The GoVacuum Blog

A couple of years ago we published a Spring Cleaning list, outlining some cleaning tips for your Springtime needs. We are publishing the list again for your benefit. If you have any tips yourself, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

Spring is here, and with it all the freshness of a new season and bright starts. What a great time to get rid of a whole winter’s worth of built-up dust and grime. Of course, you’d rather be outside enjoying the fresh air and bright green… But with a thorough cleaning, you can bring all the fragrant crispness of springtime indoors. Realistically, where do you spend most of your time anyway? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to enjoy spring inside and out?

There’s a lot to do, but with a solid checklist and some creative use of your vacuum, you can make the process easier and end up with a far cleaner home. You may even be able to diminish some of your family’s seasonal allergies by making your indoor living environment a cleaner and dust-free one.

Use our tips below to get the most out of your vacuum. Don’t forget to put on some music to make the process slightly more enjoyable, wear comfortable clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty, and have all your supplies ready before you begin, so you don’t waste time mid-cleaning, running out to the store. Also, open the windows to let some spring air in and toxic cleaning fumes out. Consider investing in an air cleaner to really tackle impurities and keep the air in your home spring-fresh year-round.

* The Obvious: Vacuum your carpets, vacuum your floors — vacuum everything.
* If cleaning wood floors, vacuum and then dust mop.
* Steam clean floors and carpets with a vapor steam cleaner like the Ladybug to completely rid your home of mold, dust, mites and allergens without the use of harsh chemicals.
* Dust and vacuum all corners and crevices. Dust falls downward, so remember to go from top to bottom.
* Vacuum or wash your curtains.
* Vacuum your baseboards, windowsills, heating vents, and tops of bookcases.
* Vacuum under all beds and furniture — don’t forget to vacuum in the corners and along walls — that’s what all those cool attachments are for! Use the crevice tool to clean around wheels and legs, etc.
* Vacuum and flip your mattress; using the upholstery tool, vacuum the top and sides of your mattress to remove dust, lint, mites, and allergens. Then, flip and rotate the mattress to even out wear. Vacuum your boxspring to top it all off.
* Vacuum your lampshades.
* Clean computer and electronic equipment. Using your handy attachments, clean the crevices and between keyboard keys; use a dusting brush attachment on speaker covers.
* Vacuum out your stove vents and counter tops. Don’t forget to clean your attachments after cleaning your vents, to avoid spreading the accumulated dirt to stainable surfaces.
* Vacuum your bathrooms before cleaning them — this will make it easier to remove dust and hair that sticks when wet.
* When cleaning your refrigerator out, after removing all the drawers and removable trays, vacuum the refrigerator coils using the crevice tool attachment. Don’t forget to wash the drawers and trays in soap and water before putting them back in.
* Spot clean your upholstery using a protective chemical cleaner or a portable deep cleaner like the Bissell SpotBot.

We know that cleaning up your house inevitably leads to you throwing out a bunch of stuff that has been cluttering your house for years. Below is a list of places that may help you get rid of your clutter in a more environmentally friendly and altruistic way.

Donate Your Clutter!
While cleaning, you will inevitably find clothes, toys, books, knick-knacks furniture, and tons of other stuff that you no longer have a use for. Well, someone else could probably put them to good use! We’ve listed some worthwhile charities below for your donating convenience. Please contact us if you know of any other charities that you’d like to see added to the list. The Salvation Army - Adult Rehabilitation Centers

Goodwill - your donations will be sold; the profits will be used to fund job training and other career services that help people become successful at work.

Big Brothers Big Sisters - donate clothing, furniture, office supplies or exercise equipment to help create successful mentoring relationships.

HopeLine® - donate used cell phones to victims of domestic violence for use in emergencies.

Dress for Success - Suits to Self-sufficiency - donate old suits to low-income women to encourage self-sufficiency through career development and employment.

The Bosch 2100UC is a very nice compact canister. The machine has a tremendous amount of suction for a small compact canister. It is both lightweight (9.5 pounds) and quiet - a savior for those who are tired of dragging their loud, heavy canisters up and down stairs. This German made vacuum is designed for bare floors, stairs, and quick easy pick ups. With the use of the machine’s variable speed motor, you can easily clean between your bare floors and your delicates like curtains and drapes. Similarly, you can also clean oriental rugs with the variable speed motor, preventing the need to straddle and fight the rug when vacuuming.

In terms of filtration, the Bosch 2100UC comes with a micro scan filter that stops microscopic dust particles that cause allergy suffers, and asthmatics to have problems breathing. HEPA filtration is also available as an upgrade. The Bosch genuine type G bag is of excellent quality, keeping vacuumed up dust in the bag, preventing it from passing through the motor and causing irreparable damage. But speaking of the motor, Bosch does provide a 5 year warranty on the motor itself.

There are some downfalls to this machine, however. The 2100UC only comes with a combination tool, which doesn’t do well at all on wall to wall carpeting. It is really only designed to clean bare floors, or just a few oriental rugs, with no pet hair. The cord is rather short at only 17 feet, causing you to have to switch outlets for larger areas. The vacuum only comes with a crevice tool, and upholstery brush, with no dusting brush.

Overall, the Bosch 2100UC is good for bare floors with limited pet hair, and for general easy pick ups around the house.

Being a pet lover I find their hair and dander to be one of the most frustrating things to remove from carpets and furnishings. Cats can be particularly troublesome. If you have friends or relatives that have allergies to cats, removing all traces of the animal can be difficult.

For most sufferers of cat allergies, the sufferer is generally allergic to the cat saliva, not the fur itself. Often, you may feel you have vacuumed all the cat hair only to find your friend or relative still sneezing five minutes after they arrive. The problem may be that, whilst you have removed all the hair, the very fine dander particles have simply been distributed around the room.

Don’t despair. There are vacuum cleaners designed for pet owners. These vacuum cleaners normally come with power brushes designed to shift even the most stubborn of pet hairs. Couple this action with purpose built filtration units to filter out and neutralize even the finest pet danders and you have the ultimate in pet hair warriors.

Your pets are a part of your family. Unfortunately not everyone shares this love of owning a pet. With a cat and dog vacuum cleaner designed to remove all traces of your pet, you can have the best of both worlds. A clean home when visitors arrive and a faithful family member that everyone can adore.

The filtration units on some cat and dog vacuum cleaners are strong enough to remove many other odors as well. If mum or dad are visiting, you can quickly vacuum up all the pet hair and dander leaving the home smelling and looking great. Once mom - wearing half a bottle of her favorite, or dad wearing half a bottle of his favorite after shave, have left; another whip around with the vacuum cleaner and most of those odors are gone as well.

If you have any questions related to pets and vacuum cleaners, visit GoVacuum.com. We are only to happy to help you find the right vacuum cleaner for you and your pets.

The Rug Doctor Mighty Pro is the way customers can bring professional steam cleaning into their own homes. While there are many options for cheaper residential machines, the superior quality of the Rug Doctor Mighty Pro easily makes up for any difference in price.

I have had my Rug Doctor now for over 2 years and am yet to have a single problem with it. As a point of comparison, I barely had my Hoover V2 Steam Cleaner for a little over 1 year before I had to replace the solution tank. I was tired of replacing the cheaper units every 2-3 years (I have a very big dog, and active household, I use the machine weekly) and decided to get the best.

The warranty on the Rug Doctor Mighty Pro is a comprehensive 5 year warranty.

After buying the machine, I was lucky enough to accidentally spill red wine on my carpet. Although frustrated with my general clumsiness, I was excited by the fact that I could test out my Rug Doctor. I at first only used the Rug Doctor on the part of the carpet covered in red wine. I was amazed by the result; the section of the carpet that was previously covered in red wine ended up cleaner than the rest of the carpet after a thorough cleaning from the Rug Doctor.

The only real complaint about the machine is that it is very heavy, but you can’t expect such a powerful and effective machine to be as light as a broom. Carrying the Rug Doctor up and down the stairs is indeed a work out. I would recommend this product to anyone with an active household (kids and pets).

If you don’t have a very active household, and only use a steamer cleaner 2-3 times a year, then it’s probably a better idea to rent this machine at Safeway. But if you are considering purchasing a steam cleaner for your home or business, I would look no further than the Rug Doctor Mighty Pro

You can give your carpets a more than satisfactory clean using a steam (hot water) extraction vacuum cleaner at a fraction of the cost of a professional cleaning team.

Steamvacs or carpet extractors use a combination of soap and hot water to clean carpets in a similar manner to professional cleaners. Regular vacuum cleaners are good at removing dirt and dust from carpets, however there are times when dirt and other materials adhere to the carpet fibers and resist even the best of vacuum cleaners.

Carpet shampooers have been the traditional means to clean soiled carpets, however steam or hot water extractors are proving to be more efficient and effective in their ability to remove built up material in the carpets.

Carpet extractors work by sending water and soap into your carpet, scrubbing it, and then removing the water/shampoo mixture. Some models offer a rinsing feature to help rinse some of the shampoo from the carpet. This method of cleaning works well for light to moderate soiling. For heavy soiling, a professional team may be necessary as their equipment has far stronger extraction power.

You no longer need to hire someone to clean your carpets. Having a carpet extractor on hand becomes convenient when carpets become a little dirty due to rain (and muddy shoes) or after that birthday party and the spills left behind. Get in quick before the spills become permanent marks on your carpet.

GoVacuum have a range of carpet extractors for you to choose from. We are happy to discuss your needs and recommend the best Steamvac or Carpet Extractor solution.

While we regard Sebo Uprights as some of the best uprights in the world, Sebo also offers an impressive Canister lineup.

The Sebo K3 9681AM Canister vacuum cleaner is the lightest weight canister with a power nozzle on the market.

Weighing in at only 12 lbs., carrying this vacuum up and down stairs is a breeze. I’m a bit surprised about the quality of the wheels on the machine, but have yet to hear a complaint from any customers about this, so I will assume it has not been a significant issue for any customers thus far.

The only thing you will want to be careful about is vacuuming up the cord with the power nozzle. The brushes spin very fast, and will damage the cord quickly. This vacuum is VERY highly rated by our customers. With proper maintenance and care, you can expect a 25 year life span from the Sebo K3 9681AM Canister

The Eureka 4870 Upright Vacuum comes in a few different forms but I will do my best to explain the upright in general and give specific examples of where the differences are between the series

The Eureka 4870 is consistently rated very highly by Consumer Reports. I am still scratching my head trying to understand why. Some vacuums are so predictable in terms of what always goes wrong with them that when they come into our stores for repair, I can guess what is wrong with them before the customer even tells me. The Eureka 4870 upright vacuum is an example of one of these vacuums.

In our vacuum retail stores in northern Virginia, this vacuum cleaner is our number 1 repair customer.

The only reason I even am discussing this machine, as opposed to letting it die among other junk vacuums, is because when this vacuum is working, it cleans pretty well. The likelihood of this machine consistently performing well, however, is close to zero. The amount of time and money you waste repairing this machine is better spent purchasing a higher quality vacuum. If you have any questions about what vacuum would be better, you can either ask us or search around this blog, there is plenty of information waiting for your mind to devour.

Before I completely thrash this machine, let me first tell you about the Pros for the Eureka 4870.

Pros:
The Eureka 4870 motor actually is a very high output motor and creates a decent amount of suction power. The motor is the only metal component to the vacuum, however. As a result, this is the only part of the machine that I have had not come in for a repair.

The vacuum has a nice selection of on-board attachments. Included is a nice on board hose, an extra wand for above the floor cleaning, a nice long crevice tool for those hard to reach nooks and crannies, a dusting brush, as well as an upholstery tool. The “power paw” (as standard attachment on the 4870HZ) attachment leaves a lot to be desired, as most of the time the rotating brush driven by suction stops as soon as you put it on upholstery, or stairs.

The electrical cord on this vacuum is a nice long 30 foot cord, allowing you to be able to clean more square footage without having to go and unplug the machine from room to room. This feature will actually save you substantial time on vacuuming.

The vacuum bag is a “top fill” bag. This means that the hole where the dirt goes into fills from the very top of the bag, allowing you to really jam pack the dirt in the bag, and filling the entire bag before there is any suction loss. A lot of other vacuums have the hold on the side of the bag, which is really pointless, as you have to throw away the bag before it’s completely full.

The price is probably the best feature on this vacuum. For right around $150, the machine is very affordable, and feature packed for this price. You do get what you pay for in terms of quality.

Cons:
Now comes my long list of gripes for this machine.

The Reliable Steam Boy Steam Floor Mop T1 saves me so much time when I’m cleaning my floors. No more filling and emptying mop buckets! The Reliable Steam Boy Steam Floor Mop T1 cleans, sanitizes, and disinfects all with only the power of water. No nasty chemicals to breathe in or hurt the environment. Protect both your family and the environment.

After seeing reviews of this product online and because of the amazingly good feedback I’ve seen from our customers, I decided to try this out for myself.

I will say the assembly to this product is not as easy as I would like it to be. Also the instruction booklet leaves A LOT to be desired. After fumbling through the assembly process, I was able to get the machine together.

My kitchen floor was filthy and was the perfect place to test the power of the Reliable Steam Mop . I installed the micro-fiber pad to the bottom, squeezed the steam trigger, and watched with delight at how easy the floor was cleaned. I have a very large Black Lab in my house. Cleaning up after his mess with a mop and bucket was a chore that I dreaded doing every day for man years. Now, with the Reliable Steam Mop, I am able to clean up after him in just a few minutes and use my saved time to play with my dog instead of just cleaning up after him. Win-win situation for us both!

I have only 1 complaint after using this machine, the cord is very short. It is a hassle to keep plugging and unplugging the machine. But luckily, even after unplugging, the machine keeps its heat so I did not have to wait for the machine to reheat in between plug ins.

One suggestion I can make for when using the machine is this. If you are constantly squeezing the trigger, you will notice that the machine releases a significant amount of water. I instead prefer to only use the trigger sparingly and since the pad is already moist and hot, the machine works just as well. Controlling my use of the trigger allowed the floor to dry almost instantly and left me close to nothing to do.

Overall the Reliable Steam Floor Mop is a great time saver and easy to maintain. All you have to do is take the mop head off, and throw it in your washing machine.

Here at GoVacuum we are becoming more and more concerned about the environment. Machines and products that do less damage to the environment and generally create less waste are becoming of more interest to us. For this reason, we really enjoy the Reliable Steam Boy Steam Floor Mop T1. The machines operates without the use of toxic chemicals and produces close to no waste. Enjoy a clean house and your commitment to helping the environment.

One of the most important aspects of vacuum cleaner is its motors suction rating. Over the years there have been many different terms used. Do you understand any of these terms? I am sure most people feel that a 1600 watt motor simply uses 1600 watts when vacuum cleaning a room. Not quite. Here is a rundown of the terms used over the years.

Amperage or Amps: the maximum amount of electrical current that can flow through the vacuum cleaner’s electrical system. Amp ratings are not power ratings; they are however a part of the formula for computing the input power of the motor.

Peak Horse Power: the peak horse power rating has pretty much disappeared in recent years. It was an inflated rating found by taking the suction motor without any fans and adding as much load as possible without burning it out. This was the peak horse power.

Air Watts: air watts measures the output power of the vacuum cleaner rather than the input power. This rating is mostly used for rating central vacuum system.

Sealed Suction: sealed suction is a measure of water lift of a vacuum cleaner and is a good indication of how well it will perform.

Air Flow: air flow is a measure in cubic feet per minute. While the air flow rating is not a direct rating of the power of the suction motor, it is affected by its suction. Air flow does not take into consideration any obstacles that may impede air flow.

Wattage or Watts: wattage ratings are simply a mathematical formula found by multiplying the amperage (amps) by the voltage (volts). Wattage is a measure of the input power of the motor.

A vacuum cleaners suction rating is an important aspect to consider when comparing vacuums prior to purchasing. However, don’t assume that a higher rating means better cleaning. Cleaning can be affected by the surface being cleaned, the vacuum cleaners maintenance condition and the condition of the various components such as filters and dust bags.

Before buying a vacuum cleaner talk to those who can best advise you. They will take into account all the conditions under which the vacuum cleaner is to be used and make recommendations. GoVacuum.com are vacuum cleaner specialist and will be only too happy to answer any questions and point you in the direction of the right vacuum cleaner for your needs.

The Earlex IS2000USMP Steam Caddy is a VERY versatile machine. More than just a steam mop that can clear your floors, the Earlex can do everything from floors, to windows, upholstery, sinks, bathrooms, ovens, and stoves. This machine can even help you steam your garments and clothing to get any annoying creases out.

The Earlex has all the attachments you need included with the machine, no extra attachments to buy. From just one tank, you can get 30 minutes of steam cleaning out of this machine.

Amazing cleaning power with absolutely no chemicals, just plain water! Machines like these are the first step towards making cleaning a more eco-friendly activity by making sure you aren’t harming the environment with the use of any toxic chemicals.