RFI: Vacuum cleaners for owners of hairy dogs

[Toonces]

I know a lot of people on this forum have a variety of dogs that shed worse than mine. My primary interest is robotics for the bulk of the work and a cordless to handle the spots the robotic misses (stairs, ceiling spider webs, spot cleaning, whatever). What vacuum cleaners have you found that actually work? I'm would like to attempt to control the fur dust bunnies that form on a daily basis...

Thanks in advance,

Toonces

[Clobbersaurus]

Just spent a week with my brother. He has 3 dogs, 5 birds and a bunch of fish. The dogs are hair shedding poop machines. He bought a Dyson V10 cordless handheld.

Thing is frigging awesome. The amount of hair and dog filth it picks up is amazing. I highly recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/Dyson-Cyclone-Motorhead-Lightweight-Cordless/dp/B0798B31TC

[RevolverRob]

Nothing.

Seriously, though, we have a Dyson Animal that we use in carpeted areas and an older Roomba Pet for downstairs. The Roomba does an okay job acting like a sweeper, but it has to run 3-4 times a week to keep up with the amount of hair from two cats and a dog. The Roomba we have is also a brush-type vacuum and has to be cleaned once every two weeks or it simply stops picking things up. It's not too hard to clean, but it is a 20 minute job. It has to be emptied every other vacuum or it's useless. When we didn't have a dog and we had a smaller apartment, the Roomba worked well. Now with a bigger apartment and a dog, it just can't quite keep up.

So, consider your square footage, carefully. Roombas basically can do a decent job on 500 sq/ft or less in a single run. If you have more space the thing will be running constantly. And contrary to what the commercials show, it's a vacuum cleaner - it's LOUD.

The Dyson makes short work of everything. Runs like a champ. Wouldn't trade it for a hundred Roombas.

[blues]

I know a lot of people on this forum have a variety of dogs that shed worse than mine. My primary interest is robotics for the bulk of the work and a cordless to handle the spots the robotic misses (stairs, ceiling spider webs, spot cleaning, whatever). What vacuum cleaners have you found that actually work? I'm would like to attempt to control the fur dust bunnies that form on a daily basis...

Thanks in advance,

Toonces


https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7aCYDNm1kXgSUgXm/giphy.gif

"We may as well just drive right off the cliff!"

[StraitR]

I'm in full agreement with Rob.

We have a Golden Retriever and Long Haired Miniature Dachshund. Goldens are legendary shedders, and mine is no exception. I swear he can shed an entire new dog, and clone himself, within a week. We vacuum, daily. So, vacuums... We destroyed three run of the mill "Target" vacuums, each lasting roughly a year and a half, before buying a Dyson. We purchased the model specifically for pet hair. Ours is the DC65 Animal, but I'm sure they have a new model out, as we bought ours almost for years ago. Also purchased the grooming attachment, which works like a charm. I'll post a screenshot below.

Side note on Dyson CS... My wife thought we were having an issue with it, so I called Dyson for service. Not only did they happily register my product two years after we bought it, over the phone, but they ultimately called a local shop and arranged for me to drop it off. Also provided a repair time estimate, all covered by Dyson. As it turned out, it just needed to be cleaned out well, and we never took it in for service. Still running strong, no issues. Anyway, Dyson CS was unbelievably polite and accommodating, just as one would expect from a premium brand. I mention this, because excellent customer service is more the exception these days, rather than the rule, regardless of price point.

Dyson's are expensive, no doubt, but I know we spent more (total cost) on the three we burned up prior to getting ours. In our house, I'm the spender and my wife is the saver, and even she agrees, it was money well spent.

You can look up whatever the latest "Animal" model is, but I highly recommend this attachment if you get a Dyson. It greatly cuts down the amount of vacuuming needed.

29859

[Greg]

We've had expensive vacuums from Riccar and I am pretty convinced that dog hair kills vacuums in 2-3 years. A coworker agrees and she has owned a few Dysons.

I may just start buying whatever Costco has cheap and plan on replacing it every 2 years.

[Coyotesfan97]

I have a Dyson Animal with the pet groom attachment. It excels on our Huskie!

[gringop]

I have an old Neato XV-14 that i got because it was a factory recondition and was cheap. It did fine with one indoor cat. Note that this was in 2014, the new ones have much better features.

Here are some old notes on it. The newer models have bigger bins and a rotating brush on the right front that fixes the crap getting on the edge sensor.

************************
Pros:
Don't have to stand around and vacuum.
Interesting to watch it make robot decisions.
Goes under beds and other furniture that are > 6" off the ground.

Cons:
Only cleans to 2" distance along walls, leaves 6" diameter circle
around table legs. It ends up with dust/cobwebs stuck to the right front
corner. (this is where the edge sensor is)

Small 6" x 6" x 4" dust bin. One big dusty carpeted room will fill it
up. To empty it you have to take it outside and dump it in the trash.
Dumping the bin itself is not messy but the crap clings to the
filter/lid and I smack it a few times on the side of the trash can and
the dust flies all over. Granted, I so the same thing with my bagless
canister vac filter but the point is it would be a dusty frigging mess
if you did it indoors.
Sometimes heavy stuff (pebbles, shell cases) do not get sucked up into
the bin and stay down in the pan so I have to pick the whole thing up
and turn it upside down over the trash.

Looks like the newer models Neato BOTVAC has a bigger bin and filter and a
side brush that fixes the 2" along the wall problem.

Robot brain stuff:
Normal behavior is to roll out a few inches, stop, rotate 90 degrees
and map that area. It then starts cleaning the outer perimeter going
counter clockwise. Once the perimeter is done, it starts going back and
forth like a farmer plowing the field. It will do the dining area by the
back door completely then move into the kitchen and do that. Once it has
done everything, it returns to where it started, starts recharging and shuts down.

You can pause it but when it is unpaused, it remaps and kind of starts
over again. I have seen it get confused and go back over stuff it has
already done but never has it gone totally crazy and wear itself out.

It has a quick clean mode where you can set it down and it will do a 4'
x 4' area in front of where you put it.
********************************************

You can watch it in all it's linux powered, IR laser mapping, robot glory here, (turn down the sound)

Gringop


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOSE7ua2mCE&feature=youtu.be

[UNK]

I have a panasonic canister that is hepa and i really like it. The best thing I have found so far for stripping dogs of their hair is a Furminator. They also sell a vacuum attachment for the brush. http://www.furminator.com/products/deshed.aspx
http://www.furminator.com/products/discard/hair-collectors/vacuum-accessory.aspx

[Duelist]

I got fed up with killing vacuums and bought a shop vac. Seriously.

[UNM1136]

Our Dyson lasted about 4-5 years, with a hundred dollar cleaning in there. Two cats two dogs. It might have been the kids that killed it. On a Shark now, and it was comprable to the Dyson in performance. Cost less and easier to maintain. I did not have a great Dyson CS experience when mine started to go. I would try Dyson again, if when I needed one I had the scratch right then. I would get a Shark again if I desperately needed a vac and did not have the scratch for the Dyson.

pat

[JAD]

A real key for me is taking Katie outside and working the furminator for ten minutes a day.

[PD Sgt.]

We have a Dyson Animal II that we just bought to replace our original Dyson Animal that had broken (in all fairness, it held up really well until my wife started using it as a construction vac during remodeling). The Animal II has no problem making short work of everything our Husky and cat can shed.

I considered the handheld, but the volume of pet hair we pick up would have required emptying the cylinder way too much to be convenient.

And I will second the recommendation for outdoor Furminator use. That thing is amazing with the hair it gets out.

[SD]

1. Sebo
2. Meile

Both are excellent vacuums, we prefer the Sebo only because it is smaller and a little lighter. We are a dog tested home for decades. Most of are vacuums in the past degraded significantly after about 18, months of dog hair/fur collection.

[BJXDS]

Another vote for Dyson, in any case it is a never ending job!

[Chance]

We have a Neato Botvac (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?24214-Cool-Tools!&p=561058&viewfull=1#post561058) that has worked well for the cats. Needs to be emptied and cleaned after every run, but that takes a grand total of three minutes. Most of our cats have hair and not fur, so I'm not sure how well this would work for dogs.

We need to run it multiple times a week to keep up with the load, but it's a robot, so it's not like the thing is going to complain. Neato just released new models a few weeks ago, so prices on all the existing models have come way down. Amazon usually lets you return things within 30 days, and I'd say this is definitely worth a try.

[Peally]

Furminators are fun, usually when I'm done the amount of hair floating in the woods make like look like someone hit a skunk with a 30mm grenade.

[Guerrero]

1) Furminate with extreme prejudice.

2) Go down do your local Kohl's (or whatever) and buy a decent vacuum, but only expect it to last a couple years. We burned through a Dyson, now we have a Shark Rotator. Our Rotty mix (mixed with what? Dunno, something that sheds. A lot) leaves a layer of hair on our carpet that we have to vacuum up about every two days, and need to empty the canister after every vacuuming.

[RevolverRob]

RE: Dyson is expensive. Our Dyson Animal is actually a refurb model, costs about $100 less than a normal one. We only have carpet upstairs. Downstairs, for spots, we do have a cheapo Dust Devil Canister, that a friend was getting rid of when she moved. It took two good cleanings to get it running right, but it works fine on the laminate we have downstairs. In combination with the Roomba we do okay. Though, I still find sweeping daily with Roomba on M-W-F does the best job.

Hair Bunnies (we get a ton of with our dog, I swear he sheds two new dogs a week) seem best dispatched with a canister and hose.

PS: I would not trust a robot to clean carpeted areas worth a damn. For a while we had area rugs down and the Roomba couldn't clean an area rug worth a damn. I can't imagine how well it would work on low-pile carpet, on high pile carpet it will do an okay surface clean.

PPS: We do Furminate regularly and I use a desheding blade on the dog every couple of days. It helps, but he still sheds like crazy. He HATES the vacuum, or I'd use one of those vacuum grooming attachments on him.

[Darth_Uno]

We got a Dyson Ball (https://www.dyson.com/uprights/dyson-ball-multi-floor-2.html?istCompanyId=6a0b38f5-3d12-43da-a787-b6e37cc4e1e5&istItemId=-xxapimqmwa&istBid=tztx&utm_source=google.com&utm_medium=paid_search&utm_campaign=us_en__floorcare__upright__dyson__na_ _na__Google__na__all__na__na__Shopping&utm_content=goo_405943863&utm_term=PRODUCT+GROUP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIp8W648uk3QIVSZ7ACh0CjQrxEAQYBCAB EgIqcvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CM3pnObLpN0CFQOxTwodScgHcQ) a few weeks ago after our old Dyson crapped out after 9 years. The previous Dyson was great, and I'm pleased so far with the new one.

We've got two little terriers that do what I call "projectile shedding". I can't believe how much hair this sucker pulls up. We also put hardwood in our entire main level to keep allergens out of carpet. If you go more than a couple days you see little dog hair tumbleweeds blowing across the room.

[Hambo]

1) Furminate with extreme prejudice.

Hell yeah. Then we use a Dyson to get the leftovers. Had two CS experiences with Dyson, both good. One was way our of warranty, not a warranted part, and they still gave it to us on the house. That said, we did kill one. The Dyson, not the dog.

[Sal Picante]

The Roomba does an okay job acting like a sweeper, but it has to run 3-4 times a week to keep up with the amount of hair from two cats and a dog. The Roomba we have is also a brush-type vacuum and has to be cleaned once every two weeks or it simply stops picking things up. It's not too hard to clean, but it is a 20 minute job. It has to be emptied every other vacuum or it's useless. When we didn't have a dog and we had a smaller apartment, the Roomba worked well. Now with a bigger apartment and a dog, it just can't quite keep up.

So, consider your square footage, carefully. Roombas basically can do a decent job on 500 sq/ft or less in a single run. If you have more space the thing will be running constantly. And contrary to what the commercials show, it's a vacuum cleaner - it's LOUD.

The Dyson makes short work of everything. Runs like a champ. Wouldn't trade it for a hundred Roombas.

I have 5 dogs, 3 cats, a bird, and a 3 year old...

We roomba 2-3 times a day. Actually - we have the Amazon version of the roomba which is awesome and cheaper. I empty it out in 10 minute intervals, mostly while making breakfast.

I also vac twice a week with a Dyson Animal vac.

Having tile and hardwood floors helps immensely...

Don't forget to change your air filters once a month... Buy the cheap filters in bulk packs.

p/Bm6u64AA9H_D2_YkPrOvdJ21mffl5zyIi2gpyM0

[RevolverRob]

We roomba 2-3 times a day, emptying in 10-minute intervals.

That sounds like work.

I honestly would rather just do what my mother does. She sweeps twice a day (morning and evening), with four dogs, a daughter, a husband, and two grand kids (5 and 7) who track everything into the house. Twice a day sweeping and uses a Dyson cordless canister to suck up the sweepings. Her floors are pretty much clean enough to eat off of.

If I swept once a day like clockwork, we'd have zero hair problems on the hardwood. We'd only have the carpets upstairs to contend with. We have berber carpet and pretty low maintenance for animal hair (once a week vacuuming seems to do it).

Plus a broom is a hell of a lot quieter than a Roomba. I actually really don't care much for the thing. Depending on my next house, I may well divest myself of it. What someone needs to do is 1) Make it square (round leaves lots of areas uncovered). 2) Make it a canister. 3) Add HEPA filters. 4) Eliminate the main brush. 5) Give it a huge battery that can cover 1000 sqft in a single charge.

My ideal Roomba would probably look like one of those robot lawn mowers, but it would actually suck (literally) instead of sucking (figuratively).