HEPA Vacuum Cleaners what are they and why are they the ONLY choice for Serious Cleaning!

To enjoy the benefits of the clean air in your home, office or other place of residence you should be aware of the benefits of HEPA Filtration. HEPA is the acronym for “High Efficiency Particulate Air,” and the HEPA filter was developed by the Atomic Energy Commission during World War II to protect researchers from radioactive dust particles. HEPA is a filtration standard. A vacuum without HEPA filtration may just redistribute dust and dirt throughout your room.

What a HEPA Filter Does

The HEPA filter traps particles as small as .3 microns with an efficiency rating of 99.97%, and you can’t do better than that. It means that for every 10,000 particles that enter the filtration system, only three particles will pass through. Pollen dust can be as small as five microns, and a particle of ten microns is invisible to the naked eye, which may give you a better idea of what this filter will capture. HEPA filters are used in laboratories, surgical environments, and every place that has extremely high clean air standards. A “HEPA-type filter” is less expensive but does not work nearly as well as a true HEPA. The product should state that it is rated at 99.97% for microns .3 in size or it is not the real thing.

HEPA Vacuums are the Top Choice for Allergy Sufferers

It is very important for allergy sufferers or anyone with breathing problems to purchase a vacuum with the lowest emissions possible. Also, if you want to protect small children or you have a pet in the house that sheds hair and dander, a great filter for your vacuum should be high on your list of “Must Haves.” Household dirt comprises between 75% and 80% dead human skin cells, and the rest is hair, animal dander, dust mites, pollen, dirt, soil, etc. A HEPA filter on your vacuum is an important cleaning tool that will help ensure the quality of your air. Some HEPA filters need to be replaced periodically; others can be washed.

Bagless Vacuum Cleaners Are They Any Better?

For Clean Air Protection, Choose “Bags” Over “Bagless”

If you have severe allergies or breathing problems, not only HEPA vacuum cleaners, but also a model that collects dust and dirt in disposable bags is your best choice. Bagless cleaners vacuums, on the other hand, save money and time because the machine suctions up and collects dirt, dust, and soil in a bin or some kind of container that is simply emptied and replaced; disposable bags have to be purchased and are sometimes difficult to place correctly in the machine.

For disposable bag vacuum cleaner models, you have to keep a supply of bags of the right make on hand, remember to check the fullness of the bag at regular intervals, and replace it when it is about two-thirds full to keep the suction of your vacuum operating at peak efficiency. However, the cost of vacuum bags is not very high and if you use them, the dirt and dust is safely trapped and discarded. Emptying a bin from a bagless vacuum allows a certain amount of dust to escape into the air again, and doesn’t offer the same protection. In fact, if you have allergies or breathing problems, you should wear a mask when emptying a vacuum bin.

Bagless Vacuum Cleaner Marketing Hype or The Way to Go

What was unthinkable many years ago had suddenly become all the rage in the world of vacuum cleaners. The bag-less vacuum cleaner, once thought of as an impossible dream, has now become a profitable reality. Although still in its infancy, the bag-less vacuum cleaner is gaining in acceptance around the world.

The current style uses an internal system called Filtered Cyclonic, a descriptive phrase that describes the means of separating the dirt and dust from the incoming air stream. The filtered cyclonic invention uses a directional air pattern to spin the vacuumed dirt inside a cylinder, forcing the heavier and larger particles against the wall of the cylinder where they drop to the bottom of the collection bin. The faster and faster the dirty air spins, the better the separation with only the smaller, lighter particles remaining in the middle. These leftover particles are then sent through the device by the outgoing air stream, through a filter designed to remove them from the air before it exits the back of the machine. It wasn’t until the 1990’s this invention was applied to household units by the now-defunct Fantom Vacuum Cleaner Company of Canada.

I took the rather Expensive Dyson Vacuum cleaners for a test drive at a local department store. Verdict? Neat design, but way overpriced for what they are. Felt very cheap to me. In fact the plastic on one was broken off and it didn’t even run!

Another type of bag-less vacuum cleaner uses the “dirt cup” and is found mostly in commercial units. Used successfully for over 30 years, these bag-less vacuum cleaners use no disposable bags but are not cyclonic. Debris and dust is filtered from the air stream by a cloth bag similar to the early designs.

The difference here is that this bag collects the dust and debris on an inner wall inside the bag and forms what is called a “filtering dirt cake”. The vibration of the motor and general movement of the machine causes the dirt cake to fall off when it reaches a critical mass of weight and it lands in the dirt cup which can be easily removed, cleaned and reinserted back into the machine. It is only recently that the dirt cup bag-less vacuum cleaner has been introduced as a household cleaner.

So don’t be pulled into purchasing an expensive vaccum cleaner based solely on the claim that it is bagless and therefore better.