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I’ve noticed that with my new hoover upright vac with a bag is much more noisy compared to the bagless vac I used to use. Has anyone else noticed this?
My experience is just the opposite. However, over time as your vac motor wears out, it will become louder and louder.
I personally can’t figure out how anyone can use the dirt cup. I switched to the full bag quite some time ago and it does a much better job. Obviously there is more surface area for air flow. If I have an extremely dirty carpet, especially with a fine type of dirt it is quick and easy to change the bag.Just this past week I thought I would try the dirt cup again. What a mistake! The upper bag got clogged fast. After the job, gettting the upper bag cleaned out took way too much time. No matter how much I shook and hit and so forth, I could not get all the dirt down into the dirt cup. Therefore when I took the dirt cup off, of course dirt fell out of the bag and all over the vac. With the full bag set up, I can use allergen filtration bags or regular bags. I don’t have to blow out the outer bag as often. I won’t be going back to the dirt cup ever again. My techs agreed. They hated the dirt cup.
Am I missing something, or doing something wrong? I just don’t understand why anyone would use the dirt cup especially after using the full bag set up. Please give me your opinions.
I’d never go back to the dust cup. Before changing to a disposable bag setup the dust would be deposited on everytghing the outer bag touched. When emptying the cup, a wad of lint and dust would fall out on the ground and now that had to be picked up. Never again!
Doug,
I am and the main reason is $$$$. Yes, the dirt cups can be a pain, but if you make sure to empty them outside, the dust isn’t as big of a deal. Plus, I can look at the dirt cup and tell if it needs to be emptied or not. Can you tell very easily with the bags? I don’t know which is why I’m asking. To switch now, I would have to pay $63 for the new assembly (if it was time to replace my dirt cup/bag, this would be moot). More importantly, the allergen bags are over $3/each. If you avg 1 bag per job on an avg day with 3 jobs, that’s $9/day or $2,340/year (5 days a week, 52 weeks in year, $9/day). I know the math probably wouldn’t play out that way exactly, but is going with the bags really worth $2k/year? Even if I shop around outside of Heaven’s Best (which we’re not supposed to), I am going to shell out roughly $1/bag ($3/day) and that puts my yearly bag total around $780. Is the bag system worth over $700/year? That’s a whole lot of 101, or a full set of new pads for the year that I could purchase with that money. Or, I could replace my dust cup set up every other month for half the amount($63 each for 6 months=$378) and the dust that accumulates over time on the outside of the bag wouldn’t ever be an issue if that is a big issue. Math just doesn’t add up for me.
Dave, the cost is not near what you have mentioned. I pay approx. 30 cents per bag and use 1 or 2 bags per day. You can feel the bag from the outside of the vac to know how full it is. I only spend about $100/year on bags. No need to buy the expensive hepa bags as the cheap ones work fine.
I agree with Brian. I get my bags at Walmart. They cost 99 cents for a bag of three. One bag usually lasts me a couple of days.
Dave,
Thanks for your response. The cost is exactly why I reconcidered using the dirt cup and tried it again. I truly was hoping it wood work. But to me and my techs, it just wasn’t a tuff decission to stick with the full bag. I also now have a way of tracking exactly what I spend on bags. BTW I didn’t even know HB sold the bags.
However, I don’t know about your experience but when I first had the dirt cup it drove me absolutely bonkers when I would turn on the vac in someones home and a puff of dust would come flying out of the bag. So I started cleaning the bag after every job. This takes at least 5 – 10 min to vac it out well enough with the porta vac. Plus I had to clean the vac hood every time and there was always dirt getting in places I couldn’t get to without taking the vac hood off. When I got home I would use my air compressor to blow out the bag. You can’t imagine how much dust is in that bag. So another 10 minutes is used to get it ready for the next day. Now we are looking at a significant amount of time. I am not going to do the math but time is money. Next I started to buy bags and customize them to fit the dirt cup bag. This helped prevent the dust poof when starting the vac. It worked but was time consuming. I only changed that bag out about 2 times a week. But I still couldn’t stand the dirt getting all over my vac every time I took the dirt cup off. So for my own sanity I really didn’t have a choice. Did I mention I have a bit of OCD.
Another benefit is in my sales. I can tell people I use alergen filtration when vacuumming (If needed). I also tell customers that I use a new bag each time so I am not bringing any body elses dirt into their home. This works great for people with alergies. As far as telling when the bag is full, I think it comes with experience. I don’t go by how full the bag is but rather how much air flow. If you are dealing with very fine silt like powder, it will clog the bag and it won’t be very full. Whith the dirt cup you wouldn’t notice this either, but you would need to clean the upper bag to get the airflow back. All I have to do is change the paper bag and I am on my way.
Last but not least. Just charge one more dollar or three, whatever the cost of the bag. I hope you wouldn’t loose a job because of on or two extra dollars. I would appreciate more imput.I also need to add another thought. The vac part of our cleaning process is so very important! If we fail to do this step correctly then the rest of the process is worthless. Air Flow in the vac is what it is all about. That is what Dyson uses for their marketing. But our vacuumm starts out with way more air flow than the Dyson, so as long as we keep that air flow our Hoover will kick the Dyson’s a@#. I have sold a few Hoovers to former Dyson owners and they love them.
Anyway, this subject is at the top of my list to get right. I am actually pretty obsessed with it. I usually spend way more time vacuumming than on the buffing. So please keep the input coming
One more question. Do we actually have to buy the vac bags from HB? I looked at the cost and it was unbelievable. I don’t know what I will do if that is where I have to buy them. I think I mentioned this before, but I have been getting mine from Sears. $10.99 for 8 alergen filtration bags and $10.99 for 15 regular bags. When I checked Wally World they were more expensive. I’ll have to check again.
Looked on Sears online and they have buy 2 and get 1 free on any Vacuum supplies. It only applies to online orders.
I went to Sears yesterday and wouldn’t you know they stopped selling the bags in the bundles I use to buy and the new bags are way more expensive. I guess they got tired of me buying them out.
Thanks for the info.
Doug is sooo correct about air flow. Our vacs are awesome when properly maintained. Air must freely exhaust through the bag to allow vacuum to exist. There are so many things that can hamper the performance of your vacuum. #1)Starting with the blower fan; if it is less than new, air flow is reduced. You should replace the blower fan yearly. #2) The beater bar is meant to loosen the soil so that it can be vacuumed up. Replace the beater bar and belts at least twice yearly. #3) Height adjustment; Do not adjust your vacuum too low. This will restrict the air flow through the vacuum. If the beater bar is in good shape, you should never be at the lowest setting. #4) The most important, REPLACE BAG OFTEN OR CLEAN DIRT BAG OFTEN. I will never go back to the dirt cup. If it becomes clogged with fine dust in the middle of a job, what do you do? I replaced my 30 cent bag three times on my last commercial job. It was not near full but I could tell the air flow was weakening. As you can tell, I am a firm believer that pre-vacuuming is the very foundation of our cleaning process.
Right On Brian!
I once replaced my inner bag 3 times on one room. Fortunately I had bid accordingly. Sometimes when I think I am finished vacuumming I will check my bag. If I determine that it may have been a bit clogged, I will start where I finished and work backward.
One thing I do take into account is the expectation of the customer. I talk to them about it before I start. Some people will actually ask for a more economical cleaning and it doesn’t matter if it is perfect just as long as it looks good. On these jobs I don’t go to excess to get all the dirt out but still make sure I do a better job than my comptitors do.
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