01.Introduction
Test results for nine stick vacuum cleaners, ranging from $50 to $350.
Stick vacuum cleaners are useful around the kitchen and other areas of the home where you have an annoying spill and don’t want to get out the dust brush and pan. Easily hidden away in a cupboard, they take up less room than a full-sized vacuum cleaner and most can be split into two devices – a handheld vacuum being a part of the stick vacuum.
When CHOICE tests stick vacs, we don’t expect them to perform as well as a fully fledged vacuum cleaner, even the less expensive vacuums. We conduct our adapted standard vacuum test with them, but balance this by including tasks we expect them to perform well, such as picking up cornflakes, potting mix, flour and, for those that split into two parts, how well they clean a car.
For more information on Vacuum cleaners, see Laundry and cleaning.
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Models tested
- Electrolux Ergorapido ZB2901
- Hoover Freejet 3 in 1 FJ120I2 013
- Ivac Plug and Play
- Midea Duo 2 in 1 SC861
- Nilfisk Handy 2 in 1 18450510
- Vax Linx Cordless LXUP001
- Vax Revolution VS101
- Vax Super 2 1000
- Volta Multi Master UB156D
How we test
Hard floor dirt pick-up Our tester, Peter Horvath, uses a variety of different materials such as cornflakes, potting mix and flour to evaluate how well the stick vacuum picks up each of these from a hard floor surface.
Ease of use testing measures how easy it is to manoeuvre the cleaner; how difficult it is to empty and clean the dirt receptacle; operation of the controls; and how easy the supplied accessories are to use and store.
Cleaning corners and edges Sand is spread into a right-angled corner and vacuumed to see how close to the corner each cleaner is able to pick-up dirt using the standard cleaning head.
Pet hair removal Peter embeds cat hair into the carpet and vacuums it to a set pattern and speed in exactly the same way as the dirt pick-up test. Pet hair for testing supplied by Woof Cat & Dog Grooming, Bondi, NSW.
Dirt removal from carpet He embeds sand evenly into a section of carpet and vacuums. The sand is weighed and recorded; this is done twice for each model and the results averaged. With normal vacuums we pre-load the dust collector with dust, but these stick vacs have a very small dirt receptacle capacity so we adapted the method by not pre-loading.
Car cleaning For those that separate from the stick into a handheld vacuum, we disperse pebbles and sand throughout the front and rear floor of a car and evaluate how well they pick up these materials. This is not counted towards the final score, as not all vacs are 2-in-1 products.
Scratch test Peter sets the cleaning head to the hard floor setting and stops the brush from rotating where possible. All scored 100% for this test, so we didn’t include this result in the overall score.
Noise is measured at the user’s position at maximum power setting. Some models emit a high-pitched whistle that can be irritating, even though they may not be louder than the others.
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