleaner to take advantage of this system is the tub. The machine has to be kept level to make the most of this really effective filtration method.You half fill the tub with tap water and the dust is blown on to the water as it comes up the pipe into the machine. The dust gets caught by the water and cannot go any further. In no time at all the once clean water becomes full of dust and resembles mud. Meanwhile, the clean air is passed back into the room (minus the dust).After reading the above you would, no doubt, go for the best features of each variation. For instance, you would want the increased agitation from a separate brush motor. You would want the high airflow of a cyclone (or possibly a water system). You would also want the "air washing" performance of a water filtration vac. Can you have all these together? No (well let's say maybe).The problem here is that you cannot have water on an upright because it will slop around and get sucked into the vacuum motors (followed by a loud bang!).
This Article Has Been Published on Sun, 12 Sep 2010 and Read 360 Times