Straight from red to green (Numatic Henry)

Member Name: Alfettaman

Product:	Numatic Henry
Date:	06/08/09 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Performance, efficiency and green credentials

Disadvantages: "Smiley face" means it might not be taken seriously

There are already lots of upbeat reviews here (two of my favourites are from JJJJ and nar2) from happy owners of Numatic's legendary 'Henry' canister vacuum cleaner. So instead of restating what's been said before, I'm going to approach the issues from a rather different angle.

A vacuum cleaner exists to improve your environment: removing dust, dirt, pollen, cat hair, mites, and lots of other things that you've unwittingly brought into your home. That's its function, and a good vacuum cleaner must do these things well.

But step outside your door, take a few deep breaths and you'll see that there's more to it than that.

Designing, making, marketing, transporting, selling and using a vacuum cleaner all have negative impacts on our broader environment - the planet that you and I live on. It follows that a really great vacuum cleaner (as opposed to a merely good one) would somehow 'tick' these extra boxes too. So examining the whole environmental picture - rather than just your carpets - how well does Henry do?

Performance:
We need to address this head-on and very critically, because if Henry doesn't do a great job in the home then he's fallen at the first hurdle and the review might as well end here with a measly single star.

Turns out, it's terrifically good news: Henry is compact enough, ultra-strong (this feels like the kind of indestructible plastic that lego bricks are made from), powerful, practical, and noticeably quieter than many others too. With a nine-litre dust capacity and a ten metre cable that winds faultlessly back into the machine every time, this highly effective vacuum cleaner just does the job it's built for.

Design & manufacture:
Henry is built by Numatic Ltd, a UK company that started making vacuum cleaners in 1969 with an ethos of producing simple, robust and highly functional machines suited to the rigours of commercial and industrial use. It's still reflected in their small print today: carefully read the warranty on a domestic vacuum cleaner and you'll find that most of them exclude any kind of commercial or professional use. In contrast, Numatic machines have always been designed for the toughest environments and the highest duty cycles, and commercial use won't void the two-year warranty.

Numatic make these vacuum cleaners in Somerset, at a time when the vast majority of the domestic products we buy are no longer made on our shores: Dyson, for instance, do their manufacturing in China. So your Henry has fewer "sea miles" than virtually any other cleaner, making him greener even before you've got him out of his recyclable cardboard box.

Ours came with a pack of disposable dust bags, but I also bought two reusable fabric dust bags that you unzip to empty and can even put through the washing machine if they get too grubby. In 18 months of ownership, we've not actually started on the disposable bags, but maybe they'll be useful if we ever need to hoover, er... Henry, up something really grim!

Go to the Numatic website at www.numatic.co.uk/history.aspx and you'll see the evolution of these machines. A forty year journey of gradual, incremental improvement. It means that their product life cycles (the length of time a particular model is on sale before it gets superceded) tend to be much longer than other manufacturers'. Numatic are still supplying spares to people who bought their vacuum cleaner fifteen or more years ago, and the long production runs also reduce costs and - hopefully - prices. What all this means, is that you get a more tried-and-tested machine that's had all the wrinkles engineered out of it, as well as one that's more repairable and better value-for-money in the first place.

I actually think this is part of Henry's problem - if he has one at all: alongside a £200+ 'designer' vacuum cleaner that's made in China, Henry looks almost worryingly cheap and might get dismissed by some discerning consumers for no other reason than that. Perhaps Henry's 'smiley face' also masks his commercial credentials and leaves some people wondering if this really is a serious, top-notch machine capable of transforming a filthy workshop full of sawdust and cobwebs.

Power corrupts:
Something strange happened in the domestic appliances market during the 1990s. I think we all somehow got brainwashed into thinking that the more power an appliance consumes, the better it must be. As our planet warms up and our fossil fuel reserves dwindle, it's a lesson that we'll need to unlearn. The watchword for the next generation isn't going to be power, but efficiency.

Appliance manufacturers don't like talking about efficiency (perhaps they think we're all too simple to understand it) but what we actually need are machines that work really well without wasting energy.

I previously had an Electrolux vacuum cleaner that consumed 2400W of power, but moved less air than Henry can with his 1200W motor and, subjectively, seemed less (not more) powerful. Similarly, my 700W Kenwood food processor was so gutless that I threw it away and replaced it with a 650W Kitchenaid that never seems to struggle with anything.

The lesson I've learned (the hard way - by buying some supposedly powerful but ultimately disappointing appliances) is to find out about effectiveness and efficiency rather than using power consumption as a proxy for these things.

Sum up:
Read some more reviews of Henry and you'll find that the vast majority of owners are delighted with the durability and performance of their machines. Me? I'm doubly pleased, because Henry has also travelled only a short way to be with me, is built to last, needs no consumables, and cleverly uses half the power of some other vacuum cleaners but works at least as well.

A final thought to leave you with: vacuum for an hour a week for ten years (Henry should easily last that long) with a 1200W machine instead of a 2400W one and you'll save yourself about £100 in electricity.

Hang on a minute - that's exactly how much I paid for my Henry...

Summary: Great news for your little environment, and for our big one

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