How to Keep Your Vacuum Cleaner Running

Keep Your Vacuum Cleaner Running

In the daily fight of keeping your home tidy, the vacuum cleaner is an invaluable appliance to have in your cleaning arsenal. Previously, we have looked at “How to Pick the Right Vacuum Cleaner”, the “4 Must Have Vacuum Cleaner Tools” and “How to Change a Vacuum Drive Belt”, enabling you to make the most out of the appliance.

In addition to following the advice outlined within these posts, there are other steps we recommend you take if you want to ensure you keep your vacuum cleaner working to its full potential. These include:

Diagnosing Vacuum Cleaner Faults:

As with all household appliances, the vacuum cleaner can easily gain faults. But you can help reduce the risk of such faults having a significant impact on the appliance by being able to diagnose them at the first sign of them occurring.

Two of the more common faults you’re likely to experience with the appliance include:

Not Picking Up Dirt:

Have you noticed a trail of dirt left on the floors as you vacuum? This is likely to be caused by a loss of suction, which can be the result of the bag / dust canister being too full (see below).

Alternatively, the agitator brush may have become clogged with dirt, such as loose hair.

Due to being the part of your vacuum which comes into contact with dirt first, the vacuum cleaner agitator brush is always susceptible to becoming clogged. But this is an easy issue to rectify.

Once your vacuum is switched off and unplugged from the mains electricity, lay it down so you have access to the brush, which will give you a clear view of any blockages. You should then be able to clean the agitator brush by cutting free the hair and removing it.

Motor Straining and Getting Hot:

Whilst carrying out your weekly clean, have you noticed the vacuum’s motor straining or becoming unusually hot? If yes, firstly switch off the appliance before it overheats, and then check for any possible signs of blockages which are restricting airflow.

The most obvious area for blockages is a vacuum bag / dust canister which has become too full. All being well, emptying the vacuum should rectify the issue. But it if doesn’t, we recommend checking the vacuum cleaner air filters too.

Each time the vacuum is used, the filters run the risk of becoming clogged. We recommend not only regularly checking the filters for blockages, but cleaning them too.

Another way to check if the filter is causing the issue is to remove them from the appliance, before giving your home a quick vacuum. However, it’s worth noting prolonged use of the appliance, without the filters can increase the risk of further issues occurring.

Vacuum Cleaner Bag

Vacuum Cleaner Maintenance:

Whilst being able to diagnose faults will help you to rectify issues as soon as the first signs of faults occur, maintaining your appliance can help to limit faults occurring to begin with. There are various components of the vacuum cleaner which we recommend you regularly check and keep well maintained, as outlined in our post “How to Maintain a Vacuum Cleaner”.

One of the key aspects of maintaining your vacuum is to:

Empty Regularly:

Whether you have a bagged or bagless vacuum cleaner, it’s important to empty it regularly. How often your vacuum cleaner needs emptying will depend on the dirt you’re removing from your home. For example, if you have pets it’s likely you’ll be vacuuming regularly, to prevent clumps of pet hair from building up.

Regular use of the appliance means it’ll need to be emptied more often than one which is only used weekly. Although with that said, we would recommend emptying your vacuum cleaner before it becomes two-thirds full, as this will significantly reduce the risk of the appliance:

a)      Becoming hindered by unpleasant odours.

b)      Losing suction due to the bags being too full.

In addition to regularly emptying your vacuum cleaner, we also recommend if you have a bagless model, to regularly clean the canister and to check for any scuffs or scratches which can easily harbour germs and bacteria. Should you find the canister is scratched, it’s important to make sure you replace it.

For those with a bagged vacuum cleaner, we recommend regularly changing the bags to ensure you keep these fresh. At BuySpares we stock an extensive selection of compatible vacuum cleaner bags, which are suitable for a wide range of makes and models.

By being able to diagnose faults in the appliance and keeping the vacuum cleaner well maintained, will help to keep it working to its full potential for longer; enabling you to keep your home clean for little outlay.

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