The best way to ensure you love your new vacuum cleaner is to choose the right type for your specific needs. Aside from central vacuum systems, there are four basic types of residential vacuum cleaners: Upright, Canister, Stick and Robot. Our blog below identifies the right circumstances for each one.
Upright Vacuum Cleaners
BEST SUITED FOR
Thorough, deep floor cleaning of entire homes and large areas, particularly those that are mostly carpeted.
BIGGEST DRAWBACKS
Generally the heaviest category, awkward on stairs.
Upright vacuums are the traditional, stand-up units most customers are familiar with using. Upright vacuums have a large cleaning head that sits on the floor and connects to a mid-section that includes a large chamber to capture and retain dust and debris and a right-height handle at the top to maneuver the vacuum around your space.
Upright vacuums stand up by themselves when not in use making them easy to store in a small footprint. In fact, many models even have room in the mid-section to store commonly used accessories and hoses. The Miele U1 Series Cat & Dog upright, for example, features a detachable hose for specialty cleaning and includes accessory nozzles for upholstery, crevices and dusting. Each of these is conveniently stored in mid-section compartments of the vacuum when not in use.
Upright vacuums typically perform best on carpet and typically can handle anything level of thickness. Many models, like the Miele mentioned above, now have settings and capabilities to clean solid flooring like hardwood, tile, etc.
Upright vacuums tend to be the loudest type of vacuum cleaner and some models can be hard to turn and navigate around tight corners, but by far the most common complaint about upright vacuums is the extra weight. Generally speaking, upright vacuums are by far the heaviest category, which is particularly challenging in applications with stairs. For starters, the simple act of lugging a heavy upright vacuum up and down stairs can be challenging in and of itself. Try to actually vacuum those steps and the challenge grows. Due to the size of most upright vacuum heads, you almost always have to use attachments, which isn’t the end of the world, but if your staircase is taller than the reach of your accessory hose you’ll be stuck balancing a heavy vacuum in one hand while you vacuum with the accessories in the other hand.
Canister Vacuum Cleaners
BEST SUITED FOR
Thorough, deep floor cleaning of entire homes and large areas, particularly those with multiple staircases, tight corners and a variety of surfaces
BIGGEST DRAWBACKS
Longer learning curve, clumsy storage.
Canister vacuum cleaners are a great solution for most customers. They can perform well on multiple surfaces and are easier on stairs or difficult to reach corners, cracks and crevices.
Canister vacuums feature the same general parts of an upright vacuum, but each part is separate to create a lighter and more agile solution.
The vacuuming head connects to a long wand with a handle on the end that is used to control and maneuver the vacuum head around your space. A hose connects the head, wand and handle to a container (or canister) that sits on the floor behind you collecting and retaining the dust and debris pulled up by the vacuum head.
Canisters feature built-in wheels and are usually lightweight enough to be easily pulled behind you. You may, however, bang a door frame or piece of furniture from time to time as you learn to adeptly navigate the canister as you vacuum around your space -- particularly if you’ve never had a canister vacuum.
Canister vacuums generally perform better than uprights on solid surfaces like hardwood and tile because they can usually produce better suction and are often more gentle. The more basic vacuuming heads on canister vacuums rely on straight suction power and are generally recommended for solid surfaces or low pile carpeting as a result. More dense carpeting typically requires a powered vacuum head with bars and brushes similar to an upright to get a thorough clean.
The biggest advantage to a canister vacuum is the nimbleness to handle a variety of surfaces, items and room layouts. As stated above, the vacuum heads are generally better for maintaining hard surfaces but are capable of performing well on carpet as well. Additionally, they’re typically much smaller than an upright head so they can fit in tighter spaces and more easily navigate around corners, furniture and other obstructions. The lightweight, two-piece design also makes stairs a much easier task and creates for a more seamless transition from traditional floor care to cleaning furniture, drapes, blinds and more as you’re simply swapping vacuum heads or accessories rather than reconfiguring the vacuum entirely like with an upright.
Aside from occasional collisions between your canister and objects in your room, the biggest common complaint with canister vacuum cleaners is they can be awkward to store. You need space for the powered head, hose and canister at a minimum and in many cases, you have additional heads and accessories to consider as well. Many Miele canister vacuums feature compact canisters with internal accessory storage for the accessories that are included in the box, however, they’re still going to generally be more cumbersome to store than an upright option.
Stick Vacuum Cleaners
BEST SUITED FOR
Apartments, condos and other small spaces or as a quicker access secondary vacuum in larger spaces
BIGGEST DRAWBACK
Small vacuum head and dust/debris storage
Stick vacuums are a great solution for many applications. Most have a compact storage footprint, simple controls, lightweight design and are powered by rechargeable batteries for simple, cord-free vacuuming. These features and more make them well suited for small spaces, low traffic areas or as a secondary vacuum to handle everyday cleaning needs between whole-home cleaning sessions with a canister or upright vacuum.
In any application, the easy access design of a stick vacuum will likely encourage you to vacuum more frequently, which is always a plus!
While the small, lightweight design produces many positive benefits, that design is also the stick vacuums' biggest weakness. It simply lacks the size to be useful in large and/or whole-home applications. The vacuum head itself is usually smaller than an upright or canister vacuum head, which requires more effort to clean the same size space. In addition, the dust and debris storage capacity is generally limited as well.
Another limiting factor is carpet. While many stick vacuums perform admirably on solid surfaces and low pile carpet, virtually all struggle with dense carpeting regardless of room size.
Still, stick vacuums are extremely popular and we typically hear positive feedback from customers that use them in applications that best suit their strengths.
Robotic Vacuum Cleaners
BEST SUITED FOR
Daily cleaning of high traffic areas in between regular upright or canister vacuuming
BIGGEST DRAWBACKS
Automation mishaps, stairs and limited dust storage
Robotic vacuum cleaners are disc-shaped, self-propelled vacuum cleaners that use battery power and sensors to get around your space and clean throughout the day. The sensors allow it to find it’s compact charging station when the battery gets low and avoid obstacles like stairs, floor lamps and furniture to avoid damage or interruptions while cleaning.
The biggest advantage of a robotic vacuum is consistency. Aside from brief recharging stints, you can literally vacuum all day every day. No other vacuum gives you that ability.
All that said, similar to the stick vacuums above, we find the most satisfied customers are those that utilize the unit in small spaces, low traffic areas or as a secondary vacuum to handle everyday cleaning needs between whole-home cleaning sessions with a canister or upright vacuum.
While some are better than others, the biggest knock on robot vacuums is little automation hiccups that pop up and impact performance.
For example, while they have sensors to avoid furniture, stairs and other hazards, they can often miss areas with tight openings and may find things your eye would know to avoid like shoelaces, plugs and other hazards. In addition, if your floor plan is chopped up or full of obstructions, your robot vacuum may actually get lost when roaming and fail to return to the charger before the battery expires.
Beyond automation hiccups described above, small capacity for dust and debris storage and confinement to a single floor are other limitations of deploying a robotic vacuum on large spaces or whole-home applications.
Limitations aside, however, a robotic vacuum cleaner is about the only viable solution for daily vacuuming, which can limit how frequently you need to do big, deep cleans.
We hope you’ve found this article helpful in choosing the right vacuum for you. To learn more about questions you should ask yourself when deciding or to dive deeper on features, click here to check out more vacuum cleaner content.