Vacuum cleaners - Oreck?

[WVBill]

My wife is wanting a new lightweight vacuum cleaner. She's seen the ads for the "Oreck 8 lb vacuum - the one they use in hotels" yadda yadda....

Anyone have experience with these?

Any other good recommendations? We've had ones from "Dirt Devil" and they've never seemed to clean very well or last very long.

We have mostly hardwood floors with some carpets.

Thanks

WVBill

 

[mjarrels]

Don't know anything about his vacuums but he does fly a cool single engine aircraft!

mark

 

[Scooby074]

The hotel thing is true. Years ago we ran a 40 unit motel and all we used were Orecks. They held up quite well in that environment. I cant say for sure if the current offerings are made to the same quality of the old ones, but if they are, then the Oreck will serve you well as a no frills type vacuum.

 

[Tororider]

I have never owned an Oreck, but have heard good things about them. We went through a lot of dirt devil type vacuums before settling on a Dyson. The dyson has held up well for a couple years, never gotten jammed up with anything and has lots of convenient attachments. I forget which model we have, but I think the ball one is a little bit smaller/lighter. Good luck.

Oh yeah, when one of the plastic controls on the height adjustment broke on the dyson, their customer service was great and they had it taken care of shortly.

 

[2manyrocks]

We have an oreck xl I bought reconditioned for about $15.00 at a thrift shop as I recall. It is very lightweight and picks up well. We also have an old Kirby that will suck the carpet off the floor, but is really heavy by comparison. The Oreck gets used more because it is so much easier to handle and does about as well in my experience. I definately would prefer to carry the Oreck upstairs compared to the Kirby.

 

[Mickey_Fx]

No personal experience but recently saw an aunt have one and I took a look at the power requirements. Tag said 2.5A, sound pretty small compared to the typ 10-12A. IMO the small power requirement has to have some impact on cleaning ability.

Now, if using on bare floors mostly, may do an adequite job and light weight is more important than absolute cleaning ability.

 

[2manyrocks]

This Oreck xl2800h2 is 4 amps so you may want to check whichever model you are looking at. I don't see any way to adjust the cleaning height on this one. I agree with Mickey_FX that there may be a tradeoff between absolute cleaning ability and the light weight. I started to say in my prior post that your carpet and the amount of dirt might affect your degree of satisfaction. We are vacuuming a low pile carpet where the dirt tends to stay on the surface. If you are vacuuming a carpet where the dirt falls into the carpet or you're vacuuming up animal hair, then you may want more power if this is going to be your only vaccum.

I bought both our vacuums used at thrift stores and have less than $50 in the two of them combined, and can switch back and forth as the situation needs.

 

[thatguy]

See that attached ratings sheets... Hope this helps

Brian

 

[dex3361]

Wife has had an Oreck for a while and the cost is to much for the machine. That is her opinion I dont have one about all I do is empty the bag and fix it when it breaks.

 

[texbaylea]

I am a great fan of built in vacuums. We installed one when we built our former home in the early 70's and the last I heard it was still going strong. I put one in the present place for less than the fancy machines that are being pushed. It does well on smooth floors and power heads are available for carpets. The power unit, ours is in the attic, draws about 10 amps @ 120v and has a very powerful suction. All you have to move around is a 35' hose and the attachments.

The bag holds 6 gallons so we only need to change it about once a year (your mileage mat vary ).

I bought our Nutone CV350 on line from Central Vacuum Stores in St. Petersburg, FL There are many similar names leaching on the reputation of these folks but their service is very good. They have all the necessary pieces for a DIY installation.

Vernon