Stick vacuum cleaners

Test performance

Hard floors – uses the power head (or hard floor head if included) to pick up a variety of materials such as cornflakes, potting mix and flour.

Carpet – for our “quick” carpet clean score, we rub a precise amount of dust into a piece of test carpet and then, using the standard brush head, pass the vacuum over it four times and weigh the collected dirt. For our “full” carpet cleaning score, we make a further six passes and weigh the dirt collected.

Pet hair – we rub pet hair into a piece of test carpet, then use the standard brush head to vacuum it up with 10 passes and weigh the collected hair.

Ease of use – assesses the movement of the main cleaning head, looking at the vacuum’s ability to clean under low furniture, as well as versatility and mobility, ease of emptying, control use and what on-board tools are provided.

We no longer include corners and edges and handheld performance as part of our overall score, but we do note how well each model performed these tasks by giving them a good, acceptable or poor rating.

Predicted reliability

It’s reasonable to expect a new appliance to remain fault-free for at least the first five years. Our predicted reliability won’t tell you whether the vacuum cleaner in your laundry will stop sucking tomorrow, but it does show which brands make models that are less likely to fail.

Owner satisfaction

Satisfaction is important – no appliance should be a source of buyer-regret. Appliances with very satisfied owners are more likely to get cleaned regularly and maintained well. Their owners are more likely to seek repair for faults than look for a quick replacement.

Repairability (coming soon)

Older appliances are more likely to go wrong, but common faults should be repairable. Repairs should be affordable and convenient – parts need to be easy to find at a reasonable cost, instructions should be available, and repair shouldn’t need hours of expert labour.

We haven’t been able to assess repairability yet, but it’s important, so we’re gathering data and forming a plan so we can start including it in our lifetime scores. It will be challenging. We’ll need to analyse product failure data in our reliability surveys, conduct hands-on inspections to evaluate how easy products are to take apart, and investigate which brands make spare parts available at a reasonable price.