Numatic Henry HVR200 > Reviews (135)

The Henry Vacuum Cleaner (which I will shorten to Henry) has followed me around being a student from my very first night at my halls of residence. To elaborate on my story this particular evening I was particularly drunk with it being the first night of freshers and I had just met everybody in the halls for the first time. For some reason Henry was in the kitchen and one of the boys again who was quite drunk started vacuuming at about 3am and I ended up having a photograph with Henry (which I have added). Ever since that night whenever we saw Henry in shops we went past we had to have a photograph (as shown in the other photograph I have added). At the shop where this photograph was taken was where I saw Hetty Vacuum Cleaner for the first time! A pink one! It is always the hoover I hoped we’d have instead of Henry but being realistic it is all a bit gimmicky! Now I have moved into a house from halls I was unsurprised to find that Henry had followed me there too, he was in under the stairs.

How Henry Started and Henry's Family

Henry was first introduced in 1920 and is under the British company Numatic International Limited which is located in Somerset. Henry is very easily distinguishable from other vacuum cleaners with its big eyes and mouth. Henry has been produced in several different colours the most commonly seen in red. There are also other members of the Henry Vacuum cleaner that I like to think are his brothers and sisters:

• Hetty in pink (virtually the same as Henry)
• Charles in blue (a wet or dry vacuum)
• James in yellow (which is more powerful and can store household pieces in the top i.e. a duster)
• Harry in green (has an Microfresh activated filter to minimise odours and removes hairs – perfect for animal lovers)
• George who is also green but a different shade (perfect for somebody who needs a vacuum that does everything including cleaning carpets and scrubbing and drying hard floors)

On the Argos website there are also the original Henry in green, yellow and blue as an online exclusive most are £97.99-£99.99.

Now you have met all the gang I will elaborate on Henry and his functions and capabilities, after all the review is on Henry but I didn’t want to leave out the rest of his family.

There are different versions of Henry including the original Henry HVR200A, Henry Xtra HVX200A (provides higher quality carpet cleaning), Henry Turbo HVR200T-2 (has a turbo electric power brush – better for carpeted homes), Henry Micro HVR200M-22 (which has a microtex filtration system with the highest allergen standard) and Henry HVR200-22 Autosave in orange/red (this contains a low energy system and is the newest system for 2010). I will be reviewing the original Henry HVR200A. As you can imagine university halls and student houses certainly do not have the modern version of Henry just the original one.

The Original Henry HVR200A

Price

This can be bought off Amazon for £94.99 with free P&P. I think this is probably the cheapest deal for it or off http://www.

henryvacs.co.uk for £93.99 with free P&P.

Technical Details of Henry

• Henry is apparently so special due to having a high performance twin flow motor
• Henry uses an excellent quality stainless steel handle
• Henry has a simple red on/ off switch
• Henry has a green energy saving switch with 50% energy saving
• Henry can be plugged in and taken an extremely far distance around the house with a manually unwinding 10 metre cord which when winds up is hidden inside the vacuum
• The hose is 2.5 metres long perfect to reach under hard to reach areas
• Dustbugs have the capacity of 9 litres so it does not need switching to a new dustbag terribly often
• Henry contains a washable filter
• Henry comes with a full accessory kit including a dusting brush, various different floor nozzles, a slide on brush for upholstery nozzle, an extensive stainless steel tube and a crevice too.

The instructions suggest to start Henry off on the energy saving mode and only switch on the red switch to give higher power if there are excessive amounts of dirt in order to save energy as much as possible.

I must say Henry is not terribly loud as a vacuum cleaner compared with others which is always a good thing, not to wake or disturb people in the house if you like to clean at early hours of the morning.

With the Henry currently in our house we have none of the extra parts from the accessory kit but to be honest I do not think we would use them. Henry is very easy to move around. I occasionally get caught up in the large 10 metre cord if I unravel it too much, but Henry is easy to move and can be used on most surfaces. I have used Henry successfully on carpeted floors, tiles and lino flooring. However Henry has small plastic wheels which perhaps could do with being slightly larger so as they do not get stuck on certain surfaces for example, ridges in wooden floors.

Perhaps because the Henrys I have experienced have been rather old and malfunctioning in various ways I do not think too highly of it as a vacuum cleaner. At home we have always had Dyson Vacuum Cleaners which I much prefer; they seem much thorough at the job and quicker. However they are much heavier than the Henry to manage.

I think that Henry is perfect for taking places if you had a job in which a vacuum cleaner was required or to take it out to vacuum the car because it is quite light and the longer than average cord is very useful. However around the house there are other vacuum cleaners I prefer despite them being quite large and bulky. I have had a quick read through reviews on Amazon which are completely mixed with some people loving it saying “Shear Brilliance” and some people hating it saying “NEVER buy a Henry Hoover.” I suppose it depends on the vacuum cleaners you have had in the past as to whether this one would come up to your standards but I do think there are more powerful and more effective vacuum cleaners on the market.

But I cannot insult Henry too much because whenever I am vacuuming and look behind me Henry has a large grin on his face which always makes me smile... no other vacuum cleaner does that!