Dyson - DC25 Animal

Family had a Dyson DC-25, used twice daily, for a little over a decade. Had some duct tape over cracks, but ran fine till it was left plugged in and on and a power surge toasted it.

I have two Kirby’s, one from the the mid 00’s and one from the 90’s. I also have a Dyson Ball animal from 2010-ish. All three of them are still going strong. The only drawback is the weight.

Miele is a premium brand for sure, but the price difference is well justified. I have C3 Complete, carpet, cats, and that thing sucks hard (the good kind of suck). Have only had it for a few years and so far so good in terms of reliability, but optimistic about it. That said, I previously had a Dyson DC-series upright - had it for 8 years with no problems. It was still alive, I just had to get rid of it because I was moving and couldn't take it with me. So I guess even on "lesser" brands you could get lucky. But through my childhood, my parents kept buying Hoovers and Dirt Devils and GEs and all kinds of "walmart specials" and I feel like we had a new vac every 2 years or so because the old one would just crap out. So I am definitely traumatized enough to consider it very frugal to be buying a more "premium" suck machine.

I’ve been replacing the battery in our long Dyson vacuum. We’ve had it for over a decade and it’s still going strong. Dyson stopped making batteries for it, so I have to buy them from amazon

+1 for Dyson My original Animal Ball, that I bought over 20 years ago, is still going strong and has never needed service. (Except that one time one of my dogs ate through the power cord, but that was a quick fix!)

I have 2, 7, and 18.  I think I paid $60 for all three at yard sales. Kenmore Elite is wonderful for bedrooms. Dyson v8 is great for busy areas and stairs. Dyson ball animal is for a deeper clean than the v8. I also have a Hoover Hepa Animal 2 and the Hoover Max Extract Pressure-Pro (Model 60) from Breaking Bad. Great combo for deep clean after dealing with animal messes. Kenmore is the poor man’s Miele. Dyson is repairable, but a pain in the butt for the vortex areas to keep clean. Hoovers are stupid simple to keep in tip top shape. I have a simple Dirt Devil and Harbor Freight shop vacuum for my garage. Both are great for regular use.

I'm curious from an engineering point of view... Do you think someone will ever create a vacuum cleaner that can suck up long hair off a carpet without the hair getting tangled in the rollers? Like is it even possible?? I'm guessing maybe with some kind of razors to cut the hairs it might be, but even razors will get dulled over time. So I don't know. I have a Dyson Ball animal vacuum and the main maintenance on this thing is using scissors to cut all the long hair off the rollers very frequently. If I don't do this the roller gets overloaded and breaks. I've replaced at least two rollers so far from hair overload, which stresses the bearings.

So I had a Dyson upright Animal vac that did a pretty decent job but both my healers despised it with a vengeance and would nip at it and attack it whenever I vacuumed. I tried to scare them away by unleashing the vac brush on them and, what do you know, the lil raptors loved it. After they got used to the routine, I’d get the vac out and vacuum them first then the house. It was a win win. God, I miss those guys.

Leaf blower and an industrial exhaust fan. But honestly we go three ways. We have a carpet broom that has rubber teeth on a broom handle we use before the Shark vac once a week, and for the hardwoods we use a handheld with a long extension so we can do a quick once over around the corners and edges of everything daily. We found out the hard way if you only use a traditional vacuum, even if it’s a really nice Dyson that’s says it specifically for heavy shedding pets, you will get a ton of hair in the roller and will burn out the motor or at least clog the roller and it will break and stop spinning.

I’m sorry, the cordless Dyson isn’t that great for carpet/rugs so I wouldn’t rank it that high. The attachments are excellent for their specific uses like couch/mattress, the nozzle for corners but I have the old school Dyson Ball vacuum cleaner and it’s sooo much better for rugs. Vacuum’s with cords for the win!

I have a Dyson upright pet because everyone else in my family does and we all love it. No one's had a single problem, and it sucks the everliving hell out of pet hair-filled carpets. Think the first one of us to get it has had it 10 years, some almost as long. Mine's a refurb I got 5 years ago and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

I have a Dyson animal upright from around the same time. Maintenance is key. My kids swept up grated Romano cheese at one point. Turn the vacuum on smell was awful. Pulled and cleaned the filters, vacuumed up a box of baking soda and smell was gone.

I have a Miele canister and upright, they are great and I would recommend them to anyone. I also still have a Dyson Animal upright that I bought in 2003. I think keeping them going for the long term is in doing maintenance on them.

A lot of others have responded to the question you asked me but here goes.  Make sure you change bags and filters (some filters are washable) on a regular basis. Clean the roller as others have mentioned. These are easy things you should do often.  Check the belt for the roller brush, they stretch and wear more than you would expect. On the Dyson I have I have rebuilt the clutch and changed the belts twice.  Wash it! Take the hose off and spray some cleaner in it with some water. Then pick it up with an end in each and like a horseshoe. Move your arms up and down separately, right arm up means left down etc. Do this for just few minutes and drain it by holding one end high and letting the other down so all the junk will come out, trust me it can be gross looking. Next do it with water and see how it comes out, go until it drains clean. Hang it to dry as much as you can. If it is on a canister like a Miele reattach and put a towel in place of the bag then turn it on, this will help pull the water from the hose and the towel will absorb it before it gets to the motor.  Clean the area where the bag goes with a cleaner of your choice and wipe it out with a towel. Clean all hose connections and seals that you can see.  If you want to take it further then you can disassemble it and clean the area around the motor and the motor itself, don’t use water or a cleaner on the motor as this will accelerate it going bad. Most of the time you can just wipe them off as they will have a black soot on them.  If you follow the steps above then your machine will last a long time. 

The Dyson animal is the same way, really hard to find any parts. I had a piece of the plastic handle break on the dust canister and while it didn’t affect the machine in how it worked I wanted it to look right and ended up buying the part on eBay. 

I actually own six different vacuums. Yeah I heard that the Dyson is garbage for a long time but it still works and works better than most. 

I think most people buying vacuums aren’t treating or looking at them as BIFL. Vacuum techs are going to crap on anything difficult to repair/maintain while your average consumer is only going to see the end result. I’ve owned a Hoover upright, shark upright, Dyson upright, and now 2 different Dyson sticks including the v15. I would never buy a canister vacuum due to what I deem as an inconvenience in pulling it around everywhere. When we owned a house with majority carpet the Dyson and Shark uprights were great. We have dogs and their brush roll was incredible at picking up pet hair. Our current house is primarily hardwoods and we still have dogs. The V15 is amazing, super light, and convenient. And despite how gimmicky the green light thing may look it really does work amazingly well for hardwoods with pet hair. It does ok on carpet and rugs but the old canisters feel like they would for sure outperform it. I don’t really expect a lifetime out of my vacuum especially if I’m buying a $150 Shark. If I get several years I’m pretty happy as the repair bill is near the cost of the Vacuum - it’s almost like the printers whose ink refills was more expensive than a new printer.

I think Dyson is a great vaccum that is aimed at consumers. I have the corded upright one myself. It's probably the best consumer vaccum I have used. The vaccum techs seem to prefer commercial use ones. And they seem great. I hire a cleaner sometimes that uses a Meile and it certainly cleans better than the Dyson. But I don't want to lug it around myself.

I use a hand held one (probably from Amazon, I can’t remember!) that isn’t a named brand or anything special. I use that to hoover poos etc up in the cage day to day. I also use the hand held one to hoover up any loose bits of hay on the carpet when my girls have had floor time. Once these have been hoovered up, I hoover the carpet as normal with my Dyson upright hoover. I accidentally got a bit of hay stuck in my new Dyson when I first got it so I make sure anything like that is gone before the main hoover comes out. Having said that, I have an older hoover from Argos - it was the cheapest they sold I think; a white one. It’s an upright electric one and doesn’t look like it would do much but it’s actually really good. Now I’ve got the Dyson, the Argos one has been relegated to hoovering piggy messes when I don’t want to use the hand held.

Dyson corded upright, if you’re patient you can buy used and save a bundle. You’ll want to add a floorbrush for the hardwood floors. I have both older model canister and upright Dyson vacs. The canister is better built, but the upright is more versatile and cleans carpets better. It also stores better but is more finicky to use the attachments. It’s designed to be lighter weight which also means it’s is more fragile, take care of them and they’ll last! If you really prefer a canister you’ll want a motorhead, but the extra weight in the floor wand makes it more work to vacuum hardwood floors.

Our old Dyson upright was absolutely useless on the Christmas Tree needles. They essentially fell out again after being hoovered up. Hence why I'm so interested in this thread!

I pull both Mieles and Dysons out of the trash. These days I only grab the cordless Dyso9ns, but in the past have done the upright models. They are usually work after cleaning up. Maybe half the cordless examples I get need a new battery.

I have had good luck with Dyson and Shark brands. Both in “pet” models, I’m sorry I don’t know more specific models. I personally don’t notice much of a difference in the performance so I stick with Shark since it’s cheaper and in my opinion the hose and attachments are easier to use.

I love my Rainbow vacuum and my purple pet dyson.

The purple Dyson for pets. We love it and have used it for 4 years now. We have had 3 Rottweilers, 2 Shimas, and 1 Golden, as well as 2 medium hair cats.

Yeah battery is not the best, however it worked really well when it was new (like most things do). Our main vacuum is the Dyson animal+, that thing is a beast and has been working great for the past 7 years. Handheld gets used to clean cars or just pick up quick messes.

I found myself purchasing a new vacuum about every 2 years. Then I purchased a Dyson pet , and it was great. Had a 5-year warranty, and promptly lost suction at the 6-year mark. It was the best vacuum for the almost 6 years I had it. Now I have a Shark, an apartment vacuum because it is mostly for bare floors, but the cord is short. Have had it for 2 years now. I would take advice of the professional cleaner - the porta-vac.

There’s no single vac that does it all except for maybe a super heavy super expensive traditional canister like a Miele. For an everyday hard floor vac (and light carpet vac) the best is Levoit on Amazon that's about $200. It's a Dyson-like machine that overcomes a lot of the longtime design issues with Dysons (such as, it can stand up by itself -- what a concept). But we also keep the Dyson around for a more aggressive carpet vac when we need it. We also have a Eureka boss -- powerful and dependable small canister vac. And a monster shop vac in the basement. Dysons are great but they're really expensive and their air filtering system is overly complicated and tends to lose efficiency. If you own a Dyson, watch all the available Youtubes on how to clean it with pressurized air so you can keep it running. Given the competition from newer manufacturers like Levoit, I think it's going to be harder for Dyson to justify selling floor vacs for close to $1000.

I just asked about how often I’d be buying bags for a sebo with two high shedding large dogs, (similar probably too a gsd and 3 (if long hair cats) I would probably be replacing the bag every week. (Actually more than that because I didn’t tell people I also have 3 cats haha) Someone with a husky commented that they replace the bag 1.5-2 times a month. Calculating that cost for two dogs is another 210 a year in bags (probably more for me) I am taking that into account with  replacing a vacuum that died (Dyson) but it doesn’t have a bag or a Sebo that has a 10 year warranty but I will have probably bought 2-3 dysons in that time period with the amount I’d be spending on bags. I haven’t decided yet 🙃 but thought I’d share the numbers.