Spring Cleaning – Vacuum Cleaners On Test (From One Dog Owner to Another)

As many a dog owner knows, the warmer months mean more time can be spent outdoors – but as the weather heats up and central heating is turned off, the change in temperature can also mean more shedding.

With this in mind, Kim O’Meara from K9 Magazine has been testing three vacuum cleaners on the market to help you prepare for the coming months.

First up…

Name: Dyson DC39 Animal

Price: RRP £379.99 (trade in price £299.99)

Pros: Quiet and great at gathering the dust not visible on the surface. Works with the Dyson Groom Tool – which if you have a dog willing to stand for, is a great grooming tool without much fuss.

Cons: Felt quite heavy to move around from room to room.

Summary:

Featuring the technology we’ve come to know Dyson specialise in, the DC39 Animal features:

Radial Root Cyclone™ technology
Ball™ technology
Triggerhead tool
Tangle-free Turbine tool

Dyson says this cleaner ‘removes more dust than any other vacuum’ and granted it does seem to gather a lot of dust and dirt you wouldn’t expect to be there! I was surprised after every use, and quite grateful actually, that whatever was there not visible to the naked eye was now gone. This would be something I imagine allergy sufferers would find a particular benefit.

Although the cord feels relatively short, albeit not as short as some, it did give enough length to plug in once and cover the ground floor.

While reviewing we also tested the Dyson Groom Tool. This is a brilliant way of combining grooming where the hair is automatically sucked up into the cleaner, leaving no mess.

The Groom Tool itself is a good enough reason to get the Dyson out and in fact, Mia, my 8 year old Rottweiler now follows me around waiting for her grooming session (most likely because of the obligatory compensation biscuit given at the end).

Granted, it took her a while to get used to the noise and feel of the Groom Tool – in fact Chloe, my almost 15 year old Labrador was my ‘stooge dog’ who lay down while being groomed to give Mia confidence enough to get involved.

Name: Gtech AirRam

Price: £199

Pros: Cordless and lightweight, makes the job feel like less of a chore by making it easy for daily use. Great suction and pet hairs pick up. Energy efficient with the battery life easily visible and displayed with LED lighting on the front.

Cons: Louder than the DC39, for comparison reasons (although a good excuse to listen to music and enjoy the job a little more).

Summary:

To justify what I’m about to say – I have cream carpets throughout my home and own a Labrador with light hairs and a Rottweiler with dark hairs. I would never say I actively avoid housework, however working full time like many others and owning two dogs (and a cat), vacuuming soon becomes a chore, it feels like a never ending job and one that takes planning to fit in and do it properly. The instant you’ve finished, someone has stood up, trod in mud or decided to shake and what seems like an avalanche of hairs you thought you’d groomed out, have appeared. It’s a deflating feeling.

I often wish I could make the time to vacuum daily and it may make the job less of a time bandit, but have struggled to find a cleaner which would compliment this hope.

That is until now.

The Gtech AirRam is cordless – which makes it far less restrictive – it’s lightweight, easy to carry and move around – and has a pretty good battery life (Gtech says its energy efficient design means you can clean your home twice on one 4-hour charge, running for up to 40 minutes; a 1-hour short charge will deliver a burst of additional run time).

Although lightweight, the pick up of both dust and hairs is extremely good (something you might not expect for a cordless and easy to use cleaner).

Part of the reason it is so light is that the cleaner is designed to fit under sofas, tables, radiators right up to the skirting boards and awkward corners and you can see has been shaped to fit. It does however mean the many attachments we are used to being attached to a cleaner aren’t there, which is why we also reviewed the Gtech Multi (£149 RRP) – a cordless handled cleaner perfect for stairs, ever hard to reach corners and particularly dog beds. We found the Multi takes to the role with ease.

Having used the AirRam daily combined with the Multi for a three week period so far, I can most definitely say my carpets are cleaner than ever before – except perhaps the day they were laid – and I’m happier.

UPDATE

We’ve recently reviewed the new Gtech AirRam K9, read more here: http://k9magazine.com/blog/a-dog-owners-review-the-gtech-airram-k9/