Carl Byrns wrote:
Is it possible that the point is you wern't ready to spend a lot of money
on something as pedestrian as a vacuum cleaner? g

My Dyson DC14 (not the 'animal') is three years old. Nothing's broken,
glued or duct taped. I bought it for $400 on sale at Sears. Don't tell my
wife, but I have used it to clean up the shop and drywall repair dust. The
vacuum looks like new.


Mine has the original filter. It's washable. It's three years old. Every six
months I clean it (and the entire dust seperator section) in about ten
minutes.
Vacuum cleaner companies count on the insane markup of replacement filters
or bags for the bulk of their profits. When you buy that first-of-many HEPA
filters, think about how little it cost to make versus how much it cost to
buy.

Same thing with the Dyson- it doesn't smell like a vacuum because it is not
blowing dust and dead mites back into the room air.
Sounds like Bissell has ripped off er, cloned some elements of the Dyson
design. I don't understand your comments regarding the design- the snap-in
parts allow for quick disassembly in case of a clog (happened to me just
once when it sucked up a cat toy that made through the hose and to the
second turn) and the majority of the plastic parts have some flexibility (
and impact-resistance) that shows a bit of subtly in engineering.

-Carl



I like the Kirby G4 we have. 15 years old and other than a new bag every
3 weeks or so and one impeller it has not had anything done to it. (I
replaced the impeller because the wife managed to suck up about half a
carpet which got tangled in the impeller and snapped off one vane)
HEPA bags run about 5 bucks each online.

--
Steve W.
Near Cooperstown, New York

Life is not like a box of chocolates
it's more like a jar of jalapenos-
what you do today could burn your ass tomorrow!