After years of RV travel, constantly building up dirt and trying every machine powered device to suck it up, I have come to a conclusion: No single vacuum is perfect for an RV, but some come close. Some are good (enough), some require the dreaded (dare I say old fashioned) bag and others loose (or never had) enough suction power. Here is a breakdown of my RV vacuum trial and tribulations…the good, the bag and the under-powered. Shark – This little guy is hard to beat for under $100. The attachments were functional, it kept the pet hair at bay and, after a year of use it still had good suction power (not amazing, but good enough).   Dyson – They makes some great vacuums…if only they weren’t so darn expensive! We first tried to get away with our standard upright (cleaned great) but was way too bulky for the tiny and oddly shaped areas in the RV.  If you’re looking for a good vacuum for your house, this one is excellent!   Animal – We finally broke down and got one of these guys.

It has a cord but it works like a champ on all the cat hair and obscene amount of dust we seem to collect Wild Camping all the time! The attachments are great and it gets in all the tiny awkward spaces in our RV and Smart Car. Not to mention it has not lost any of it’s awesome sucking power. Digital Slim – We also looked into the cordless option, but I like the flexibility of the canister vacs. For us in the RV we really need the multi-function action of a canister and it’s flexible hose that can go in more places. (and you’d be surprised how quick 20-30min of cleaning time goes by).  However, we know of fellow RV’ing friends who love this vacuum. Roy came equipped with a Dirt Devil Central Vacuum to which I have mixed feelings about: It’s a very love-hate relationship. The “35ft” hose can be clunky and just barely makes it to the front of our coach (so any RV over 32ft long and you’ll need an extension that doesn’t exist). It has decent suction power and 3 out of the 5 attachments are handy: The dusting, selectable rug/floor (really only works well for floors), and crevice tools are great. 

The rugrat (so called) powerbrush is useless. It is terrible on carpet and does more damage to the fibers than picking up any dirt. I have yet to find a good use for the upholstery tool. For what little upholstery we have, the dusting tool does a better job at picking up pet hair. Then there is the bag that needs replacing (for us about every 2-3 months). This isn’t that big of a deal but seriously, is this 1980? No, we now live in the age of cleanable filters and bagless vacuums. All in all, it gets the job done and came with Roy. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t purchase and install one.We did make this quick demonstration video for Fleetwood. So, keep in mind this video isn’t intended to be my personal opinions, it’s strictly informational if you’re curious to see it in action.   Bissel – Out of the gate this little guy impressed us (especially for $35). The battery would last 2 weeks worth of daily sweep/vacuuming and picked up a ton of dirt and pet hair. Sadly after about six months of use it started really loosing battery power and suction to the point of unusable.

If you’re the occasional RV’er, this inexpensive vacuum could work great but not ideal for full time use. Harlequin Great Dane Puppies For Sale Ny Black and Decker – This cordless worked fine for the first six months then quickly started losing suction. Names For Male Stray CatsBefore we reached a year of use the battery was so weak, you were lucky to get 2 solid minutes out of it. Wedding Dresses In HyderabadAlso, with no real floor cleaning option, it was best for small areas/furniture and not ideal for full coach cleaning. Of course, this isn’t every vacuum option out there, just the ones I have personally used and tested. It’s an ongoing search for the perfect cleaning companion. So, if you have a vacuum that has stood the test of time and nomadic abuse, for the love of all things fresh and clean, share in the comment box below!

Wild Camping, Boondocking, Dry Camping, Dispersed Camping, Off The Cord…No matter what you want to call it we think being out in… Staying connected on the road is one of the biggest campfire discussions (right after the always fun black tank conversations) and… I love to cook, bake, grill, blend and just about anything that has to do with food and drinks! The requested URL /index.php?showtopic=105814 was not found on this server.March 24th, 2015 | First off, I want to state this upfront. This is not a paid advertisement. We truly love this product and have loved this company for years. We felt we needed to air our love out in the open about this product. Any opinions we really did come up with on our own and are in no way influenced by any of our cats and there reactions to said product, which is usually a “Run For Your Life” scenario. He is still one cool cat no matter what we throw at him. And before some of you start sending us comments about throwing things at our cats rest assured, we would never do that.

(Little spongy balls excluded.) That’s merely a figure of speech. That being said, we can proceed with the blog post I know you all are dying to read. OK….So we all know space is limited in a motor home. I don’t care what size your rig is; you don’t have a lot of room for something like a vacuum. We all need one though. Short of creating a time-share for a vacuum cleaner because let’s face it, that would be ridiculous, this is a great solution. But first, before we awe you with our discovery, which I’m sure some of you may have already discovered, here’s a little history of our Dyson love. When we had a sticks and brick house, we had a large Dyson Animal vacuum.Boy could that thing suck up anything! Was easy to empty and clean. Had easy to use attachments and had a rotating brush head, which helped pick up every last cat and/or dog hair. When we bought our first motor home we hated having to give up our large Dyson. But really, in a motor home, who really needs something that big?

And where would it be stored? After some research we were lucky enough to find a smaller version Dyson with a telescoping handle. The Dyson DC24 Ball Vacuum. It is hard to tell from the picture but trust me; this was a much smaller unit. This worked just as wonderfully as our other Dyson did. However, we were still not happy about a couple things. 1: It was larger than we wanted for storage. Therefore it was a pain in the butt to get it in and out of where it was stored (in a closet amongst all our cloths) just to vacuum a small space and put it all back. 2: It had a cord and even though a motor home is pretty compact, we did have to move the power cord a couple times to maximize our reach. And let’s face it, in this wireless world, who really needs cords anymore? 3: We had a separate hand held vac for those smaller jobs that getting the bigger vacuum out was a pain. So essentially we had two vacuums. Don’t get us wrong. The Dyson DC24 was a great vacuum.

It still worked wonders on the dog and cat hair. And let’s not forget all that dirt, sand and debris we all carry into our rigs. We felt it cleaned really well and still was easy to empty and clean. It was just more bulky than we wanted to deal with. Now Dyson has solved our problems with their stick Motorhead vacuums. I know stick vacuums have been out for a long time. However, they really have not worked all that well in our opinion. Especially when you’re talking about pet hair. They rarely, if at all, had a rotating brush head and they certainly did not have the suction or the ease of use/emptying of a Dyson. The new Motorhead Vacuum line from Dyson however is Awesome! And I apologize to everyone in advance because once you own one of these; you will find yourself vacuuming ALL THE TIME (Or not, you will see later if you get through the video.) It’s so easy and quick. Lightweight and yes, even fun. Yup, I went there. It brings the fun back to vacuuming. I’ve been keeping my eye on these for a little while.

They’re a few different models to choose from. Some with a Hepa filter, others without, etc. What I found out is that Dyson rarely, if at all, goes on sale. Kinda like Apple and their products. So we researched which particular one that was best for our situation and we got our new Dyson DC59 Motorhead Cordless Vacuum for Christmas. And let me tell you… But in a good way. First off, it is super compact. So there’s my first issue solved. It comes with it’s own hanging rack which is also the charging station. Great as this does not take up any precious closet space nor floor space for storage. You do however need to mount this somewhere where it can reach a plug. The attachments are easily stored on the charging station. So no need to find a place to store those. You can see from the pictures that it is really compact. It fits nicely behind all the clothes on the rack so it really is unobtrusive. Being cordless is awesome! I can take it anywhere I like.

Outside to the basement area. The car for a quick clean out. Easily vacuum the steps coming into the rig. So there’s my second issue solved. Living with three cats we find it easiest to keep the mini motorized head attached, as that is the one we tend to use most often, for those quick cleanup jobs. Essentially turning it into a great hand held vac with a motorized brush head. And that’s my third and final issue solved. It’s really lightweight for all you people out there that have difficulty pushing a regular vacuum. It has a trigger grip for easy on and off. That means every time you let the trigger go, the vacuum turns off, thus saving you battery time. The battery lasts about 24 minutes on regular speed, less on super max but still sufficient. It doesn’t nearly take that long to vacuum a motor home so I’ve never run out of battery while vacuuming. It also easily transitions from tile to carpeting. No need for a different attachment. Speaking of super max mode, for those times that you have something really ground in and you need a little (or a lot) of extra power, just push the super max mode and this will increase your suction.

Be careful with small animals or children in the area though. This thing really sucks. As you can see, BK could care less about the vacuum and it’s many great qualities.You know I had to throw in a BK picture. He loves his fans!So I lied to you all earlier. I do have one, ok two, complaints, one of which is not really a complaint so much as a, “Really? This unit comes with the long stick vacuum, a crevice tool, the smaller hand held motorhead tool and another attachment that has a lint brush material on it for furniture. So basically 4 attachments. My complaint/observation is that the storage/charging station only holds the unit (with one attachment on it) and two additional attachments, three in total. So there is one attachment that you do have to put in a drawer or somewhere. I thought that was weird. I solved that easily by just not ever using that one attachment. They are NOT CHEAP. But you pay for what you get in this case IMHO. There are so many more features that I have not even touched upon.