Posted Sep 18, 01:58 PM in News by Scott Conley

Well, I finally had enough of our old vacuum and caved to the Dyson marketing machine, buying their DC14 “Full Kit” permutation. It’s one of the more attractive color combinations, thankfully, and the only one available at CostCo.

So far, a really exciting piece of technology that keeps finding little ways to disappoint.

First of all, I’ll admit to being a sucker for the whole bagless-cyclone-suction shtick. I am just sick of needing/buying/installing/throwing out/hunting for vacuum bags for the various bag-based models I’ve owned over the years, and this whole aspect pushes a very big button for me. And it works- this thing might be taking pigment out of the hardwood, it’s got so much suction! And there is something uncomfortably rewarding about seeing all the crap you just collected in the transparent bin.

We’ve had a major problem with it though, prompting us to exchange our first one. Both units had a remarkably loose safety clutch on the beater bar assembly. This is simply a basic slip clutch allowing the motor to spin freely if the main brush head becomes caught or frozen, unable to spin. In most vacs I’ve owned, getting the front brush tied up was usually immediately followed with a horrible burning smell (the brush belt slipping and ultimately melting) and if unchecked, strong potential for damage to the vacuum’s motor.

This unit isn’t as vulnerable to that problem, thanks to this safety clutch. Here’s the problem: the clutch is extremely noisy when it slips, and it slips all the time. Simply, we were unable to even vacuum a 5×6’ area of very thin rug without the bar getting locked up on the rug itself. So I called Dyson.

Dyson offered a fix, by phone, which seems to be working well enough. There are two spaghetti-thin rubber gaskets lining the seal between the bottom plate and the main brush assembly. These serve to seal the suction into the brush assembly, forcing intake through the bottom alone. I removed one of these two seals (the rear one- it’s on the main unit, runs right under the main intake). This has reduced the upforce in the unit to allow us to vacuum our area rugs without lifting the rugs into the unit with sufficient force to obstruct the bar. Seems to work great, still giving more than ample power to fill the container with plenty of hair and dirt. Hooray, physics.

This thing was also $450. So, we will be testing it for another 30 days and returning it to CostCo if it doesn’t really earn it’s cost.

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Bits

Rob
Tuesday, September 26 2006

Poor guy, you got no lawn to mow. Now your vacuum has become a surrogate lawn mower. If the Dyson doesn’t pass the test try a shop vac. I know they are loud, inefficient, and don’t really stop dirt from being blasted back in to the room, but they can be used to clean out your gutters and suck start your leaf blower, when you get those things again. Another good thing about a shop vac is that you usually have to go to a hardware store or home center to get one. This might help you get back in touch with more manly things like tools and stuff.

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