Brilliant little unit that makes spot cleaning a breeze

Published by Weeds on 04/03/2017

When you have children, you quickly realise that the amount of cleaning you are going to be undertaking will increase beyond what you could ever imagine. Most noticeable will be "spot cleans" where something gets spilled or dropped and needs to be cleaned up straight away and can't be left to be part of your weekly clean.

In the beginning my wife decided to buy a simple broom and dust pan to assist with these little accidents or spills. In addition to these spills, we also noticed that we were forever cleaning up food scraps that my children (at the age of 1 and 2) were spawning around the kitchen table. We soon found out that the dust pan and broom did not cut it and using a regular vacuum cleaner was too cumbersome and time consuming to use. We needed something that was as quick to deploy as a dust pan and broom and as effective as a regular vacuum cleaner. Enter the Dyson V6.

We chose to go with the V6 Absolute because of the addition of the hard floor tool. Friends had told us that the standard floor tool scratches wood floors unless you modify it with the addition of felt squares or some other form of padding, but the inbuilt brush isn't as good as the roller in the hard floor tool at picking up stuff from hard floors. Also there were a few other floor tools that we got that we found to be useful pretty much upon first use. The performance of this unit is fantastic considering its size and power. Don't expect to get as good a clean as you would from mains powered vacuum, still, its impressive. A Godfrey's salesperson tried to convince us that as the motor is all the way at the rear of the machine, the suction would not be as powerful as an upright stick vac where the motor is closer to the floor. As suspected we didn't find this to be a problem as Dyson have created this beast with a lot of suction power. Manoeuvrability wise it is easy to twist and turn and it can lay flat enough to be shoved under tables and chairs to retrieve dirt and dust. The trigger activates the vacuum and doesn't require a lot of pressure or finger strength to keep it depressed. I was very impressed on the job this unit does when vacuuming carpeted areas. It is a powerful and effective as some of the bigger AC powered vacuums that I have used.

Battery time is about 20 minutes or 6 minutes if you decide to use the extra powerful MAX mode for those harder areas to clean. 20 minutes may not sound a lot but you need to remember that this is not a conventional vacuum, nor is it meant to replace a conventional vacuum. if you remember that, then battery life won't be an issue to whinge about. Clipping and unclipping pipes, brush heads and accessories is easy to do and requires little effort.

Now for the not so good. The unit is noisy and high pitched and can hurt your ears after extended periods of non-stop use, especially in smaller areas where the noise can bounce off walls, so if you have sensitive ears or hearing then I recommend some sort of hearing protection. The hard floor brush head seems to struggle more on tiled surfaces where there is uneven surfaces like etched or patterned tiles and you may find yourself going back over the same area a couple of times. Wood floors without any small recesses are not a problem. Of course price is a concern as well as these units aren't cheap.

The last thing that may cause some people a bit of trouble is the emptying of the canister and the cleaning of the canister where all the dirt and dust goes. The release switch for the canister sits opposite and below the trigger that activates the vacuum. Sometimes if you have bigger hands or fingers it becomes a little fiddly and you can find yourself accidentally activating the unit. The dirt empties easily enough IF it is all at the bottom of the canister, if there is any dirt or at the top which can get jammed in there or held in place by hair (if your wife has long hair) is not easily removed as you cannot (as far as I can tell) remove the top of the unit to get access. I find myself using a set of tweezers to try and remove any of the dirt stuck in the top or wrapped around the central column of the canister.

This is a great way to compliment your existing vacuum and saves time on little jobs. Note, that it is NOT a replacement for a normal vacuum cleaner as the unit tends to overheat and shut down after 6 or so minutes of continual use and then you have to let the battery cool down in order to use it again.

I highly recommend this unit to anyone who is looking to clean up dirt and dust and food that will only take a few seconds to vacuum up and who, like me find it a real hassle to break out the big vacuum cleaner.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars