Miele CAT DOG TT5000

...we decided on was the Miele Cat and Dog TT 5000. Now we have neither a cat nor a dog but this one seemed to be the best for power and performance from what we could see so this was the one we chose.

HOW MUCH DID IT COST?

As I said we looked in one or two places at the various sorts of cleaners and priced them as we went along. The best price we could get was Argos at £189.99.

SO WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
...an awkward angle whereas the Miele is carried more like a suitcase and makes it much less of a strain on my back.

THE TOOLS

The main brush is the standard floorhead and is used for carpets and floors (not unsurprisingly!) The crevice nozzle is for getting into awkward corners, crevices or folds. The dusting brush has natural bristles and is useful for cleaning skirting boards and ornate carved articles such as ceiling ... more

I have been meaning to write this review for some time now and haven't got round to it but somehow the offer of double the money for reviews during June has spurred me into action! Funny that!

Anyway the piece of kit I want to tell you about is our new vacuum cleaner - yes, yet another new one!

SO WHY ANOTHER NEW ONE?

Well about 5 years ago we bought our current house which the previous occupants had run as a guest house and we have converted the ground floor into a flat for mom (and dad before we lost him to Alzheimer's) and the two upper floors for my husband and me.

This involved a fair bit of building work such as installing an en suite downstairs, removing a partition wall to make our lounge and numerous other minor jobs. A lot of these produced plaster dust and chunks of plaster and, since it is a Victorian house, you can imagine the mess. You can see where this is going now can't you?

Both mom and I had new vacuum cleaners when we came here but by last year they were both well past their best to say the least. Maybe hovering up plaster bits isn't such a good idea then? Since the major building work is now finished and after a bit of discussion and investigation we decided to buy one good vacuum cleaner between us - we're not THAT interested in housework believe me!

SO WHICH ONE DID WE GO FOR?

Well we looked round places like Curry's, Comet and in the Argos catalogue and we kept coming back to the Miele. I hadn't had a cylinder vacuum cleaner before, always preferring the uprights that I grew up with and I hadn't even heard of Miele!

The one we decided on was the Miele Cat and Dog TT 5000. Now we have neither a cat nor a dog but this one seemed to be the best for power and performance from what we could see so this was the one we chose.

HOW MUCH DID IT COST?

As I said we looked in one or two places at the various sorts of cleaners and priced them as we went along. The best price we could get was Argos at £189.99.

SO WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

It is a compact cylinder model in Autumn Red with a stainless steel telescopic tube and an operating radius of 10 metres.

It has an onboard container set in the lid which houses the crevice nozzle, upholstery brush and dusting brush.

There are two foot switches, one of which is the on / off switch and the other is the mains cable rewind to save you having to bend down and wind the cable manually. There is also a release button to open the cleaner for the changing of the dust bag.

There is a suction power selector which means that the suction can be altered to any one of six different settings. The lightest setting is for curtains, then upholstery, carpets, daily energy saving vacuuming, lightly soiled carpets and finally the strongest suction for intensive cleaning of carpets. There is also a red warning light to show when the dust bag is full.

There is a notch at the back of the cleaner to park the tube during pauses in cleaning, you just slot the floorhead into the notch and Bob's your uncle. There is another of these notches on the side of the cleaner so that, when you put it away standing on its end, you can park the tube on the side for neatness and convenience.

It also has a carrying handle so that it can be carried easily a bit like a suitcase.

WHAT DO YOU GET WITH THE CLEANER?

As I said before there is a telescopic tube complete with a standard floorhead, a turbobrush and a turbo mini. The accessory chamber contains the crevice nozzle, upholstery brush and dusting brush. The machine comes with a couple of dust bags and a spare filter.

You also get a guarantee for two years and a full set of easy to follow instructions. These are in English. You may think that this is a funny comment to make but it does annoy me when you have to plough through a huge book of instructions to find the few pages in the relevant language. It makes so much more sense to just supply the instructions in the language pertaining to the country of sale.

NOW FOR MORE DETAILS

THE DUST BAG, FILTER AND THREAD LIFTERS

To insert the dust bag is simplicity itself - following the instructions in the booklet you just have to open the lid of the cleaner, take the dust bag which has a plastic collar and slide the collar into the holding device inside the cleaner being sure not to trap the actual bag as you do so, push it until it clicks into position and close the lid.

You are then ready to begin your work. When the dust bag is full a warning light will show on the cleaner and you will then remove the bag in the same way and replace it with a new one. Incidentally when you remove the full bag the closing flap on the bag will close automatically to stop the dust escaping. The dust bag must then be replaced - it cannot be emptied and reused.

The filter also needs to be changed about once a year and although we haven't done this yet the instructions do seem to imply that it is simple enough!

The other thing which may need changing in the fullness of time is the thread lifters on the standard floorhead. There are instructions on how to change these and they look easy enough to follow although I wouldn't have thought that these would need changing too often. They only lift bits of thread off your carpet to be picked up by the cleaner after all.

Incidentally the cost of a box of 5 bags plus a new filter is currently about £6 and the thread lifters are about £5 for a pair.

THE VACUUM CLEANER ITSELF

I find the whole thing very easy to use and not too noisy either. The telescopic tube changes length at the press of a button (I feel sure there must be a funny remark to be had there but I will resist!) making it easy to switch from cleaning floors at a distance to cleaning stairs closer to you if you see what I mean!

There is a hole in the side of the telescopic tube with a sliding cover across it. This means that you can change the force of the suction immediately by just opening or closing the hole. I find this particularly useful when cleaning smaller rugs which are likely to stick to the cleaner on full suction.

It is also a real bonus having the tools on board as I for one couldn't be bothered to go and find them out of the cupboard if I was in the middle of cleaning and would probably use the wrong brush and not get the best results.

The cleaner is a bit on the heavy side for me at 7.7kg but it easier to carry than an upright. I suffer with my back from time to time and find that carrying an upright cleaner upstairs means holding it at an awkward angle whereas the Miele is carried more like a suitcase and makes it much less of a strain on my back.

THE TOOLS

The main brush is the standard floorhead and is used for carpets and floors (not unsurprisingly!) The crevice nozzle is for getting into awkward corners, crevices or folds. The dusting brush has natural bristles and is useful for cleaning skirting boards and ornate carved articles such as ceiling roses and coving. The head can be swivelled to get the best position for cleaning. The upholstery brush is great for cleaning sofas, mattresses, covers and curtains.

The other brushes that come with the cleaner are the turbobrush which is particularly good for cut pile carpets and is the one that is really good for picking up thread, hairs and fluff and the turbo mini which is best used on the shortened tube for cleaning stairs, car seats etc.

I find the turbobrush is the most effective so that's the one I use most of the time.

There are other brushes that can be purchased such as a hard floor brush, a parquet floor brush, a radiator brush, a mattress nozzle and a few more sundry brushes but I haven't felt the need to get any of these as the cleaner and the tools I have do the job perfectly.

HOW EFFICIENT IS IT?

Well this is the most important bit isn't it? Does it do the job? The answer is a resounding YES! We are all really impressed with it.

We have recently finished having the hall and stairs redecorated and part of that job was sanding a lovely old Victorian banister that some heathen had painted white with lots of coats of paint. As you can imagine the dust was amazing! We decided to leave it all until we had finished so there was a lot of it and believe me it was everywhere.

The vacuum cleaner coped perfectly with it all, I used the turbobrush for the carpets and for a quick run over the new carpet with the suction set on low power, I used the upholstery brush and the crevice nozzle on the suite and it came up like new. I even got all the dust from round the buttons! The dusting brush got the dust off the skirting boards so all is now clean again.

We have Cushionfloor in the downstairs kitchen which is a cross between carpet and lino being a sort of carpet with no pile to it. The bits stick to it like mad and with the old vacuum cleaner we couldn't get it looking really good. With the Miele - no problem! It's the same with some mats that mom has downstairs - we always used to have to brush them by hand with a stiff brush, not any more, Miele does the trick!

The cable pulls out from the back of the cleaner and, when you have finished cleaning, you just have to make sure the cable is free from obstructions, press the rewind switch with your foot and in it goes!

SAFETY STUFF

This vacuum cleaner is only for use on dry floors. Do not try and clean up any spills with it.

Remember to unplug the cleaner before you change the nozzles, the dust bag or do any other maintenance.

Do not vacuum up toner dust as it will create static in the cleaner and may well be blown back into the room by the fan.

IN CONCLUSION

I an honestly say that this is the best vacuum cleaner that I have ever owned. This is high praise indeed from someone who didn't even want a cylinder cleaner in the first place!

It was a bit expensive compared to some of the others available at the time, but it has been well worth the money and I would happily recommend it to anyone.

Incidentally I am sure it would also be great for cleaning up cat and dog hairs as the name of the machine suggests!

This review has also been posted on Dooyoo. 

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