My housemate has owned a vacuum cleaner store for like 30 years, he sells vacuums and fixes them. I work there part time. It's a little discouraging to see that most of the best known brands are now either owned by Chinese companies, or are being manufactured in China. Not that everything coming from China is garbage (although a lot of it is) the main thing is that most of them have no parts available to fix them, so within a year or two they end up in the landfill.
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Many are being made exclusively for big box stores and Amazon and if they're under warranty, normally the manufacturer will just send you a whole new machine. Outside of the warranty you're SOL.
We've seen this over and over. Instead of making a $6 switch available to the customer, they expect you to get a new vacuum and throw your old one away. Instead of being able to buy a new roller for $20, you have to buy a new powerhead for $150.
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Seen a lot of these "Best vacuum review" sites that have absolute garbage listed as their top picks, using Amazon affiliate links. 🙄
I just find it a little annoying that here we're supposed to be environmentally conscious and aren't allowed to use plastic bags or plastic straws, but that hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic garbage is being thrown out because of these disposable appliances.
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Anyhow rant over. If you have any vacuum cleaner related questions, feel free to ask. 🙂
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@nonayadambidnes I worked for a ski resort in the 80's as a contract night cleaner. The entire resort used Electrolux vacuums. A lot of times I would grab a vacuum and the damn thing would not work, so I would do an emergency Vacuumdectimy with a knife from the kitchen at 3am so I could finish my work. They were quite easy to repair as I had access to parts. Word got around and broken vacuums would show up with a six pack or a bottle of scotch. I think I kept housekeeping running.
@nonayadambidnes I had a room full of "Parts" vacuums and somehow managed to "McGyver" them back to health for the housekeepers. A lot of times it was "Plug and Pray"
@swinemiester Oh yeah, I spent my teenage years in a resort town and most of the hotels and motels I worked at used Electrolux vacuums. The old ones were good, the company has been sold several times since then so it's harder to find parts for the old ones these days, but we have several customers who still bring them in.
One lady gave us her old manuals, and they're pretty funny. Women in heels vacuuming their furs, and blowdrying their hair "the Electrolux way!" 😄