Nothing will make more of a difference to the day-to-day cleanliness of your home than buying a decent vacuum cleaner. They come in all shapes and sizes, from traditional corded upright vacuums to “stick” or cordless vacuums, powerful cylinder vacuums, specially-designed vacuums for pet hair removal and even high-tech robot vacuums. There are also wet-and-dry carpet cleaners to consider.
If you’re reading this piece, it’s likely you’re in the market for an upgrade – but which type should you go for? You can read our in depth tried and tested reviews below on cordless, pet, cylinder, robot and upright vacuums. Above that, we’ve also put a list of the best deals in the current Amazon spring sale. But, if you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick look at our top five:
What are the best vacuum cleaners? At a glance:
What should you look for in a vacuum cleaner?
According to professional cleaner Katerina Petrova of the Happy House Cleaning Company, that largely depends on the area you have to clean, as well as your budget.
Weight and manoeuvrability are priorities, she says, as “no one wants to carry around a very heavy hoover, or to keep looking for yet another switch if the cord is too short.” If you have mostly hard floors and are looking at the upper end of the price spectrum, Petrova recommends the cordless Dyson V15, which is also our top pick, as “it has a brush head with lasers and really does perfectly clean every corner of your place.”
However, a cordless vacuum cleaner may not be the best choice if you have lots of carpet or a large area to clean. Corded upright and cylinder vacuums aren’t limited by battery life, and in most instances they have more powerful suction. Petrova also recommends looking for a vacuum with a HEPA filter, “as they provide the best method of filtration and traps even particles too small to see with naked eye.”
She is also a fan of robot vacuums, which she says are a good choice if you don’t have any budgetary constraints and don’t want to do much cleaning. However, on testing the best robot vacuum cleaners, we found most were quite a faff to set up and use.