Made in the USA
Consumer Reports March 2006
We are often asked about standardized testing of central vacuums. “Has there ever been comparisons by major organizations?” Consumer Reports July 2004 did their first blurb on central vacuums and it was a total disaster according to everyone that I interviewed. They really did not understand what they were testing and obviously provided “Best Buys” to the least expensive products. The article was interspersed inside an article discussing the problems of portable vacuums and it only confused the consumer.
So March 2006 issue was just published in response to all the uproar and strangely they did not even mention central vacuums. At MD, we believe that they recognized their shortcomings and opted not to confuse the matter further. They had called our factory back in 2004 and spoke at length with us but obviously our market is still too small to be considered by them.
Because of the uproar regarding the 2004 article, the Vacuum Dealer Trade Association (VDTA) did contact the Consumer Reports and it was learned that they have developed their own tests over time and feel quite confident in their results. The new issue did have quite a few interesting findings;
Ironically in this issue they actually listed some portable vacuums as “not recommended.” This seems to be any vacuum that scored less than or near 50 on their 1-100 scale. Vacuums costing the consumer $60 actually scored higher than a $1,000 model! Over 72,000 responses to the CR Questionnaire revealed Hoover and Kenmore having the worst track record for repairs but stats for Dyson had not been compiled because of it’s fairly new entry into the market. A brief glance at on-line posting among vacuum cleaner professionals shows Dyson will quickly be winning in this category.
“Six of 19 newly tested uprights and canister vacuums broke or emitted high levels of dust” is the opening sentence to the entire review. Consumer Reports stated outright that the “Cordless Vacuums don’t deep-clean” and vacuums with disposable bags spread less dust. It also recommended that those with allergies should think twice before purchasing a bagless model.
Most portable vacuums scored well on cleaning hard surface floors and they praised uprights with longer hoses, bag-full alerts, I was surprised to see the $700 Oreck placed at 11th with the $400 version almost dead last at 33rd. The average canister tested weighed over 23 pounds but the average upright was over 18 pounds.
So what does all this say about central vacuums? I guess we need to keep pounding away about the power, reliability, filtration, ease of use, and quality of a central vacuum. I know that our satisfaction rating was 100% when we surveyed thousands of our users if they would purchase a central vacuum again!