Does the trick (Dyson DC04SL)

Member Name: Belfastgirl

Product:	Dyson DC04SL
Date:	14/01/04 (184 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Powerful Cleaner, Anti-allergy properties, No need for new bags/filters

Disadvantages: Bulky to store, Cylinder nasty to empty

Two years ago, in February, I began renting this pokey little house outside Belfast, just literally across the road from where I work. To cut a long story short, our landlord would not pay for the carpets to be cleaned, even though they have been in the house from what must be the 1970's. We?d used every vacuum cleaner under the sun to try and make them look any way decent, and nothing worked. That was until we got a Dyson DC04SL Bag less Vacuum Cleaner.

I used to think that only posh people had Dyson's, so either I have suddenly become dead posh (unlikely) or they are actually affordable. Our Dyson cost us £129 from Argos.

It certainly did the trick with our carpets, they look so much better - I wouldn't say as good as new, because that would take a miracle to do that, but they certainly are a great improvement. There I was, pushing the vacuum back and forth, singing, "I want to break free", with all my might, figuring that I could play the part of Freddy Mercury in the video by Queen, thinking I was the best thing since sliced bread. Well, at least we had clean carpets!

When we first got the Vacuum it was easy to set up, as most of it was already built in the box, all we had to do was attach the handle to the tubing and to arrange the extra nozzles into their allocated places.

The Dyson DC04SL is a bag less vacuum cleaner, so this means that all the fluff etc. is all caught up into the plastic see-through cylinder. This has both good points and bad. Good in the sense that you can see when the cylinder is full, and can empty it before the suction starts packing up on you. The bad point is that you can see all the dirt and grime; nothing is hidden, and so means that unless you have emptied and washed out the cylinder that anyone who looks at your vacuum can see this. Not a big down-side, but still not exactly a pleasant thing to look at either.

The fact that there is this plastic cylinder means that
you don?t have to go
and buy new bags for the vacuum, therefore reducing costs in that way, but you do have to actually empty the cylinder - none of the dust is contained, and so it means that it can be unpleasant for anyone who has allergies to dust when emptying it. As my husband found out to his detriment, the poor thing spent the rest of the day sneezing! This Dyson can hold 4 litres in its cylinder - that's a lot of dust!

The Dyson DC04SL is a green and silver/grey upright vacuum cleaner, which can be awkward to lift and to store. It is made of hard durable plastic, which can withstand many bumps - believe me; I've tried and tested that one! I can imagine that some people would have difficulty in taking this upstairs, and it is not the easiest thing to store away in the places where you would normally store a smaller vacuum cleaner.

Now, enough with the negative - on with the positive!

The Dyson has 3 nozzle attachments, which confused me at first (who ever reads the instruction manual?), I was trying to remove the metal arm from the extension tubing to fit the attachments onto the end of the metal arm, but then figured that there would be no suction, and eventually figured out that it slots onto the plastic handle at the top of the extension tubing. There is a green pushdown area that removes the extension set from the actual vacuum. The attachments consist of a long pointy attachment which is ideal for getting into corners, under radiators, to the side of the stairs, and other hard to reach floor areas. This nozzle is stored on the back of the handle, where there is a special slot for it. There is also a small regular vacuum nozzle, which is perfect for cleaning the stairs, and because of the long extension arm you can reach up to the top of the stairs without actually having to bring the vacuum with you! The third nozzle is a round one with a bristles on the end, I find this great for going around skirting boards, and
for getting in around the little n
ooks in the banister on our stairs. These two nozzles have little places molded into the plastic on top of the cylinder for them to sit in.

The power cord is extremely long, and winds up at the back of the vacuum in a neat fashion for when the appliance is not in use.

Now, I suppose I should mention some technical stuff. This Dyson has a dual cyclone technology, and that always makes me think that its like something out of the wizard of Oz, from what I understand if it basically means that the dirt spins up inside the vacuum using the cyclone, and this filters out into the cylinder, leaving the air clean.

It is amazing the power that the Dyson has to extract dust that has been buried down in carpets for goodness knows how long, and it is great in the sense that it is approved to help minimize allergies - so this is a great buy for anyone who has a family member with asthma or dust allergies (as long, of course that they are not the one that is going to be emptying the cylinder).

All in all, this is a great vacuum; it does much better than any of the other vacuum cleaners that I have ever tried. I'd recommend it to anyone, but a word of warning. No matter how clean you thought your carpet was before using this, you will be dismayed at what has not been picked up by previous vacuum cleaners.

Dyson also have a 2 year guarantee on this product.

This ranks right up there with the best.

Summary: