We live in a two bedroom flat where space is a premium! We don’t have any storage at all! Not even an airing cupboard and all our household gubbins has to be stored in a small area at the top of the stairs behind a screen. It’s not ideal especially when you need all the same stuff for a small flat that you need for a big house; the same ironing board, clothes dryer, vacuum etc. Our old bagless upright vacuum cleaner, which is made by one of the leading brands, is HUGE! Simply a monstrosity really and although I’ve always thought it works really well (it does and is the only reason we’ve kept it) it just doesn’t fit anywhere in our flat. I can’t stand that it takes up so much room in our one and only area for storage or worse that it has to be on display; I have been searching for some time now for an alternative. Up until now I hadn’t found one because I was not prepared to compromise on quality, power, the size of the capacity and ease of use! The big aspect won over the fact they didn’t work as well you see. We have a cat, a black cat and we also have very lightly coloured carpets so the thing has to be powerful and the beast (our old vacuum) IS that! I was starting to wonder if I would ever find something just perfect for us and had resigned myself to having a giant vacuum cleaner as a major feature in the hallway… But, because I have recently been using some Vax products, including the Bare Floor Pro steam cleaner which I reviewed a few weeks ago, and I’ve loved them it seemed sensible to look more into their vacuum cleaners as well and that’s when I was introduced to the Air3! This is the smallest and lightest bagless upright that I have ever come across and at just 4.9kg in use it’s a whole lot lighter than my other one! The footprint it uses up on the floor is also very slim as is the height when away… It promised not to compromise on any of the things important to me, came with a 6 year guarantee and is suitable for hard floors as well as carpets. (we have tiles in the kitchen and bathroom so it sounded ideal)!
I could see that although the barrel looked smaller than a standard upright, in fact it wasn’t at all! 2.0ltr is a full capacity bagless so that was the first tick. The second came after my question ‘would it have as much power?’. It promised to have the same amount as any other conventional upright (225 air watts) but how could it? I thought it would let me down when I started the actual cleaning but I was surprised to realise that it has just as much suction power and in fact seems to pick up things my other one won’t like little stones or feathers! My other one is so big and clumpy it just seems to miss little things like that and the way air comes out of it blows very light things like feathers away meaning they are still there but just under something and away from where you can get to them! The Air3 with its small and nippy-ness picked them right up! (The H12 HEPA filtration also helps to remove fine dust particals, pollen and other allergens) It was also much easier to get into corners with as the head is very small and maneuverable, it goes round corners a dream because the actual head moves and you don’t have to manipulate the whole thing! We have some very tight spaces and the bedrooms which are particularly small have areas where the old vacuum didn’t even fit, this one has no such problems!
It turns corners, goes under things and right up to edges in a way that I would have had to get the little tools out in order to clean with my old vacuum cleaner.
This is a very tight space between my bed and the wall and it has been a real pain to vacuum in the past but the Air3 slips down the space very easily and because of how small it is I can go right up to the wall and under the bedside cabinet without having to even use the tools!
Talking about the tools, I found them incredibly helpful for things like in between my banisters and the upholstery tool is fantastic. I also love the way it clips over another of the tools meaning it takes up less space. On most bagless uprights it appear that the tools are all separately contained in different sections. This one is very compact. Using them is also super easy and getting the hose out and attaching them is quick and takes no thought. Unplug the hose and attach to the handle which pops out! Easy peasy eh!
Attaching the hose to the tools and using them is really quick. Sometimes I didn’t used to bother because it was so faffy with my old one and when it didn’t get into as many spaces or clean as close to the edges in the first place that meant the job was never really done very well!
I am very impressed with this one and actually am beginning the think Vax is the way forward with cleaning! So far every product I’ve used, I’ve been very pleased with indeed. So this one cleans well, is easy to use from the basic functions to storing (the cord wraps round prongs at the back and clips into place while the handle goes down very low and it is of course small in general) and all in all it’s just very, very good. I can think of one tiny thing I would change and that would be to add perhaps another meter onto the cord but this is just because I am lazy and if it had that I would be able to have it plugged in at the same place and do most of the house! It doesn’t quite reach to the bottom of my stairs which means I have to plug it in downstairs as well, not so bad eh and I’ll probably just use an extension cable! All the plus points far outweigh the one negative for me! Old vacuum has been relegated to the loft in case this one ever breaks although with a 6 year guarantee I’d say the likelihood of that is slim!
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