Miele - Classic C1 Junior PowerLine - SBAF3

We have two Miele cylinder vacuum cleaners, one upstairs one down. The upstairs one was bought new in 1992 and still works faultlessly. The second is a much older design obtained for £0.00 from Freecycle (when that was a thing) about 15 years ago. Both perform powerfully and faultlessly*. The older one has a powered sweeper head which works well on both carpet and hard floors. I got it from a posh lady who said she was embarrassed when friends came around for coffee and saw her “ancient” vacuum cleaner. She had replaced it with a new Miele to save her blushes. Both are 1500W and extremely powerful. *The cable retractor on the upstairs one made a squeaking noise when operated. My first wife told me to fix it so I sprayed it with some WD40. It stopped the squeak but the retraction process has since needed human intervention. 🙄 -oo-

I've had a Miele Classic C1 Junior for the past 9 years. I've found that to be fantastic and I'll probably just buy the same again when it eventually dies.

Miele junior I have it does the job I had 2 bed apt. 2 cats. Wish I had got the pet one it’s a lot more cash but they are worth it! No better hoover imo.

Miele junior c1 I think mine is, it was around 180€ I think the cheapest tbh. I love it, does a great job I have 2 bed apt with 3 pets now. Wish I had got the pet one it’s a good bit more expensive but they are worth it! No better hoover imo.

Miele junior I have it does the job I had 2 bed apt. 2 cats. Wish I had got the pet one it’s a lot more cash but they are worth it! No better hoover imo.

Miele junior c1 I think mine is, it was around 180€ I think the cheapest tbh. I love it, does a great job I have 2 bed apt with 3 pets now. Wish I had got the pet one it’s a good bit more expensive but they are worth it! No better hoover imo.

Question for this sub: do people with hard floors (I have stone) get barefoot-friendly perfect surface (i.e. even those tiny microparticles) from vacuuming alone? My robot (Eufy X10 Pro Omni) \*vacuuming\* does not alone perform well enough, but it also has a mop and with it it's perfect. I thought the mop would be a little gimmicky but it's 100% necessary for those last pieces of tiny specks the lower battery-tier suction can't handle. As for the ingrained stains, no vacuum can take that, you need to scrub/mop with manual force anyway.. Recently got a corded/bagged Miele (the new budget line S1 Junior - but the mid-range M1 looked/felt the same in the store), for carpets, upholstery and places where the robot can't reach. Suction is obviously great but I'm not at all impressed with the build quality of the main unit, and especially the plastic lid and inner details - a toddler or a cat could break it if left open. I can assure you even my Chinese robot is better made (the plastic is much higher grade, thick and hard enough to resist surface scratches). I was considering the old C3s but they're literally discontinuing those so I don't get where all the Miele praise comes from. Doesn't matter that the motor is great if you need plastic parts from a 15y old model in the future.

I'm lucky to have a large apt with lots of empty stone flooring and no doorsteps between rooms. There's no way to beat the robot which takes about 5-10 min of prep/maintenance work per cleaning, if you're using manual sweeping. I think a robot is probably not a solution for most people due to apt layout, materials, furniture, pets, kids, etc. But in my case it's a blessing. That leaves me with a secondary, which needs to suck hard (well, in the intended way) from carpet and upholstery like couches. That's why I went with the \~200 Miele. I could pay 4x the price for a premium battery-powered Dyson but I'd get 1/3 of the power. Not that pure wattage is everything, but still. How does yours perform on carpet and upholstery? If I had hard floors, door steps and more stuff in the apt, a high-end battery Dyson could have been my primary. Who knows.

The two C1 models are nearly identical canister wise. The motor, suction, etc are going to be the same. The real critical difference are the hose, wands, and tools. The basic C1 has no rotating brush. It is suction only, and will probably struggle to remove pet hair from your rugs. And it'll be completely inadequate if you get carpet in future. The cat and dog model includes an electrical outlet on the vacuum, a hose with built in wiring, a wand with built in wiring, all to run an electrically driven power brush. This is really great to have for cleaning pet hair off any carpets or rugs. Also works great for removing deep embedded dirt from higher pile carpets. That added wiring is what drives up the cost. But trust me it's worth the upgrade for cleaning the carpets. It'll also future-proof the machine in case your flooring changes. The cheaper C1 not only doesnt include any of this equipment, it cannot be upgraded in future. You'd be stuck with suction-driven attachments only.

Well firstly if "sleek" looks are important, all you need to do is go look at used bagless vacuums. They look grimy and awful after a few month's use usually. The bins get covered in grime and cloudy. I always found the dyson advertisements amusing where people have them mounted to the wall in the living room, knowing how they look after some use. Ease and cleanliness of maintainence is another point to make. With something like the miele c1, you just throw out the bag when full. They compress the dirt down so they effectively hold way more debris than a bagless vac, then when it does get full, it's clean to dispose of. There's no dust flying around coating the outside of the vacuum itself. The bag acts as the main filter, so you are essentially replacing the filter each time you empty it. This means no filters to constantly bash the dust out of or wash. The other filters on a bagged vac don't get caked with dust, so they only need swapping out occasionally and won't spill dirt all over when removed. Basically, you don't have to think about vacuum maintenance nearly as much, or worry that the vac is losing performance because of some hidden filter somewhere loading up with dirt. And the vacuum itself doesn't end up looking like a dusty mess nearly as much or as quickly. What floor surfaces do you have? The miele c1 lineup is generally pretty good but some models don't handle carpet as effectively.

There are several different ways you could go with this. What would you consider a "long" hose? Smaller carry-able canister type vacs like an oreck shoulder vac could work. Though they aren't hepa, and personally not a big fan of them. Small bags, small motors, bit noisy etc. Slightly bigger machines like a Miele C1 would be great, they are pretty lite but more capable. Hose might not be long enough for leaving the canister on the floor and climbing a ladder to reach high up for example. But for filtration and suction, great choice. Similar in size and characteristics would be a Sebo K or E series machine. A Numatic Henry is a personal favorite of mine for whole house dusting. The hoses are a bit longer than average, the tools are good, and the extention tubes themselves have a nice trick. Unlike most canisters where the curved extension part is the hand grip, and then you place the tools at the end of the straight tube section, with Numatic vacuums you can reverse that. You can put the curved end of the extension at the end with a tool attached while the straight section is what you grasp while cleaning. This gives you the perfect angle for ceiling fans or the tops of moldings and picture frames. Downside with a numatic is the weight and possibly bulk, they aren't very small or lite and might be a struggle to carry around. There are several options as you can see. Depends what you want to prioritize most I think. And side note, I think an extension hose can be bought separately and attached to any of these machines for extra reach if the default length isn't sufficient. Sebo themselves sell an extension hose. Numatic might as well, otherwise I know aftermarket extra long hoses are avaliable for Numatic machines. Miele you'd have to get a little more creative since they don't really sell one themselves, and they use a larger than average diameter. You can get a 35 to 32mm adapter and then attach a genetic extension hose to the miele hose. Only annoying thing is then the miele tools wouldn't fit at the end of the extension hose, so you'd almost need a duplicate attachment set.

I have a Miele. Bought my first one 32 yrs ago. It lasted 26 yrs until the case lid broke and couldn’t be replaced. I bought a Compact C1 Miele to replace it and if it lasts as long as the 1st one, it will probably will be the last vacuum I ever purchase. I would find a local vacuum dealer and talk to them about what is best. The air you breathe into your body is SO important!

Miele is really good imo

The two “compact” offerings from Miele, which are engineered specifically for small homes with all hard flooring, include the Miele Compact C1 and Miele CX1 Boost. There is a like-new open-box Compact C1 on eBay right now for $299, but I would upgrade to the parquet twister floor head of which you can choose two widths - wide and extra wide. Seller: “Amber and Mika’s Store” …I almost bought it but decided to get a CX1 Boost, instead. I also have a V15, but man the floor head is so narrow. Feels like it takes forever to use it! Suction could be better, but it’s about the strongest cordless stick available, it and the Miele HX2.

Mieles are repairable and very easy to open i have opened a c1 in 5 minutes

Find a C2 or C3 model with the SBB 300-3 floor brush. Nothing will clean floors better than that. The newer version of the C2 is the Guard S1. The newer version of the C3 is the Guard M1. The Guard L1 is an entirely new vacuum, and is meant to be a lighter version of the C3 / M1, but the L1 has a smaller bag. Edit: they all filter really really well and are sealed systems, and if you add on the HA50 hepa filter (make sure it’s the genuine one from Miele as it’s H13 hepa) it’s top notch. Edit 2: the compact C1 is a also good choice, just NOT the Classic C1 (also known as S2 which is the older version).

As far as other recommendations go, stick vacs that’s are under $300 are mostly built pretty bad. You can get a Compact C1 Miele for $359 on sale, and it will be a better, miles better, than any stick vac in every category. Just as an FYI

Miele C1 Compact, or Miele Guard S series with a straight air tool (the SBD 380 is miele's hands down best straight air tool, and can be added separately onto any model). Sebo E1 is also a great option. No, they're not the cheapest options, but if you can find one in good shape used, that's something to consider. These things will last typically 15 - 30 years under normal household use - not commercial usage.

Miele Guard L1, M1 or S1 (L1 is the best moving canister out there). All can be fitted with the HA50 H13 Hepa filter, which will make it the best filtering canister on the planet. Sebo E or D series are another fantastic option! Filtration is very similar, and they are built very well as well. The reason I've recommended options that are above $250, is because HEPA doesn't mean what it should. Lower end hepa filters just bleed dust over time, and units in that price range just aren't sealed units. They may try to claim they are.... they aren't. Some of them exhaust right on the floor, which blows the dust into the air. There is also the Miele Classic C1 series and Sebo K series. They aren't quite as good as the other models (why they are less expensive than them), but they are still much much much better than other vacuums out there.