Restore Your Dyson's Suction

Filed under: Living Rooms, Bedrooms, Essential Skills, Know-How, Living Spaces

There are few things that can make you crazier than vacuuming with a machine that's lost its suction. Here's how one writer dealt.

Unstoppable suction? Photo: Dyson.

I've been a huge Dyson fan ever since I adopted my Dyson DC14 vacuum a few years back. It was everything I'd heard it would be -- the powerhouse bagless vacuum that never loses suction. And for a long time, everything was smooth and strong until one day the suction seemed to give out. How could this be? After all, the company prides itself on saying that their vacuums never lose suction.

So we reached out directly to the man himself, Sir James Dyson, to see what he could do. But before we were connected to him, we were asked to go directly through customer service to see if they could fix the problem. Here's what happened:

The First Try: I couldn't figure out how to open the part of my Dyson that the Dyson rep was directing me to do. By the end of the conversation, he'd told me my only other recourse was to bring the vacuum to a local Dyson repair shop where it would cost me $50 to fix. I felt defeated.

Next Time Around: The next Dyson representative I spoke with stayed on the phone with me for close to an hour. When I couldn't follow her steps, she'd offer up an alternative route as I worked around my vacuum, looking to locate the source of the blockage. With her help, I found the culprit! It was a mash of shredded paper and dirt stuck in a tube on the lower end of my vacuum. As soon as I pulled it out, the suction went back to full steam. Success!

If you're having a similar problem with your Dyson's suction, try these tips before calling customer service:

Tip #1: Clean the Filters: One big lesson I learned through this, you have to upkeep your filters. I had (ahem) never cleaned the filters in my Dyson vacuum (we're talking years, here.) Regularly cleaning your vacuum's filters does help ensure that blockages don't build up inside. If you've got a new machine, learn from my mistake and start showing that vacuum TLC sooner than later.

Tip #2: Blow Air Into the Vacuum: I learned a cool upkeep tip that I'm going to follow to keep my Dyson going strong. On occasion, blowing cool air from your hair dryer into the cyclone helps clear it of debris. Here's what to do: Simply remove the cyclone from the clear bin by opening the base as if you were emptying the debris into the trash. Press the release button where the cyclone meets the bin to separate the cyclone from the clear bin. Blow cool air into the circular opening at the bottom of the cyclone using the cool-shot on a hair dryer or a can of compressed air. Some of the debris will blow out of the shroud. Tap on the side of the cyclone and the remainder of dust will fall out the bottom.

Now -- want to see what happened when I spoke to James Dyson himself? Check out the interview!

By Jen Jafarzadeh L'Italien

 

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Source: http://www.diylife.com/2011/04/13/dyson-suction/

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