This has been an ongoing debate, discussion, argument, whatever since Dson really took off back in the day and, these days, most all main domestic brands have gone down the bagless cleaner rabbit hole because, it’s what sells. That’s not to say that it’s actually better.

Until the late 1990’s there wasn’t a choice in this, it was bagged cleaners and that’d be that!

Then along came Dyson.

For some reason it caught on, people thought they were great and there was a collective fascination with watching the dust spin around and around. Or that’s what we all thought at the time as, we didn’t rate the cleaners for soing what they were intended, cleaning.

But, they looked cool, totally different and kinda became a sort of status symbol, “Look, I’ve got a Dyson”

Good name, cool-looking machine but that’s about all we had to say about them.

Oh and people had it in their heads, probably due to some great PR, that the more traditional manufacturers were ripping them off with bags and filters. We’ll get to that.

Bagless Myths

So in our opinion, bagless cleaners really ain’t all that good, well be upfront and clear on that and this is because we’ve yet to see and use one that isn’t pants in terms of performance when you stack it against a good bagged machine.

Don’t believe us, fine that’s entirely up to you but we’d just point to all the top end makers, with the highest levels of performance, who do not make or major in bagless machiens, ask yourself why that might be as after all, they’ve had two decades to get into them since Dyson caught fire.

Then look at all commercial cleaning. For business, schools, hospitals and so on, they all use cleaners with bags. Barring the ones that use Numatic machines and don’t bother with bags then wonder why they break so much.

The fact is, bagged cleaners perform better and, in our experience, don’t clog as much.

The marketing mantra goes that bagless performs as well as or they make out they perform better than bagged cleaners, this is, we’d say, misleading at best if not just lies, lies and more damned lies.

Filtration

Okay, so for most people that just want to run a vac around and sook up all the dust and whatnot, when they go out to buy a new cleaner they really don’t care.

They look at the format, upright or cylinder etc, the wattage (more Pooowerrr!) and tools or whatever it is they latch onto, including the brand and don’t think (all too possibly as we’ve not found it explained well anywhere) that these things while they may be relevant for sure, might not tell the whole story.

You see all vacs, in order to clean well and remove all the bad things you want them to have to essentially pull air in at speed in order to suck up the dust and dirt then they need to trap that detritus in a chamber (bagless) or bag.

In a bagless cleaner they do this with a vortex of air instead of a bag. And, you might ask what’s wrong with that and if you can do that why do we need a bag?

It’s all about flitration.

Most bagless cleaners have two filters, a pre- and post-motor one, and we cannot stress enough how these have to be good and work well, because if they don’t your cleaner won’t pick up much at all as the airflow will drop.
The sad thing about it is, when they do stop working well, an awful lot of people don’t notice and keep on cleaning with the cleaner really not doing the job as intended.

Whereas with most bagged cleaners, once the bag is full, it’s time to replace it and pretty much (other than the odd motor filter change), you’re back to peak performance. And, there’s often an indicator to tell you when the bag needs to be swapped. It’s a pretty bulletproof system that’s simple, works and keeps on working.

That is why bagged cleaners are used in commercial and high-end situations as, the performance doesn’t really degrade the same, you can visibly see when you need to intervene and, it’s dead easy for users to fix.

The bag is, in essence, a big filter and one that catches all the gunk it suck in trapping it in a convenient and easy to deal with bag. Ditch it and you’re done.

Bagless, meanwhile, you have to empty, check filters constantly and clean or replace them and boy, do they cost at times then you have to clean out the chamber thing, most of which look horrid after a short period.

Wow Cleaning

A relative of someone in the office was a staunch Dyson lover, don’t ask we never figured that one out either but she swore by them. So much so that in the space of a decade she had at least three of them, we know this as we got the parts to fix them.

One day, the latest one broke, and the part wasn’t available and she was spinning as it was coming up on Christmas, guests etc, you probably know the sort of thing and we had an old Sebo cylinder vac with a power head on it kicking about so, we loaned it to her.

A week or so later her actual comment was, “Wow I never knew that my floors were that dirty, the carpets actually changed colour using the Sebo!”

She now swears by Sebo and will not part with it. She will never go back to a bagless cleaner.

Was that the fault of the bagless cleaners though or a failure to maintain the filters? We really don’t know but, the end result is the same, for this user a bagged cleaner worked better. 

The thing is that when you get a new bagless cleaner you won’t see the degradation in cleaning for a while and, by the time it does degrade most people won’t notice until they do something like the above. Then you see it.

We also suspect that weight had a thing to do with it as the old Dyson cleaner she had weighed a ton, it was one of those ball things and in comparison, the Sebo was featherweight and a hugely easier to use. 

Our point being, it can often be more than just one thing that drives a decision. 

A Clear Answer

As you have no doubt sussed, the clear winner for us is bagged cleaners. Every time.

We’d even go further and say that, for most people, most of the time, a bagged cylinder cleaner will be the best bet. They are simple, reliable, easy to use, easy to manoeuvre and handle, suitable for most homes and maintain.

For all those reasons and more, it’s why they are also the most popular choice for commercial cleaning as well.