Best Vacuum Cleaner Under $500

Looking for a new vacuum cleaner but intimidated by the sheer number of different options and functions? There are many hundreds of vacuum cleaners on the markets all claiming to do different things, choosing the right one for your home can be an overwhelming task but it really doesn't have to be as laborious at it seems, I've created this page to help people make sense of all the different types of vacuum cleaner on the market and to make some recommendations which should hopefully help you to make the right buying decision. I look at multi-floor vacuum cleaners, carpet shampooers, pet hair vacuum cleaners. vacuum cleaners for allergies, vacuum cleaners for hardwood floors, and robotic vacuum cleaners.

If you are looking to buy one vacuum cleaner which is capable of effectively cleaning all flooring types then you should get yourself a multi-purpose vacuum cleaner. This type is designed to be effective on carpets, hardwood floors, rug piles, tiles, and even screed floors. If you have various different flooring types in your home then you ideally need to buy a cleaner which is capable of being adjusted simply to work on all of those surfaces effectively. There is one brand of multi-floor vacuum cleaner which really stands head and shoulders over the competition, and that's Dyson. That may seem like the obvious choice but their higher-end models really can't be beaten when it comes to the sheer ease and effectiveness that they offer when it comes to switching between soft surfaces and high surfaces. Typically the best place to purchase new Dyson vacuum cleaners is Amazon and below I have hand selected and linked to what I believe are the three best multi-floor Dyson cleaners on the market.

Do your carpets have permanent marks and stains? Vacuum cleaners themselves only really pick up dust and dry dirt, and while spills and stains do dry off and fade through vacuuming with time, the only way to keep your carpets looking like new is to invest in a carpet shampooer. These should be used in conjunction with a vacuum, I typically vacuum my home twice per week and follow that up with a deep clean using a carpet shampooer once ever 4 to 6 weeks. My carpets were very expensive so I do whatever it takes to protect them, eight years later and they still look like new. While it may seem expensive to own both a carpet shampooer and a vacuum cleaner, the shampooer should in theory last you many years, you are after all using it much less! Vacuum cleaners don't typically seem to last much longer than 2 or 3 years due to heavy use (although a Dyson will be shipped with a 5 year warranty), but I've only had two carpet shampooers in the last 12 years, so they make a great investment and the cost is offset by the drastically prolonged life of your carpets. There are numerous brands producing excellent top-quality carpet shampooers, I've hand selected and presented a few of the best below.

There is one thing that even some of the most expensive and well known vacuum cleaners struggle with, and that's pet hair, it can be impossible to get up off of a carpet if you don't have the right vacuum cleaner. It is wise if you have a dog or a cat, particularly a dog which loses it's hair twice a year, to invest in a vacuum which has been made especially for use in pet homes. There are various great pet hair vacuum cleaners on the market, a few of which I have featured below. Pet hair vacuums still pick up dust and dirt just as effectively as other vacuum cleaners, they just make your life a lot easier when it comes to keeping control of hair!

Those who suffer from allergies and asthma need their vacuum cleaner to go that little bit further than others, particularly with trapping tiny dust particles. The great news is that most high-end vacuum cleaners are now approved for those who suffer from allergies or asthma and most contain HEPA filters. I'm not going to feature any vacuum cleaners for those suffering from allergies purely because most of the vacuum cleaners featured above are already suitable for those people. All of the Dyson cleaners above, for example, are certified as designed as required for those who suffer allergies and contain a permanent HEPA filter.

Technically if you are looking to buy one vacuum cleaner to meet all of your needs and have both hardwood and carpeted flooring, then you should be looking at buying a multi-floor vacuum, but I actually did things a little differently. The entire ground floor of my pretty large home has expensive hardwood floorboards, while the entire upstairs is carpeted, and for that reason I spent a little bit of money buying a second vacuum designed especially for hardwood floors. For more information about check out my page dedicated to vacuum cleaners for hardwood floors, the two low cost vacuum cleaners that I recommended for wooden floors are linked to below.

I'm going to finish off my selection with something incredible, fully robotic vacuum cleaners! Just switch these things on and they will clean your carpets or hardwood floors just as well as you would with a standard vacuum, these things collect 98% of dust and dirt, and clever motion sensors and other advanced chips make them extremely intelligent and fully programmable. For example, how would you like to ensure that your vacuum cleaner cleans your home every day even while you are on vacation thousands of miles away? With an iRobot that is perfectly possible, just tell him when to vacuum and he will, just remember to leave doors open for him. You can also tell him which rooms you don't want him to vacuum by using 'virtual walls', he is even clever enough not to fall down stairs, he instinctively stops whenever he finds himself sitting at the top of a stairway. The iRobot is ingenious and incredibly good value considering the technology involved, finally husbands everywhere can sit back and watch a football game in the full knowledge that they aren't going to get told off for not hoovering!