Hoover TTU1520 > Reviews (1)

Our main vacuum is a Dyson, unfortunately it's so heavy that I've never been able to comfortably carry it up the stairs to vacuum the bedrooms - and trying to balance a Dyson ON a stair while vacuuming the stair case, well, you need to be eight feet tall with muscles like Arnie to really be able to do it safely and comfortably. So last year, after spotting this Hoover cylinder vacuum (or 'sledge' vacuum, to quote Hoover) at a very special price I decided to buy it for keeping upstairs to save me having to lug the big vacuum around the house.

At 5.7kg this is a fairly lightweight vacuum, I don't actually find it as light to carry around as I thought I would as the integrated carry handle seems to be in a really odd place (or positioned oddly at least) so that it kind of forces the balance of the vacuum to become 'off', making it seems heavier than it is when being carried with one hand. This isn't a huge issue for me as I planned to keep the vacuum upstairs anyway, but if you're purchasing it as a replacement vacuum then you might be a bit disappointed that it's not as light as it looks in the piccies.

The Hoover TTU1520 features a 3 litre dustbox, it's a bagless vacuum that is emptied easily by way of a flicky switch that you simply press down on to release all the dust and grime into a black bag. The dustbox then clips back into place ready for more vacuuming, it's as simple to use as a Dyson with everything slotting and clipping into place without uneccessary faffing around - important as hoovering is my absolute least favourite job in the house so the quicker and easier it is the better!

Suction is excellent; it lessens somewhat when the vacuum needs emptying but this is to be expected and is actually a good indicator of when you need to think about emptying it! The bristle brush helps to rid the carpets of hairs and other 'bits' that get dropped on the floor or otherwise walked through the house; being an 'upstairs' vacuum this is an important consideration for me as this is the area in the house where most 'hair brushing' takes place, and with four long haired females living here it's a good job this Hoover can pick all the hairs up without them matting into the carpets. As well as the bristle brush there is a crevice tool included and also a small upholstery tool, these are securely attached to the handle of the vacuum and have never fallen off while I've been hoovering or carting the vacuum around so there's little danger of losing any of them despite their small size.

One thing I really like about this vacuum is the fact that the hose extends to 4.5 metres once you've pushed the additional hose into place to create a longer-than-ever hose! Without the additional hose you can expect your vacuum to reach 2 metres, but the fully extended 4.5 metres means you can leave the vacuum itself at the bottom of the stairs and the hose will reach for a full 13-stair staircase. This is perfect for me as I'm only short so not having a bulky vacuum to manoeuvre up the stairs as I'm hoovering is ideal - and much safer than trying to juggle a heavy Dyson while cleaning!

This vacuum pulls along comfortably and easily as the wheels are large and move smoothly when pulled or pushed into position, the 7 metre cord means I don't have to keep unplugging the machine as I hoover around the house and this cord also slides back into the body of the vacuum easily by way of a foot operated button. This aspect of the vacuum works well and when I come to pull the cord out again I can tell it hasn't become kinked or tangled during storage - something worth mentioning as another cylinder vacuum I was using up until recently would tangle the cord to such a degree that I often had to ask Mark to take part of the panelling off to pull it out again! Not ideal when all I wanted to do was have a quick hoover round!

I can't fault this vacuum at all. I regularly use it upstairs to flit around the bedrooms and it's become the one I reach for when the stairs need doing too simply because it's less hassle than using the Dyson. I find it's easily maintained, although I do need to remove long hairs from the bristle brush very regularly as otherwise they wrap around the roller so much that I lose suction - again this is due to the sheer amount of hair in this house so that won't be a problem for a lot of people, but I can imagine that if you have long haired pets (or lots of daughters!) you'll find you need to keep on top of this too. It picks up everything I throw at it; crumbs, general dust, hair and even saved me from cut feet one day when I accidentally knocked a glass vase off the bedroom window sill and had it smash into smithereens across the entire length of the room. After a thorough vacuuming with this Hoover I was confident that I'd removed all shards of glass, the thumping of the glass being sucked into the vacuum worried me a bit as it seemed very loud but no damage was done to the insides or the hose.

This is marketed as an 'energy efficient' vacuum, with a wattage of 1400W and suction power of 250 air watts. I have no idea if this is any better energy-wise than other cylinder vacuums but I'm sure it's something to consider if you're in the market for a new vacuum, the only other thing to tell you is that the Hoover comes with a 5 years manufacturers warranty - although don't bank on this as in my experience Hoover DO NOT like upholding their guarantee and warranty claims, so if your machine goes wrong in this time you need to be prepared for a bit of wrangling to get them to honour their promise!