Dyson DC14 All floors Bagless Upright Cyclonic Vacuum

Dyson 'sucks' up the competition!

I don't like household chores.

My wife doesn't like household chores.

We have two ragdoll cats (long hair, lots of fur, lots of shedding).

We have a housekeeping service that cleans our house.

In short, the house cleaning service does a good job at cleaning the house except that they leave my carpets dirty and dusty.

We have/had an Oreck XL vacuum that we used to clean the carpets but never used it for the bare floors. I realized that it did a sucky job at getting the dust out of the carpets when I was vacuuming during the day and noticed nothing but a cloud that constantly hovered around the bag and around the rotating brush head. This was a clear indication to me that the vacuum scattered the dirt around the head without sucking a lot of it up AND the stuff that made it to the bag didn't stay in.

So began my hunt for a non-repeat performance of an ill performing cleaning piece of equipment. I have read the Consumer Report article what they tested as the best vacuum but for some reason I was drawn to the Dyson. Don't ask me why because I 'consult' the Consumer Report a lot on long term purchase such as household appliances. We got our washer, dryer and dishwasher all from the 'top-rated' decision.

Okay, call it slick marketing as one of the reasons on why I chose the Dyson. The packaging was different and caught my eye every time I passed by it at Costco. It was like it was calling out 'buy me, buy me!!!' What I also superficially liked about the vacuum was the unique look and the bright colors it was made from. Yes, yes. I am like a bird attracted to shiny objects but I wouldn't be the first now, would I?

If Dyson's success was truly the result of excellent marketing of an inferior product, the public would eventually catch on, not buy the product and at times, file a class action lawsuit following at times! Anyone heard of the Whirlpool Calypso fiasco? And I will even mention the defective roofing material that came with the house I got having gone through a class action suit.

I guess there will always be people who think that they are smarter, more clever and more uniquely gifted than everyone else. I tend to let them live their comical lives constantly swimming upstream. There are other reviews not on epinions.com that slam people who buy a Dyson as being victims of 'marketing'. They go on to praise themselves as not being influenced by marketing in making product purchases. I laugh at this as I have met a lot of these 'smart, independent, non-societal influenceable and non-conformist pseudo intellectuals'. They usually talk about 'saving the Earth' as they wear their leather shoes, wipe their butts with toilet paper (made from trees, of course) and drive over to some anti-war protest about oil in their gas guzzling SUV's.

Anyway, this is a review about the performance about the vacuum, yes???

I finally broke down and got it with a $75 coupon incentive from Costco.

Taking any parts out of any box always induces severe psychological trauma. I get instant and horrific flashbacks of my step-daughter lovingly getting me a hammock as a gift. On the box exterior, it said the infamous words 'some assembly required'. So I unpack the hammock and count out all the parts to number 112. The problem is that the parts list that I should have 120. In addition to several missing parts, the actual directions were pictorial with no written steps. What this means is that when you photocopy a small b&w picture about a thousand times, it is impossible to distinguish the fine details between an 8 link chain and a 5 link chain. So, after, about four hours of putting things together and taking things apart in the blazing summer sun (with no shade) of Southern California, I get it 'almost' together (because of the missing parts). The happy ending (as happy as it can be) was that I called the company and ordered the missing parts. They sent it to me 'free of charge'. Well, thank goodness for small wonders.

Again I digress!!!

Taking the Dyson parts out of the box, I quickly look for the assembly directions. Thank goodness they were written and pictorial. Putting the Dyson together was a total 'snap'. Literally! The parts all snap together and were extremely intuitive to put together.

The only thing that was mysterious was the mini-turbine head. When I pulled the hose out, took off the telescopic extension pole and attempted to attach the mini-turbine head onto the hose. There were zero directions on how to put this on. What did the compulsive-obsessive side of me do? I literally spent the rest of the evening trying to shove the mini-turbine head onto the hose to get it to click into the hose. It just wouldn't snap onto the hose no matter how hard I pushed. I know it is suppose to click into the hose with obvious male/female coupling attachments, otherwise they wouldn't be there, right?

Well, I finally gave up and waited 'til morning to call customer service. I dialed their 800 number and got a real life person rather quickly. No 'press 1 for English, then press 2, then 7, the * then please hold for a customer service representative'. I immediately asked if the mini-turbine head is supposed to 'snap' into the hose. She replied with a very quick 'no'. Gee's, they can at least include that in the directions!

Okay, finally to the vacuum performance.

After full assembly, I turned it on and was pleasantly surprised how relatively quiet it was. It produced a lot less noise than the Oreck. Well, after running the Dyson over the living/family room just once, I had to empty the canister TWICE!!! It was filled with cat hair, dirt and the nasty dust that the other vacuum just kept spitting back out. Nor did I see any cloud of dust that I previously saw with the old vacuum.

It is also very easy to flick the switch located on the base of the unit with your foot to go from carpet to floor and vice versa. As expected, it also did a great job at cleaning bare floors. The only thing is that it is a little big and bulky for the bare floors (in my opinion only).

An interesting feature is that to use the extension tube and hose, you prop the handle straight up. This disengages the suction from the floor part and directs it to the hose. To no surprise, the suction from the hose was great as well and cleaned up all that I put it on.

Ah, you thought I forgot about the mini-turbine head, right? Well, after attaching it to the hose and got it spinning, it did a great job at getting cat hair off my chairs, couches and even me! The annoying part of it? The hairs get caught in the plastic projections that are in the brush head area which required manual removal. I won't be using this attachment too much for this reason.

The other standard hose attachments we have come to expect on any vacuum (the slender thing, the widened furniture thing and the wider drape thing) are well thought out in placement on the unit within easy reach if you ever need them.

The hose was, I suppose, for cleaning stairs but I have a one story home so there will be no comment from the peanut gallery on this one.

One of my favorite features is easy canister removal for immediate guck disposal. Press one button for detachment from the vacuum, bring it over to the trash can and make sure that you put the canister bottom a little into the can before pushing another button to release the bottom. If you empty it above the trash can, some of the dust etc may not make it to the trash can. Once it is empty, snap the bottom close and put it back on the machine. You are ready for the next vacuuming session.

Everything, and I mean everything, that is on the Dyson is well placed for ergonomic access and was thought out thoroughly. The only thing I would add is a self retracting power cord. Why? Because you will enjoy using this a lot and it is a hassle to constantly hand wind the cord back onto the machine!!!