Air Purifiers for Small Spaces like Offices, Dorm Rooms, and Hotel Rooms

Do you have allergies, asthmas, or sensitivities to dust, pollen, and other indoor air pollution? Perhaps you have an air purifier at home that helps you out. But what do you about air quality in the office or while you're traveling or while you're away from home at college?

Well, we have the perfect solution! A new personal air purifier from BlueAir called the AirPod is a desktop-sized air purifier with highly efficient HEPA filtration and near-silent operation. A filter covered in attractive black/white paisley, blue waves, or white tree designs nestles in a silver base that contains a fan and controls. Turn on the AirPod and enjoy clean air in a space of up to 50 square feet.

Take it with you in your duffel bag or suit case when you go to college or travel. Never spend another night in a room where dust or poor cleaning causes your allergies and dust sensitivities to act up.

For more information, please check our website.

Until next time,
Rocco
www.aplusvacuum.com

What are the Best Dusters for Collectibles and Decorative Items?

Dusting is mainly about removing unwanted particles from surfaces in your home. If you have a vacuum cleaner with a very efficient filtration system and excellent on-board tools like the Riccar Radiance or Riccar Brilliance or a Riccar canister, you're probably already using your tools to vacuum your upholstery, drapes, blinds and shutters, and corners. But you still need hand dusters for furniture and decorative accessories and telescopic dusters for high-reach items.

One of the important goals of a duster is to "remove" dust, not simply spread it around. Lamb's wool dusters like our dusters from Wool Shop have a very slight static charge when brushed over your furniture. That static charge will help attract the dust into the duster instead of allowing it to float off. Plus the soft fibers have enormous surface area that will efficiently dust irregular surfaces and between and around items.

If you have high-reach items like lights and ceiling fans in one-story or two-story areas of your house, we can also help with telescopic wool dusters that will dust even 2-story foyers.

With hard-wood and tile floors, we routinely recommend that our Riccar customers use their vacuums with carpet/floor switches to vacuum their hard floor surfaces. A vacuum cleaner with the brush roll off is the idea floor cleaning tool as all grit, fine dust, and hair is picked up into the vacuum cleaner rather than being pushed around with a broom.

If your vacuum cleaner does not have a floor switch, then you might want to consider a lamb's wool floor duster such as our Mega Mop from Wool Shop. This is a very large lamb's wool duster that will allow you to remove all the fine dust and grit that your broom has missed.

For very fine collectibles and small items, the ideal dusting tool is a feather duster. But avoid the brighly colored chicken feather dusters you see in some grocery stores. The only feather duster to use on delicate items is an Ostrich feather duster.

Ostrich feathers are fine and soft with enormous surface area (the key to holding dust). They will conform to the shape of an uneven surface and wisk the dust away. When dusting with a feather duster you can’t avoid stirring dust up a bit, but gravity carries most of the dust downward provided you use it correctly. You’re not going to beat the surfaces that are dusty, but instead use the tool as a wisk or a paintbrush, directing the dust off of ornaments and toward the floor.

In all cases, surface area is the key to a good dusting tool. The more surface area a duster has the better, since it has more places to trap dust. That’s why real lamb's wool dusters are better than most synthetic puff dusters and cotton string dusters. Microfiber cloths and mitts can also be very effective for the same reason.

Every time you use it, be sure to gently shake your lamb's wool and feather duster outside to dislodge the dirt you've picked up.

When it gets dirty, you can also clean a lamb's wool duster by gently washing it in cold water and gentle soap like Ivory. Allow it to air dry. Then brush out the strands. We sell a special grooming tool which is especially useful for large telescopic and floor dusters.

If you have other questions about dusting, then please email us at contact-us@aplusvacuum.com or come in to see us.

Until next time,

Rocco Waldhelm, Proprietor
www.aplusvacuum.com

How to Vacuum Frieze and Shag Carpets

Shag carpeting, an icon of the 1970’s has been resurrected and today is frequently called frieze (pronounced frizz-ay) or California shag.

Better carpet fibers and improved manufacturing techniques are creating a carpet with good looks and good wear capability.

However, this carpet demands the correct type of vacuum cleaner as you can literally destroy a vacuum and even the carpet itself with the wrong choice.

One of our friends who owns a vacuum cleaner store in another state told us this story:

A customer came in to my store about a week ago. “It’s just not working right, I think it’s the belt” she complained as she carried in her rated-number-one-by-a-leading-consumer-magazine self-propelled upright. I didn’t think much further about it, and just filled out the ticket and put it in line.

When I opened the machine up, I took out the brush roll and found both end caps, the belt channel, and the area around the v-belt to be severely melted. Along with that, the brush roll had several strands of what appeared to be yarn wrapped around it. I called my customer and told her the status of the machine, what it would cost to repair it, and she decided to come into the store to select a different vacuum cleaner.

Pointing to the sample of frieze I have installed in the floor, I asked her if her carpet was of a similar texture. She answered yes, and I explained how the brush roll was being bogged down in long strands of carpet and was literally chewing the carpet up. “Oh!” she exclaimed “That must be why when I borrowed two of my neighbors vacuums, they both broke too!” She walked out that day with a straight suction canister vacuum which she is very pleased with.

So what does this mean? A traditional vacuum cleaner with a brush roll should NOT be used on a shag carpet!

Some of the shorter varieties of shag can be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner with a brush roll, but it’s absolutely essential that there is a manual height adjustment and that it is used so that the brush roll doesn’t pull out yarn strands and bog down the vacuum.

For longer shag, a canister with a straight suction nozzle like our Riccar Moonlight or an upright vacuum like our Riccar Radiance or Brilliance where the brushroll can be turned off are the right choices.

In addition, the old-fashioned tool called a carpet rake is also recommended for grooming the carpet and fluffing the yarn strands before vacuuming. We carry those also, in 2 sizes.

If you have frieze or shag carpeting, come see us today for the right vacuum cleaner and tools.

Until next time,
Rocco

What's the Best Vacuum in Consumer Magazines and Reports?

Consumer purchasing magazines such as "Consumer Reports" offer a wealth of information every month. But when you’re looking for a top-rated vacuum cleaner, sometimes their recommendations need to be taken with a grain of salt.

To start out, how do they select the vacuum cleaners to test?

The “Consumer Reports” organization uses a method of testing called "Sampling". They take a few of the most popular products from a group and evaluate them. In the case of vacuum cleaners, they may only test 25 cleaners out of the 300 different brands and models available on the market.

Sampling is very fair when doing consumer polls and surveys as the sample is meant to represent the thinking of a much larger group of people. But how does sampling a few dozen vacuum cleaners give you the information you need to make an informed decision? "Consumer Reports" is presenting comparisons that are incomplete, misleading, and flawed in their conclusions.

And what type of testing is done?

While "Consumer Reports" looks at a few measurement points like available features, noise, warranty length, etc., are those the only features that are important to you? For example, some canisters have much better mobility because they feature 360 degree rotation -- a full circle -- of the hose where it's attached to the canister. Many of our customers find this very important when they're looking at canister vacuum cleaners, but "Consumer Reports" doesn't list this at all.

Other factors that our customer think are important that aren't considered by "Consumer Reports":

Metal parts vs. plastic which affect the life of your vacuum?

Or a life-time geared vacuum belt so that it will never stretch or break or need to be replaced?

Or sealed HEPA filtration with charcoal filter so that zero particles of dust and no vacuum odor are leaked back into the air as you vacuum?

Conclusion: "Consumer Reports" provides a guide to some of the available vacuum cleaners. But at the end of the day, you need to evaluate vacuums yourself.

Visit an independent vacuum dealer like A Plus Vacuum where you can try out over 40 different vacuum cleaners on our demo carpets and floors. What are your cleaning problems? Crushed cereal from the kids? Pet hair from Fluffy or Fido? Kitty litter or bird seed or tracked in sand? Throw some cereal, kitty litter, pet hair, lint, or other dirty items down on our carpets and see which vacuum cleaners are the “best for you”.

Until next time, Rocco

What's the Best Lightweight Vacuum for Everyday Cleaning?

Because we work 6 days a week, we recently hired one of our customers and residential cleaning specialists -- Susie Williams -- to regularly clean our house. We met Susie when she came in to our store, A Plus Vacuum, a few months ago to purchase a new vacuum for her residential cleaning service. After trying out several vacuums on our demo carpets, Susie picked a Riccar SupraLite.

The Riccar SupraLite RSL1 only weighs 8 pounds which makes it easy for Susie to carry between her car and our house and up and down the stairs. Plus it has powerful agitation and airflow to effectively clean our carpets and HEPA filtration to cut down on dust particles which might settle back onto freshly dusted furniture.

Susie is happy with her vacuum because it helps her clean quickly and efficiently and the 8-pound weight is easy on her back. And we're happy with Susie's cleaning job.

For a different spin on house cleaning, here's an amusing story about "mystery cleaning".

from The Associated Press -- Thursday, August 10, 2006; 5:45 PM

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- When Debbie Phillips tried to report a crime, police just snickered. "I told him that someone came into my house and cleaned," the president of the Putnam County School Board said. "He just laughed."

The problem wasn't that her home smelled a little fresher or looked a little tidier. The problem was that Phillips had no idea who the mystery cleaner was.

Her husband denied cleaning up the joint. So did her next-door neighbor. Everyone she asked denied responsibility.

All she knew was the rugs weren't where she had left them that morning in June. Trinkets had been rearranged and in the master bedroom, the bed was made differently. It didn't look like anything had been stolen, but she couldn't be sure.

Nearly a month passed before the mystery was solved. Her son called her at work recently after a cleaning lady arrived at the front door. As it turns out, her neighbor across the street, with a similar house number, the same number of rooms to be cleaned and a house key hidden in a similar spot outside, had hired a cleaning service.

"They just came to the wrong door," Phillips said.

Choosing a Vacuum Cleaner for Your Dorm Room or Apartment

So, you've carefully selected the right school and the right dorm or apartment for your new college student. And you've been shopping for the right laptop computer, desk, bedding, clothes, organizers, and other details that will make life away from home more comfortable.

But what about "clean"? Whether your student is the Queen of Clean or Mr. Messy, we can help with some simple tools.

For a full-size apartment, you might want to consider a full-size vacuum that
still takes up small-size space such as the Sanitaire S782.

For a dorm-room with low-pile carpet, a hand-operated carpet sweeper for picking up crumbs and lint may do the trick. No noise to disturb a sleeping room-mate. We also have a battery-operated carpet sweeper that will recharge behind the door and will be ready to pull out at a moment's notice.

To supplement, a small electric hand vacuum will provide extra cleaning power and it only takes up the space of a hair dryer.

For sweeping up hard floors, a broom is still the best tool, but our brooms from Casabella are not your Mother's brooms. In fun lady bug, zebra, or leopard patterns, these brooms look good enough to stay out in plain sight.

Until next time,
Rocco Waldhelm

"I never heard of Riccar vacuums" is a common comment in our store.

Before we started A Plus Vacuum in 2005, we examined the vacuum cleaner market and the available brands. We had an opportunity to attend a trade show for vacuum cleaner dealers where we could evaluate all the vacuum brands and put them through their paces.

We tried the vacuums out on different types of carpets, we opened them up, and we looked for well built quality, excellent filtration, and superior cleaning power. And since we were at a trade show, we talked to other vacuum shop owners and asked them about their experience with repairs, service, and most importantly -- end customer satisfaction.

Some of the brands had more name recognition than others, for example, Miele and Dyson. But some brands had superior quality, such as Riccar and Simplicity from Tacony Corporation.

As a result of our research, we committed to Riccar as one of the primary brands in our store. Even though Riccar did not have the instant name recognition of other brands, our customers have tried out Riccar vacuum cleaners on our demo carpets and floors and have chosen such models as the Riccar Radiance, the RSL4, the 1800 and 1700 canisters, and the new Riccar Brilliance upright for their homes. And the feedback we've received has been overwhelmingly positive. Our customers are telling us that these are well-built vacuums that are making cleaning easier.

This article which appeared in Business Week Online on April 27, 2006 explains where Riccar and their manufacturer, Tacony, stands in comparison to one competitor, Miele:

I hope you'll read the entire article, but here are the key points:

In 2004, Tacony turned the tables on Miele. The Fenton (Mo.) company's sales of Riccar and Simplicity machines totaled $68 million, surpassing Miele's $65 million, according to both Tacony and Stevenson Co., a research firm that tracks appliance sales. The gap has since grown, with Tacony posting sales of $83 million to Miele's $74 million in 2005. Miele officials declined to comment on sales figures or to discuss the company's growth strategy. That Tacony supplanted Miele shows how a company can use design to beat a rival with a far bigger advertising budget. It also underscores the importance of staying on top of customers' needs.

MORE POWER. John Kaido, head of Tacony 's vacuum division, said he knew the company needed a better product. So his team tried to find a weakness in Miele. The complaint they heard most from dealers was that its power nozzle head was underpowered and a little hard to push across the floor. So Tacony designed a mid-sized canister that would have the qualities of a Miele.

It also invested $600,000 to develop a more powerful power nozzle, using Chicago industrial design firm Insight Product Development. Joy Petty, head of marketing, even worried about the colors of the new machine. She convinced Kaido and his team to use bright metallic colors that were sprayed on just like paint on automobiles. "It was important for the vacuums to stand out in stores," Petty says.

The result was a new mid-sized canister Tacony launched in February, 2002, that was comparable to Miele in suction and filtration, but came with a more powerful power nozzle. This way it could use stiffer bristles on the brush, which are better for lifting dirt and make the machine easier to push across the floor.

TOTALLY FLOORED. To make things more difficult for Miele, Tacony priced the machines at $699, the low end for Miele midsized cansisters with fewer features. "We wanted to hurt them at the entry level," Kaido adds.

That's not all Tacony was doing. It had invested $1 million to develop a full-sized canister that would compete with Miele's top-end machines selling from $1,000 to $1,300. And it invested $3 million (a big sum for a company with $160 million in total sales) in designing a new upright that would not only clean carpets better, but wood floors, where canisters excelled.

Tacony launched the new full-sized Simplicity and Riccar canisters at the beginning of 2003. Not only did they have more suction and more powerful power nozzles than Miele, they had full sized, on-board tools, such as a crevice cleaner and floor brush, compared to Meile's miniature ones. And it had a longer power cord so users wouldn't have to unplug as frequently, all for $1,000. "Now we started hurting Miele on the top end," Kaido says.

SNEAK ATTACK. Indeed, Tacony surpassed Miele in U.S. sales the following year. The gap has only grown since then with the launch in 2004 of Tacony's premium new line of Simplicity and Riccar uprights, which it manufactures itself in St. James, Mo. Called Tandem-Air technology, they are the only vacuum cleaners to use two motors, one to push and another to pull air into the machine, a design it is seeking to patent. The twin engines improve both carpet and wood floor cleaning, Kaido says. This gives consumers with wood floors the option of using an upright, if that is the model they prefer, he adds.

When you're ready to upgrade your vacuum to one of the best on the market, then come see us. Riccar is the best vacuum cleaner you never heard of and we have the full line of Riccar vacuums available to show you. Try them out on our demo carpets and hard floors so that you can see the difference for yourself!

Until next time,
Rocco