At the onset, let me make it clear that this write-up is Indo-centric. It is written keeping in mind the general spectrum of canister / cylinder type of vacuum cleaners(Eureka-Forbes, Inalsa, Philips, LG, PAnasultansonic, Sogo, Croma, Nova, Black & Decker, Morphy-Richards etc.), available to the Indian middle-class. The write-up does not delve into the upright or the robotic type of vacuum cleaners popular elsewhere.
For the record, canister type of vacuum cleaners are those where a flexible plastic hose is attached to a wheeled dabba that contains motor and dust-filters. The suction surface itself is at the other end of the hose, away from the dabba.
The power ratings of domestic vacuum cleaners in India are often advertised as between 1200 to 2200 watts. Amusingly, most of these vacuum cleaners come only with a 5 Ampere wall plug that can support upto 1100 watts @ 220 volts. Companies also tout about the advantages of bagless versus bagged, cyclonic versus direct-suction, multi-cyclonic versus cyclonic, so on and so forth.
The fact remains that a few of them import vacuum cleaners from China dime a dozen, and stamp their brand names on them. In fact, one can exercise some due diligence and buy a Chinese unbranded vacuum cleaner quite cheaply in India. If the eye-candy is your priority, the Chinese ones, whether unbranded or branded, do look like machines from the space-age.
That not withstanding, the final test for any vacuum cleaner is about how well it sucks the dust. Just for comparision, Henry HVR 200A, which is a much loved vacuum cleaner in the U.K., and known for its power and durability(machines lasting 20 years are not uncommon), is quite an eye-sore, and sports only a 1200 watt motor.
The motor inside a vacuum cleaner is essentially a pump, pumping out air in this case. Therefore, suction power of a canister vacuum cleaner is expressed in terms of pressure units. These pressure units can be millimeters of water column / Kilo Pascals / air watts. Mind you, the measurement of suction is always to be done at the suction surface, i.e., end of the hose without the nozzles & attachments. Some companies measure the suction close to the motor and report very high suction(which can be twice as much as the suction at the end of the hose).
But that is plain cheating. Design and Constructionguru30 of the motor, type of filters(paper / cloth / HEPA), number of filters, length of the air-path from the motor to the suction surface, bends in the air-path, and whether there are any leaks in the air-path, all have a bearing on the measured suction. Consequently, a vacuum cleaner with higher power consumption can have less suction power, and vice-versa.
Leaving aside the technicalities, it suffices to say that for effective cleaning, a cylinder vacuum cleaner will need around 220 air watts. While converting air watts into Kilo Pascals is a complicated business, about 22 Kilo Pascals or 2200 millimeters water column of suction power would do well for a domestic vacuum cleaner. Just to give you a comparision, Henry HVR 200A mentioned above has a honest suction power of 229 air watts. But companies in India advertising between 300-400 air watts suction for their vacuum cleaners is not uncommon.
In India, it is easier to employ a maid to sweep and mop the floors every day than to go around the house with a vacuum cleaner. Therefore, the use of your domestic vacuum cleaner would mostly be limited to the areas which the maid cannot readily clean, i.e., seat cushions, bed mattresses, carpets in the drawing room etc. Cleaning seat cushions, bed mattresses and carpets is again not going to be a daily activity.
Even the hygiene conscious ones amongst us do not vacuum them every day, which means that your vacuum cleaner is not going to be used every day. For this limited purpose, you do not need space-age technology. All that is to be kept in mind is the handiness of the vacuum cleaner, and its true suction power. Further, for all you know, out of all the plasticky attachments that are doled out with a domestic vacuum cleaner, you would eventually be using only the upholstery brush, the carpet brush, and the crevice-nozzle.
Attachments such as paint spray-can would simply gather dust in your attic till you loose them in your next house-shifting. So don't bother yourself too much about the number of attachments that come with the vacuum cleaner. Just make sure that the wands(extension tubes) that come with the unit are telescopic and interlocking so that they don't come apart while vacuuming, which can be quite irritating(happens with the BPL-Sanyo vacuum cleaners). In any case, if you need them, you can buy generic attachments that fit any vacuum cleaner quite cheaply on Ebay.
Coming to the technology part itself, even though they are an “old technology, ” vacuum cleaners that employ disposable paper bags as filters are the most hygienic. The dust that gets settled in the paper bag does not get unsettled during the disposal process. The bag is only to be zipped and thrown into the dust-bin. The only rider here is that the bags have to be easily and cheaply available.
Compare the above to the vacuum cleaners that employ cloth-filters. Dust that gets unsettled while emptying them spreads around in the house again, and washing the cloth-filter is even more messier.
Folks also seem to have taken a fancy for the bagless vacuum cleaners these days(LG & Croma advertise the "bagless" part prominently). But the so called “bagless” vacuum cleaners too are not totally maintenance-free. They may not have bags, but they have filters that ensure that the dust does not enter the motor, or that it does not escape through the exhaust in to the room. These filters need maintenance, either by way of replacement or through washing them periodically.
One new technology that has entered the vacuum cleaner market in India recently is the cyclonic technology. This technology employs cyclonic precipitators wherein the suspended particles in the air are separated and compacted using centrifugal force of a wind-tornado. Imagine a tornado inside a mixie-jar; a cyclonic precipitator is something akin to that. The jar can then be emptied out.
The advantage of this technology is that suction power is maintained despite the gradual dust build up in the jar during vacuuming, which is not the case with direct-suction models. However, the effectiveness of cyclonic vacuum cleaners depends upon the number of cyclones that are being employed.
Nova has a model that employs a single cyclone, Sogo has one that employs two(one for fine dust, another for hair etc.), and there are Chinese unbranded ones that employ upto sixteen cyclones. Needless to say, more the cyclones, more is the price. I have a feeling that this technology has not fully matured as of now. So it is worth waiting till it becomes cheaper and more efficient hellokids emerge in the market.
I hope this information helps you in your next purchase decision. Happy vacuuming!
