Best 12v vacuum cleaner for narrowboat that's NOT a Dyson?

[WotEver]

 

Not heard of this one so thanks for the suggestion.

 

Is it any better than a Dyson at coping with stove ash?

 

It has no attachments Mike. It's strictly a floor cleaner. G-Tech want you to purchase the Multi for the 'fiddly' stuff:

http://www.gtech.co.uk/cordless-vacuum-cleaners/multi-cordless-hand-held-vacuum.html

 

Tony

[Jim Batty]

No one has mentioned G-Rech AirRam. We have the K9 model (best for pet hairs) and the hand held. They are absolutely brilliant. We vacuum every day because if the bug brown hairy Labrador and only charge the K9 once a week. It's so easy to empty. The handheld runs about 40 minutes. It does fill quickly (a good thing?) but easy to empty. Much better and much longer running than Dysons in my opinion anyway. We have friends in houses who swear by these devices. Also, quick to charge on the boat.

 

The Gtech floor sweepers look pretty good -- the £30 difference between the SW22, SW20 and SW02 seems to be a matter of battery technology and charger. I think a rotating brush is necessary for pet hair.

 

Do you feel your Gtech vaccums are well-built and solid? Or do they seem a bit plastic-y (with sophisticated small bits sticking out that would be easy to snap off if not careful?)

 

Thanks for mentioning these -- never heard of them before. (They also do what looks like a pretty cool eBike!)

[WotEver]

Jim, they all have a rotating brush head. The K9 just has it designed differently to reduce the amount of 'hair wrapping around the brush' plus it has stronger bearings according to the video.

 

No bits sticking out and yes, very robust. Ours is a couple of years old and still works like new.

 

Tip - buy a spare set of filters so that when you wash them you can put the spare ones in. They take a good 24 hours to dry completely.

 

Tony

[Retardedrocker]

 

I bought a Shark Rocket HV300UK 26 last weekend.

 

Similar to the Dyson Animal, but 240v and corded ( 8 Mtr.)

 

£129 from Argos. Works a treat.

 

Cheers,

T.

[Jim Batty]

... Outside the guarantee you have the protection (for 6 years or 5 in Scotland) of the Consumer Rights Act (from Oct 2015) or the Sale of Goods Act prior to this. Your rights are with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Most retailers will say that they can do nothing once the manufacturer's guarantee is expired or send you to the manufacturer, which has no legal responsibility, so it's worth taking a printed copy of evidence that the retailer is responsible.

 

Remember that it's the retailer not the manufacturer that is legally liable.

 

 

 

... Here's the rub. I used it 2 - 3 times per month for about 10 minutes each time. For just over 3 years.

 

Here's the maths: 2.5 x 10min = 25min/month x 40 months = 1000 minutes = 16.7 hours. Now it doesn't work.

 

... After less than 20 hours use!

 

Update to my Dyson saga:

 

After I had given up on them, Dyson did come back and offer to pick up my vacuum and have their in-house team look at repairing it. But I can’t understand this as anything but a charade. A few weeks after taking the vacuum away they rang me up and said "The trigger is broken”. Which of course I have been telling them for a couple of months now. Surprisingly their repair people don’t open up any components. For example, they wouldn’t undo the screws, take out the trigger and look at it. "Dyson repair technicians only replace components.” And they offered to sell me a new head component (that contains the trigger) for £68. Which they offered, and I refused, a couple of months ago.

 

I still believe that a premium product that breaks after less than 20 hours use is a faulty and/or poorly designed one -- even if the original warranty has passed.

 

 

Anyway, I am weighing up Mango’s advice to tackle John Lewis (the seller) based on the Sale of Goods Act. (Weighing it up, as I do have a life, and a pretty busy one these days.)

 

Suffice to say, I will never buy a Dyson product again and, given my experience, really couldn't recommend them.

 

 

Thank you all for your comments and input.

 

May the suction force be with you.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Jim Batty

[Rendelf]

I can never understand why peeps want a rechargeable vac, to recharge from boat batts?

 

We've completely refurbed our boat in the last 18 months. It's been a building site. 750W Hoover Spritz...I think it was £40. I've used it to pull up wet rust, ash, scews, slag, crumbs,metal shavings, earth, copper, more rust...it's covered in bitumen and paint. Abused it. Still works just fine. Is bagless. Empty after about thirty continuous minutes. Probably only slightly bigger than a £200 Dyson.

 

[Jim Batty]

Update to my Dyson saga:

 

After I had given up on them, Dyson did come back and offer to pick up my vacuum and have their in-house team look at repairing it. But I can’t understand this as anything but a charade. A few weeks after taking the vacuum away they rang me up and said "The trigger is broken”. Which of course I have been telling them for a couple of months now. Surprisingly their repair people don’t open up any components. For example, they wouldn’t undo the screws, take out the trigger and look at it. "Dyson repair technicians only replace components.” And they offered to sell me a new head component (that contains the trigger) for £68. Which they offered, and I refused, a couple of months ago.

 

I still believe that a premium product that breaks after less than 20 hours use is a faulty and/or poorly designed one -- even if the original warranty has passed. ...

 

Sorry, sorry ... I thought I’d laid this to rest. But there HAS been a rather strange turn of events. (I’m assuming you’re half-interested if you’ve made it this far).

 

I was told (above) by Dyson’s customer support people that their repair technicians wouldn't take apart my DC34’s head to evaluate the faulty trigger because they only replace components. And as I didn’t want to pay £68 for a new head they would return the faulty one to me. OK.

 

When it arrived (at my workplace) I pulled it out of the box to show to a colleague and pulled the trigger. And it worked! Maybe it ‘repaired itself’ banging about in the post? Then I noticed that the screw that secures the back of the handle component had been removed and not replaced. Seems it HAD been taken apart.

 

Anyway, I thanked the support people by email, and asked them to send me a replacement screw. Well, here’s the reply I received:

 

"As the screw is not available as a part in itself, I have ordered a completely new Type A Main Body for your DC34 to be sent to the delivery address below."

 

Well, isn’t that bizarre? After months of faffing around, to the point where I am thoroughly p*ssed off with this company, I now have two operating vacuum heads -- and old one and a new one! If I’d received this response even a month ago, I would be praising Dyson to the sky. But I’m now ambivalent about the whole affair.

 

BTW, they didn’t send the vacuum head "to the delivery address below” -- the only one I’d given them, for pick up and return the head for repair -- but to a London forwarding address (from their database from the original sale?) that required a bit more faff.

 

Hmmm. Happy to have clean carpets again though.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Jim Batty

[WotEver]

Bizarre but good