Dyson DC05

I'd heard all about Dyson vacum cleaners, they're stuffed into almost every ad break I've actually sat through, and they did sound good, but I'm fairly immune to manufacturers' wild claims about their products (although I have a bypass system for products involving bras which make boobs look bigger, and jeans which make bums look smaller!). Anyway, perhaps I'd better get back on the subject in hand..........! The model I have comes in five different ...
.../> When we brought the Dyson home, it was one of the rare days when I had hoovered before going out, and the living room carpet was perfectly clean, thankyou very much. It did not need doing again, but hubby had other ideas. Of course, any new shiny thing has to be unpacked, examined and tried out at the earliest opportunity, so after battling through the incredibly large amount of packaging in the box, we proceeded to set it up. The short instruction ... more

I'd heard all about Dyson vacum cleaners, they're stuffed into almost every ad break I've actually sat through, and they did sound good, but I'm fairly immune to manufacturers' wild claims about their products (although I have a bypass system for products involving bras which make boobs look bigger, and jeans which make bums look smaller!). Anyway, perhaps I'd better get back on the subject in hand..........! The model I have comes in five different colour schemes - grey and yellow, grey purple and yellow, grey and green, purple and green or purple and reddish-pink. If I'd known this when I bought it, I'd have gone for the purple and red, but I've actually got the grey and green.

This review is about the DC05 Plus which I've had for three years now. It's a cylinder-style cleaner, as opposed to an upright style. This means you have far more flexibility to get into the awkward corners than with an upright. I consider it to be an excellent vacuum cleaner, but it does have a few irritating pitfalls which I'll get to in a moment. The reason it is different from the regular DC05 is that it comes with a turbo brush attachment as well as the standard floor tool, which I'll extol the virtues of later on.

When I first bought it, it cost £229.99,(nowadays it's close to £149.99) which at the time I thought was an extortionate price for something whose function is, at the end of the day, to slurp up dust and bits of the kids' dinner. Anyway, we didn't even need a new vacuum, my old £30 one did the job if not in style, at least adequately. My other half decided on it, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he only wanted one because they had the interesting and mysterious "cyclone technology" - as most girlies out there will know, the word "technology" is usually enough to get your bloke interested in something, be it a new car, strange and unnecessary computer bits, and of course, vacuum cleaner shopping!

SETTING IT UP
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When we brought the Dyson home, it was one of the rare days when I had hoovered before going out, and the living room carpet was perfectly clean, thankyou very much. It did not need doing again, but hubby had other ideas. Of course, any new shiny thing has to be unpacked, examined and tried out at the earliest opportunity, so after battling through the incredibly large amount of packaging in the box, we proceeded to set it up. The short instruction leaflet explains this easily in pictures.
It comes in several pieces; the main body of the cleaner which houses the dust collecting container and filter, the cord storage (nicely hidden inside one of the large wheels with the button to retract it on top of the wheel) and the power button on top of the other wheel - this is large and very easy to get at and operate with a foot. There is a handy little carrying handle on top of the body, big enough to grip easily. There is a flexible plastic hose which attaches to the body at one end, and having a banana-shaped hard plastic handle at the other. A straight metal pipe with plastic ends attaches to this very easily by means of a small clip, and the floor tool or turbo brush (whichever you're using) clips onto the base of the pipe in the same way. There is a protuding plastic piece on the back of both the floor tool and turbo brush which slots into a slot on the back of the vacuum cleaner body, so that the hose and pipe don't need to be taken apart for storage - an ingenious little idea. The metal pipe extends to a length to suit even my hubby who is 6' 8'' tall!
Anyway, after taking less than five minutes to set up the Dyson, we re-did the living-room carpet, watched resentfully by my old hoover. Now, the dirt container or cylinder of this shiny new machine sits on the back, and is made of clear plastic. I was mildly surprised when dust started swirling into the cylinder, and even more surprised when the carpet was completely done - I couldn't believe that about five inches of dust was now residing in the vacuum cleaner. I was also impressed by how quiet it was compared to my old one - I can vacuum the living room while a child is asleep on the sofa and not wake him or her! Just beware if you get a hard bit such as plastic vacuumed up, since the dust container is plastic anything hard flying in at high speed makes a bit of a racket, plus it swirls around noisily inside the cylinder while the vacuum is still on. To put things simply, I was sold on the virtues of Dysons, and the old one was unhappily and unceremoniously dumped!

THE ATTACHMENTS
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As I mentioned above, this model comes with a standard floor tool, such as you'd find on any vacuum cleaner, with bristles around the edge which can be lifted for carpets and lowered for hard floors such as wood or concrete or tiles. This is easily done by pressing with your foot on a small-ish plastic piece on the tool.
The turbo brush is something owners of upright Dysons may be familiar with - a slightly chunkier version of the floor tool, it has a rotating piece underneath with rows of bristles arranged in spirals around a central plastic cylinder. The idea behind this is that as it rotates at high speed during cleaning, it actually beats the carpet thus releasing more dust and debris to be slurped up the tube into the cleaner. This it does admirably well, however my hair is very long and has a tendency to fall out a lot, and I discovered that the fallen hairs would get wound around the bristles rendering them ineffective. Removing them needed several minutes hard at work with a pair of nail scissors!
The other attachments were pretty standard, featuring a long flat bit to get in between sofa cushions, under furniture, down the back of radiators etc, an upholstery attachment which is a miniature floor-tool shaped piece with red coarse velvet material on it to avoid damaging sofa cushions etc, and a round hollow brush with bristles round the edge which is used while the vacuum cleaner is on to dust things - all the dust is sucked away as it's dislodges by the bristles, ensuring a healthier environment in your home. It's useful because it can rotate to almost any angle you need. These last three are all small plastic pieces in the same colour as the accent colours on the machine. The one gripe I have with them is that they are stored on a plastic ring attached to the flexible hose, and do get in the way, bashing on bits of furniture as you pull the vacuum cleaner past. They're also pretty easy to break - I currently only have the dust tool as the others have snapped.

CLEANING THE CLEANER
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The dust container is made entirely of plastic, with a handy little mark on the outside to give you an indication of when it needs emptying. This involves all the strain, hard work and effort of taking the cylinder off the Dyson (press one little button and lift), taking it to a bin, taking off the lid (press another button and lift), and turning upside down.
Clearing pipe blockages is also fairly simple, as the pipes are easy to take apart and put back together - if anything gets really stuck I enlist the help of a chopstick to dislodge offending bits and bobs, in my case usually socks, although the kids' socks don't get stuck, they just whoosh into the dust container!
Cleaning the cylinder is simple using soapy water and a sponge or cloth. The reusuable filter housed above the dust container is also easy to clean - take it out, wash it, again in warm soapy water, and leave to dry - don't machine wash or tumble dry it though. None of the components are suitable for dishwasher use. It says in the insructions to make sure all pieces are completely dry before putting it back together, but neglects to mention why. I feel this is important as some people may not bother waiting, imagining that the components will dry as they're being used. The reason you must wait is that inside the Dyson a warm and moist place is great for setting upo spores of mould, especailly if you've just hoovered up the dropped bits of dinner. Since some air is expelled from the back of the cleaner after it's been sucked through and cleaned of dust, those mould spores would be in your houses' air - not very good for you or your house, and potentially very dangerous for allergy or asthma sufferers.

NIGGLY PROBLEMS
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Certain claims have been made by Dyson in their adverts and in the booklet which comes with the cleaner, some of which aren't backed up in practice.
The first, and most annoying is that the cylinder cleaner is supposed to sit easily on stairs, so you can get right to the top with no trouble. In practice, it will not, does not, cannot and simply refuses to. Possibly my stairs are very shallow, but they don't look all that different to me. I have tried, time and again to balance my Dyson on staircases, and it simply falls off, usually right to the bottom. This can't be very good for the cleaner, not to mention anyone having the misfortune to be at the base of the stairs at the time, as most people don't take too kindly to being squashed flat by low-flying Dysons.
Another niggly little irritation is that despite what the adverts say, my Dyson can and does lose suction when the cylinder is getting full. This isn't a major catastrophe, as emptying is so easy. However, it does annoy me because the company said it wouldn't.
Another problem is that the plastic parts of the cleaner are easily broken - for me this usually consists of the small attachment accessories, the plastic bits on the end of the long metal pipe, and the clips which hold the pipe to the flexible hose and the floor tool to the pipe. I've had replacement pieces three times now, and need to order some more again now. This process, however, is easy, and I'll cover it in more detail in the next section..........

GUARANTEES AND CUSTOMER SERVICES
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As I said above, some minor plastic parts broke on our machine, so I needed to replace them. Dyson have excellent guarantees and warranties on their vacuum cleaners - the standard when we bought ours was three years manufacturers guarantee plus we also took out an additional two years because of the well-trained salesman. This covers repairs and replacement parts.
According to my local branch of Currys where I bought my Dyson, Dyson does not let anyone but themselves service their appliances - this would invalidate the warranty. We had to call the customer service helpline, which I admit to approaching with trepidation - I hate call centres, I hate speaking to machines, and most of all I hate waiting in queues on the phone only to be told (when finally getting to speak to a person) that they can't really help.
I needn't have worried. I was through almost straight away to a lovely lady who asked for a few details to check the machine was still in warranty, and then for details of the parts which were broken. Once I had explained which bits it was, she said that the replacements would be despatched that day. They were out of stock of one piece in the correct green colour, but she said there was a yellow version, and would I like that one until the green was back in stock? I said yes, she double-checked delivery address, and that was that. Two days later the parts arrived. I was perfectly happy, and thought no more of it, until two weeks later when a parcel arrived for me. It was the green piece which had previously been out of stock - how's that for good customer service?! They didn't require me to send back the broken pieces, or anything like that. This has been the case on two subsequent occasions. I haven't had a problem with the internal workings of the vacuum cleaner, but I'm sure that if I did, the service would be the same -professional and quick.

If you happen to be out of warranty on a Dyson, you can still order parts via the same process, or by using the parts order form which comes with the Dyson when you buy it. The only difference is, you'd need to pay for the parts. My price list is liable to be out of date now, but I believe prices start from £8. This is also useful if you have a version of the Dyson which doesn't come with a turbo brush, but you'd like one.

All things considered, I'm a very satisfied Dyson owner. Normally they'd lose one star in the rating because of the niggly problems, but the overall performance and excellent customer service prevent those niggles becoming real problems.

Contact details:

www.dyson.com

e-mail: service@dyson.com

Tel: 08705 275 104 (UK)
 

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