Dyson DC23 Canister Vacuum

snosbig · July 20, 2012, 6:19am

Holy Helicopter Employer!..I feel for your cleaning lady…anyway, I own this & it has a lot of power. My only gripe is the size of the small canister & IT’S LOUD!..I mean wear ear protection LOUD!! CAN YOU HEAR ME!!!..

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We bought this refub version from Woot! in an earlier offering. It arrived quickly. For $200, it’s quite a deal. The thing looked basically brand new; I wouldn’t have known it was a refurb. It has enormous suction, and it picks up pet hair like a dream. A couple of thoughts about the turbinehead. Consumer Reports didn’t like the turbinehead feature. However, their coin with me has dropped precipitously in recent years as they seem to get it wrong a lot – toilets is one example where they just blew it completely in their recommendations, and found a purported “problem” with one great toilet; the real problem is that the problem doesn’t exist and nobody else can duplicate it. Meanwhile, they recommended some toilets that break easily, are noisy, and don’t work that well. So I take their critiques with a grain of salt. Their beef with the turbinehead is that it purportedly doesn’t get deep dirt because it has no motor and thus doesn’t beat as well. They seem to ignore the fact that it also weighs a fraction of a giant motorized thing like on our old vacuum. Personally, I have mixed feelings. I think the head works fine. However, it is a little small, and because it’s air powered you lose some spin when pulling back towards you; it finds it hard to overcome that motion. Then you have our cleaning lady, who feels compelled to lean and push down on the center of the wand, pressing the head into the carpet so hard I’m afraid she’s going to snap the wand, and in so doing she grinds the turbinehead to a near-stop. I fear she is expending a ton of extra energy insofar as her method induces a lot of drag and makes the head hard to move; I think the best way to move the head is to slide it around by the grip, slowly, standing up straight and just letting it do its thing, rather than using her “scrubbing” technique. Even with her slowing the head down, due to the enormous suction, the thing still picks up a lot, but a better beater would be nice; I would love to see a Motorhead for sale on here. (All this said, she just LOVES this vacuum, and my family members, young and old, find that the lighter weight makes it more feasible for them to just go grab it instead of a carpet sweeper or broom. A head with a motor (like our old Kenmore canister) can really beat the carpet, but it’s HEAVY and makes just going and getting it a chore. The Turbinehead is so AGILE you have to love it. But don’t expect the beating action of a motorized head, which is also why positive reviewers always talk about great performance on thinner carpet. Heavy carpet overloads the head’s ability to spin. Also, there isn’t a lot of room between the beater bar and its casing, so if you get a pebble or anything that size in there, it’s going to need to be removed by hand. Dumping is easy, just push the button while holding over a bag or waste can. It sure picks up a lot of stuff. The reason it’s so good on pet hair is that it has such a huge amount of suction, and the brushlets on the beater bar are spaced far apart so hair doesn’t seem to wrap around it. So the Turbinehead is a gift and a curse, in the end. On balance, we like the whole package. We could have gotten a refurb top-rated Kenmore with a motor head for about $20 more online, but that sturdy, reliable, heavy beast would only have come out once a week to be used by the professional, not grabbed by family members for little “oops I spilled it” remedies. And, as far as I’m concerned, if our professional loves the vacuum, she’s the primary user and my own observations don’t mean as much when evaluating whether we made the right choice, and it’s certainly the right choice for the duty that the family puts it to; we wouldn’t use a heavier vac for a lot of day to day stuff. Finally, let’s talk about how great Dyson customer service is. I had a question about the fact that the Turbinehead seemed broken. When I disassembled and cleaned it off, it still didn’t seem to turn freely, and it plainly wasn’t spinning the way it used to. I had cleaned the accumulated lint from the filter over the little valve you pull and push to activate it, and it didn’t help. I called Dyson. They said, okay, you have a FIVE YEAR warranty on this, so don’t worry about it; either we’ll fix it together or you can have a new turbinehead. They suggested I blow out the little valve with compressed air and if that didn’t fix it, call them back. Really? How could that work? I bought a can of Duster keyboard blower from the store, put the little tube in the nozzle of the can of Duster, blew the valve out thoroughly, and VOILA! we were back in business. Hardly thought I would get such reassuring helpful people when buying a refurb – and I even told the lady that I had bought this through woot! when she was registering it in their system. She treated me as if I had been bestowed my vacuum as a personal gift from Sir Dyson himself. I have only had the thing a few months and feel like I have gotten my $200 worth already. Hope this helps.

effingroovin · July 20, 2012, 6:57am

oh wow a dyson! ive never seen this on woot before!

mashley111 · July 20, 2012, 7:04am

Mine didn’t look refurbed at all. They say in the little booklet that the cannister maybe scratched on the inside, I bought two (at different times) and both were like new, one piece broke so I called Dyson, talk about customer support they sent a new piece immediately under warranty.
I really recommend this vac it’s top notch.

kmeltzer · July 20, 2012, 7:10am

We have one of these (wife got one from a previous Wooting). Works well. I have my Roomba on a schedule, which keeps most of the main floor clean, but we use this for the carpets, stairs and getting under things. So far, worth it.

gak0090 · July 20, 2012, 7:13am

I didn’t make it past “enormous suction”.

felisnondomesticus · July 20, 2012, 7:34am

NO! This is not a wet/dry vaccuum. The manual says so.

BrockJones · July 20, 2012, 7:49am

How many vacuum’s can one person own? I think whoever is picking the daily deals is a vacuum freak. Stop it already. Enough. You know they suck?

wootevil · July 20, 2012, 9:12am

I wonder if this would work better than my Dyson upright?

(Only in regards to the wand/telescoping feature. In my DC07 I have to take extra steps to get that spider on the ceiling)

wootevil · July 20, 2012, 9:16am

I bought my Dyson upright as a reburb about 7 years ago and it still works great. Better than any other brand I have had in the past.

fgable · July 20, 2012, 9:23am

If only it pushed itself! I have had this unit for 1 year now. I can quickly spot vacuum all of our hardwood floors and runners. The wall caddy/charger is the bomb! Love this vacuum and my DC24!

fgable · July 20, 2012, 9:24am

[QUOTE=wootevil, post:41, topic:359988]
I wonder if this would work better than my Dyson upright?

Half as good, but for spot cleaning and quick mess cleanup on hardwood/tile floors it is worth the money! I use it more than my DC24 upright.

MichXelle · July 20, 2012, 9:26am

Mine appeared brand new, not a sign of use. It works great. We’ve almost stopped using the ball uprights, this is handling everything.

I highly recommend it. It’s as good as all the Dyson products I’ve bought, probably the most used 1. I have it close to a year with no problems at all.

MichXelle · July 20, 2012, 9:35am

I’ve stopped using the uprights. I have 1 out on loan to a family member and the other is in a 2nd story closet. It’s lighter and easier to manipulate if thats what you mean. Not sure what you mean by extra steps. That might be a height difference.? I’m only 5’2" and we all find the cannister easier to move around. I like having both and now also have the smaller, wireless DC35 so 4 Dysons, 3 styles.

MikeWeiner · July 20, 2012, 9:48am

Here’s a question to someone I’m thinking will know… What constitutes a Quality Post? How’s that determined (I’m sure I know by whom).

gooseygoose · July 20, 2012, 10:01am

Every time I think this a baby elephant going up stairs then I click on it and realize, no it’s just THAT vacuum again. When are you ever going to offer a baby elephant woot?

inkycatz · July 20, 2012, 10:11am

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BRB, suggesting zoo.woot…

Helpful or sometimes just funny posts tend to get picked, carefully hand curated by our lovely moderator team! Or you can try this approach:

But that’ll depend on who’s around if it works or not.

poorimpulsectrl · July 20, 2012, 10:30am

I’m tempted by this deal, but I have a single, important question. I live in an 800 sq. ft. apartment with hardwood floors. Should I buy this, or wait for something smaller? Maybe the Dyson handheld thing?

Also, hello.

mezos · July 20, 2012, 11:02am

We just got the next model up, the DC39. Slightly bigger cannister, small turbo brush and a coffee maker or something. I think they send a British maid once a month or something too. Anyway, great vacuum.

billmarsano · July 20, 2012, 11:07am

This is one of Dyson’s failures, I think, and I suspect this deal is not a refurb but a sell-off of a marketing failure. (Mine, too, is so perfect it didn’t look like a refurb.) In any event, the turbine is a pain if you have to change it nmoe than one per session, as you will if you have bare floors pl;us numerous throw rugs. The accessory tools are poor little things, almost useless. The hose is too short, so the thing is always riding up on your heels and the suction is just ordinary.

tallfilly · July 20, 2012, 11:31am

Woot, you’re beginning to look like Midnight box offering the same thing over and over again. So Dyson really ‘sucks’ and everyone can come to Woot every few days and find a great deal on one; find us some other great variety on things that blow, wheel or rock. I have a Kirby and then I should have closed the door when they came knocking… and I also have a Dyson that will suck forever. Please change it up and keep all these Dysons for the woot off.