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eagle100

Vacuum for tile / wood

eagle100
15 years ago

I stopped in the vacuum store to get bags. While there I asked about a better vacuum for tile & wood flooring. They told me canister types are the best. Uprights are for carpet, which I knew. I have a Ricarr upright. They said the Ricarr Moonlight was made for tile / wood flooring. The plus is its under $300, which was quite a surprise for me. Anyway, what do you all use on tile / wood floors. I swiffer but need to vacuum also. Anyone recommend anything else?

Comments (9)

  • bookert
    15 years ago

    eaglemom,
    Doesn't your Riccar have the switch that turns off the beater bar? Mine does, it says floor or carpet.
    I use it on my laminate flooring sometimes, but honestly I usually sweep due to living in the dirt! =)
    LOVE my Riccar BTW!

  • eagle100
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Yes my upright allows me to turn off the beater bar. But frankly it just doesn't seem to clean the floor all that well. I think its because it doesn't sit all that close to the floor and dirt, etc seems to blow away from being sucked up. Hope that makes sense. Which Riccar do you have? I love mine too, on the only two room bedrooms that have carpet.

  • justjustin
    15 years ago

    A canister really is the best. Any good quality canister will do when it comes to cleaning the tile/wood floor. It isn't like it has to get down deep in the fibers to remove embedded dirt. I would think that Sears/Kmart, Wal-Mart, Ect.. would have something cheaper but for a Riccar that really isn't a bad price. In my house the housekeeper uses a canister to vacuum everything so we really don't have to worry about switching. At the moment I'm loving the Ocean Blue machines, but be prepared to pay $1500+ for one of those. On the upside, you would be able to deep clean your carpet with it AND get your tile/wood floors clean at the same time.

    HTH,
    Justin

  • geguymw
    15 years ago

    Eaglemom,
    Your Riccar will fit an optional attachment kit which includes a very long hose, two wands, floor brush, upholstery tool, dusting tool and crevice tool. All you would have to do is attach it to the attachment port of you upright. Then you could vacuum your floors without having to purchase another vacuum cleaner. Which upright do you have?

  • bigdoglover
    15 years ago

    You already know you shouldn't use a beater brush or beater bar on the wood. Also, very importantly, for wood floor (or any hard surface floor) you need CONTACT with the surface. An upright even with its beater turned off, does not give any contact other than the wheels (also a bad thing for wood floors). It just sucks and whatever it happens to get, great, but it hasn't touched the floor. The floor needs something like a soft brush all around the suction hole, touching, scooping up, gathering, to be sucked up into the vacuum.

    So the only thing that will do is a bare foor attachment as described above.

    The other thing that works pretty well is a Swiffer VAC. It runs on a rechargeable battery, has the swiffer pad going ahead making the contact to pick things up and the vac behind sucking up other stuff. I find the Swiffer Vac first, then a cotton mop with wet solution on it second, works.

    I'm trying to get my house as dust free as possible at this time though, so am re-thinking if the canister with floor attachment might be more thorough, though up until now I have sworn by my Swiffer vac.

  • eagle100
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    I've been looking and looking at canister vacuums. I think its between the Kenmore Progressive and the Ricarr Moonlight. Price wise they are almost identical. I hate these type of decisions.

  • jiggreen
    15 years ago

    I'm using an Electrolux Pronto (battery operated stick vac) on my hard floors (kitchen, laundry/mud room, family room, foyer and bathrooms) and I LOVE it. I have two extremely furry dogs and 3 extremely messy kids (plus a husband who brushes all of his crumbs off the counter onto the floor!)and this vac works great. The only downside is the dirt collection cup is small, but I just empty it out after using it, then pop the vac back on it's charger so it's ready to go the next day.

  • stir_fryi SE Mich
    15 years ago

    Does the Pronto edge clean very well? Like under cabinet doors? I heard it does not.

  • jiggreen
    15 years ago

    I haven't had a problem with the Pronto getting under the toe-kick on my cabinets. The main reason I wanted the Pronto was specifically for edge cleaning. My dogs are border collies with fairly long fur and I get lots of dog fur balls around the edges of my floors which drives me completely nuts! I could sweep my floor constantly (I hate sweeping)..or drag the big vac with the hose out...several times a day, and still find more fur balls an hour later. The Pronto is MUCH more convenient and takes no time to suck those hairballs and dust bunnies up. I just run it right along the floor by the baseboards. I have kind of modified the Pronto to better suit my needs though...... the Pronto comes with a bristle roller....I don't know why, because I don't think it would do well on carpeting at all. Since I purchased it strictly for my hard flooring, I removed the roller. (there is a small plastic screw that holds the roller on) I think it works much better without the roller (and the battery seems to last longer), plus I don't have to worry about the dog hair twisting itself around the roller. Everything now just gets sucked directly up into the collection cup....it's basically a glorified (albeit kind of expensive!) dustbuster with a long handle, but for my purposes it works great.