Update 12/16/09
We have owned this vacuum for about a year and a half. I posted this review with no idea about the amount of traffic it would attract. It seems a lot of people need a vacuum for pet hair! Well I’m sorry to say that I just got word from Best Buy that my third (yes, third) replacement is ready. When this vacuum works, it’s amazing. However, there is an issue with the beater brush motor and I’ve had the same problem on two different machines now where the beater brush stops spinning with any resistance. Thankfully I got the Best Buy repair plan when I bought the vacuum. I can no longer recommend the vacuum due to this big issue. There are two critical elements to successfully picking up dirt: suction and disruption. Without the beater brush the vacuum is extremely inefficient at picking up anything, let alone pet hair. The search is still on for the perfect vacuum and it seems a few commentors have been pleased with their Dyson. I’m still struggling with the price, but I’m a lot closer to spending $500 than I was a year and a half ago.
Jennifer and I have been using the same, inexpensive vacuum since we moved into this house four years ago. The carpet has since been replaced so there shouldn’t be too much dirt in the carpets, right? Well, we have two long-haired cats with dark gray fur. They like to chase each other around and pull out clumps of fur all over the house. The old vacuum was good at getting most of the surface level stuff, but we could tell it wasn’t doing a great job. Jacob will be playing on the floor soon and I don’t want a bunch of dust and dirt in our carpet. We finally decided it was time to get a new vacuum this week.
I looked around for quite a while at different vacuum reviews. One of the sites I check daily, woot.com, had a refurbished Dyson for $280. Given the standard $400-$500 pricetag for these vacuums I was close to justifying the purchase. However, after a lot of time on the internet I got the feeling Dyson is to vacuums what Monster Cable is to audio/video cables: a marketing company first, and a vacuum company second. Monster makes fine quality products, but the price is so outrageous for most consumer installations that it doesn’t make any sense. A $6.00 HDMI cable from monoprice.com will work just as well as a $100 Monster cable in most typical home setups. Does the Dyson performance really justify almost four times the price of a mid-range consumer vacuum? Surprisingly, most people don’t think it does. Yes, it will pick up a ton of dirt out of your carpet, but what if a Hoover or a Bissell will do the same thing for 1/4 the price?
Being the frugal guy I am I decided Dyson is not for the Mallorys. I then resorted to the best vacuum I can get for under $200. We have two requirements 1) it needs to pick up pet hair and have a long hose and attachments to pick up cat hair from the sofa and 2) it must have HEPA filtration for our newborn’s sensitive nose and lungs. I settled on the Bissell 3920 Pet Hair Eraser
I got home and wanted to test the new vacuum to see if would pickup anything more than our old vacuum. Here are the results:
The new Bissell Pet Hair Eraser vacuum and the test room.
Side-by-Side: Old vacuum on the left and new one assembled on the right. The Bissell is larger and slightly heavier.
First pass with the old vacuum. Not bad, right? Our natural fiber green rug always sheds when we vacuum.
The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser results right after the old one had a shot at cleaning. Now that is a lot of extra dirt and fuzz picked up by the new vacuum! You can’t see it very well, but below the rug fiber fuzz is a decent amount of pure dust and dirt.
How about the sofa? Does the pet turbo brush really work? The photo below doesn’t do the results justice because our cat’s hair is really fine, but trust me the Bissell got a lot of stuff off our sofa. I’m actually pretty grossed out by the amount of stuff that was on our couch. At the bottom of the canister is a bunch of dust that probably doesn’t need to be explained… gross.
So in the end am I happy with the Bissell rather than the Dyson? YES! The Bissell was 1/3 the price of a new Dyson and it does a great job of picking up pet hair and dander. The feedback on the Dysons and the number of refurbished units for sale online scared me straight. The Bissell is light enough for easy use, has a 14′ hose, plenty of attachment options, a pet hair collector near the brushes and a great filtration system. Not only that, but I got a 4 year service plan free thanks to the Best Buy 12% coupon. If anything goes wrong I just take it into BB and they either fix it there or give me a new one. That sure beats sending it back to the manufacturer at my expense since these things aren’t cheap to ship.
