Hairy Problem - Not
 May 4th, 2001
Advantages:
Compact and light, great suction power
Disadvantages:
You will have to keep buying dust bags . . .
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Durability
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  anjuschka
About me:
I've been rather busy recently, so no ops. However, I went on a magical holiday and can't wait to sh...
Member since:14.03.2001
Reviews:16
Members who trust:1
Review rated by 20 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
This review received a counterstatement by a party concerned
Read Comment
To make the choice easier, Miele helpfully named this edition of their cylinder vacuum cleaner Cat & Dog. So potential customers were able to identify it as such. It worked for us. I chose a cylinder cleaner as they’re smaller and quieter, and easier to get up and down the stairs and round furniture. We don’t actually have any pet hair to deal with, only human hair of the long variety, but we have a couple of Turkish rugs which will cling to hairs and dust which can only be removed by brushing of some sort – a suction-only vacuum cleaner would not have worked here. Rugs on the other hand are tricky because they have tasselled fringes etc that can be a disaster in the making with the rotating brushes of an upright. The cleaner itself is light and compact, considerably smaller than the old upright we used to have. It has a compact body, on wheels which allow you to manoeuvre round the furniture no problem, and it is also small enough to sit on the stairs, if you prop it upright. It has a handy mechanism where you can ‘park’ the nozzle end so that it doesn’t fall over. Good for storage or vacuuming breaks.
The cable is really long, long enough to plug it in at the bottom of the stairs, work your way up (one storey) and do the immediate area around the stairs too. The cable retracts into the body of the device, avoiding a mess of trailing cable. The two main buttons (power and cable retract) are big enough to operate with your foot (gently).
It has a maximum suction power of 1600 Watt, but it also has a dial to lower this for more delicate surfaces. 1600 means that it will easily lift your carpet off the floor whilst vacuuming. Which is great in terms of suction and cleaning action, only in our case it disturbed the decaying underlay so that we now have an interesting crunchy effect underfoot in the kitchen –grin-. This will teach me to follow the instructions next time!
There are six power settings, from hard floor to curtains – if I interpreted the symbols correctly. This is a useful option to have, you can vacuum more delicate things without having to fear that they will disappear into the dust bag or be damaged. And yes – I have removed the cobwebs from the curtains in the spare room in this way. It has a special filtering system, which sends the air through a charcoal filter (Active Air Clean-Filter) before being expelled, this is supposed help allergy sufferers and helps general air quality, and keeps at bay those stale odours usually associate with vacuum cleaners. The dust bags have a great system of locking lid which means that the dust bag will be sealed off when you come to changing it. The dust bags have a useable capacity of 4l, and an indicator with show you when the bag needs replacing. There is also an overheat-indicator.
It comes with two main brushes, a conventional one for hard / carpeted floors, and a “turbobrush”. This latter accessory is what made me buy this machine over other models, it’s a really sturdy design and has great cleaning power. As it’s air powered, it’s also less likely to destroy rugs if you accidentally catch a corner – while an electrically powered brush just keeps pulling, this one will stop at resistance.
Three other nozzles are packed ‘on board’, there is the ususal crevice nozzle, upholstery brush and round brush with long bristles. All is all it’s a useful device, ours is about one year old now and still shows no sign of age whatsoever, despite having to deal with long hairs and heavy duty dirt. It’s not the cheapest cylinder vacuum but it’s certainly not the most expensive either and does a great job. Changing the dust bag is a considerably cleaner process than emptying a non-bag vacuum. Dyson eat your heart out.
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by (5%):
08.03.2009 21:48
Great review
05.09.2004 11:29
A good review with lots of detail, although I would want to know where you can buy them from and for how much?? I would probably consider this model now, if my Dyson were to break.
30.07.2004 11:40
Great review, very helpful....cheers :0)