Festool CT X vs Dyson

[ShawnRussell]

My wife and I were talking about getting a second vacuum for the house. Given that all the CT vacs are rated for 137cfm it would not matter what model I picked. I have yet to find an official cfm rating for any of the Dyson vacuums.

Does anyone use a CT as a house vacuum?

 

[JeromeM]

My wife and I were talking about getting a second vacuum for the house. Given that all the CT vacs are rated for 137cfm it would not matter what model I picked. I have yet to find an official cfm rating for any of the Dyson vacuums.

Does anyone use a CT as a house vacuum?

Quite a few have lost a CT to their other half and had to get another one for themselves

 

[TOOLTOWN]

I keep a CT Midi with the 7 meter 36mm hose, aluminum extension wands, and a turbo brush for my house.

It cleans better than any vac I've used in the past.

Ken

 

[Stephen B]

I recently purchased a Midi. She loves it as it is so light after the old CT22 (being repaired), which was always to be found in the house and not the workshop!!

 

[copcarcollector]

I tried my CT26 at home a few times. I have the Tradesman Cleaning Set, and also purchased the Turbo Suction Brush. I have all carpet in the house except in the kitchen. The CT worked fine, but I am used to my Oreck upright, and kept tripping over the Festool hose, and the vac got stuck around corners - just did not work like I had hoped! I don't like the Oreck too much really, no on board tools so if I want to clean the baseboards or under the furniture, I have to get out another vacuum. Now that CT is attached to my Kapex in the shop!

 

[ccarrolladams]

Just before Christmas 2005 I replaced a trusted home vac that died with a brand-new and expensive Miele. It certainly performed better than any home vac I had ever owned. I was as happy as I could be using that new vac.

Then in Mid-January 2006 I purchased a Festool TS55 in combo with a CT22. Only that night did I read the Festool USA catalog and realized Festool made clean-up accessories for the CT. The next morning was a Saturday, so I rushed back to my dealer to buy a clean-up kit including a 36mmAS hose. An experienced woodworker who is a major Festool fan was at the dealer that Saturday and suggested I try the 36mmAS hose with the TS55.

A couple of weeks later my vacation ended. In those days I was the VP in charge of a major motion picture lab from 4PM to 4AM. The Miele vac was too noisy to use when my neighbors were sleeping. I noticed that during the day when I cleaned up using the CT22, I could turn it down to the point I could hardly hear it and it caused no interference with the TV. So, the next time I came home and could not sleep immediately, I used the CT22 to clean some carpet. Nobody complained.

Here it is nearly 8 years later. I no longer run a lab in the middle of the night. My cabinet shop is in an industrial zone so we can work 24 hours if needed. Still when I want I clean with the CT22 in the middle of the night without complaints.

My warning is that using a CT to clean a house fills bags much faster than when sanding or sawing. I have never worried about the cost of bags for home cleaning but that is a factor many will want to consider.

 

[Svar]

Given that all the CT vacs are rated for 137cfm it would not matter what model I picked. I have yet to find an official cfm rating for any of the Dyson vacuums.

That's because vacuums are rated using Airwatts (a surrogate for power) at operating point as it should be. Comparing vacuums based on maximum CFM, which is boundary condition is about as useful as comparing motors using maximum Amp.

The Miele vac was too noisy to use when my neighbors were sleeping.

What model Miele did you have? All of their current vacuums are in 39-55dB range. CT22 is 62-72dB. Quite a difference considering logarithmic scale.

 

[leakyroof]

I've owned a Miele Red Star Vacuum since 1999. They've updated their model range quite a bit since then, but the only real repair we've ever had to do was replace the electric Turbo Head as we just wore it out from use.  So it just keeps plugging along. We don't have any carpet, so we didn't need an upright model.
Smaller vac than most of the CT range, tool storage inside the top cover, and very quiet with no dust output because of the HEPA filter that we opted to buy.  As an added bonus, some of the Miele attachments will fit the Festool 27mm hose easily, so you have choices between them and Festool for outfitting a CT vac if needed.
So, I'd say make it Festool CT versus Dyson versus Miele for your decision making about a home vac.  [wink]

 

[Paul G]

As much as I loath using a canister vac for cleaning house, I won't be switching from our Dyson upright which is by far the best household grade carpet vac I've used. About the only thing I've used that was better was a Clarke commercial unit I used in a previous business similar to this http://m.homedepot.com/p/Clarke-CarpetMaster-215-Dual-Motor-Commercial-Upright-Vacuum-9060408010/204236893?cm_mmc=shopping-_-googleads-_-pla-_-204236893&skwcid&kwd=&ci_sku=204236893&ci_kw=&ci_gpa=pla&ci_src=298346236

 

[Kev]

The Festool would own the Dyson in a street fight.

Dyson's do an ok job, but I wouldn't rave about them. We've got 3 Dyson's, the upright is dead and is going in the next council clean up. The powerhead barrel like Dyson unit my wife uses in the house is ok, but I think our previous Miele was better.

I really like my little hand held cordless Dyson - but the battery life is rubbish - wish Festool made a small cordless vac with an 18V 4.2Ah to juice it.

 

[johnbro]

I've got a Miele canister, Dyson Animal, CT22 and some shop vacs. The Dyson is the best vac I've ever seen for getting dog hair out of carpeting. Plus it's easy to empty and unclog. I really think Dyson's are awesome vacs. Noisy though. The Miele is by far the quietest of all vacs present and past I've used. Just not great on carpeting--especially if you have Border Collies.

 

[greg mann]

We have a Miele canister and the loudest aspect is the air rushing into the powerhead. You can hardly hear the motor over the air movement. I believe the Miele is quieter on Turbo than my CT22 is at its lowest setting, or at least comparable. If you loathe canisters they make uprights, about which I know little except they are Miele

 

[AlexThePalex]

I use my CT 26 for home cleaning all the time. Mind you, you need the 36 mm hose, because the suction is quite a bit lower with the standard 27 mm hose it comes with and can be a disappointment. My brother used it last weekend with the 27mm hose to vacuum the living room, and suffice it to say, he was not impressed.

Suction - I don't know any Dyson vacs, never use any, but other regular home vacs I have used are quite a bit stronger then Festool vacs. I'm talking about a 2200 watt Phillips Barcelona vac, a Numatic Hetty and two Mieles, dunno what type, but they're all stronger. In fact I really dislike the Philips, it's so strong it constantly gets stuck under it's own suction and makes a noise like they opened the gates of heck.

Filters - But my CT 26 by far has the best filters. Most vacs tend to stink the place up with exhaust air and I always have to open a window or a door when cleaning, and then still the room smells bad for the next hour. Not so with the 26, the exhaust air is like new, fresh, like a summer breeze over a Swiss alp. I could breath that all day. [wink]

Noise - Well, I don't see much difference with other vacs actually. The 26 is also a noisy bugger with it's high whining pitch. But when you turn it all the way down, for a small and quick clean up in the night, it works, without waking up the entire neighbourhood.

Mobility - Because of the large capacity compared to home vacs, the CT 26 does get pretty heavy when it's over half full, and combined with its size can be a handfull to get up the stairs. I can handle it fine, but not something you'd let your significant other do.

It is mainly the quality of the filters why I prefer the CT 26 over any other vac I have.

 

[ShawnRussell]

Thanks for all the feedback. I am going to look at the Miele as well. I am leaning pretty hard towards to CT.

After coming back from class I am so far beyond drinking the green kool-aid that I am the pool filled with it.

 

[RKA]

I've got a Miele canister, Dyson Animal, CT22 and some shop vacs. The Dyson is the best vac I've ever seen for getting dog hair out of carpeting. Plus it's easy to empty and unclog. I really think Dyson's are awesome vacs. Noisy though. The Miele is by far the quietest of all vacs present and past I've used. Just not great on carpeting--especially if you have Border Collies.

I would echo all of this.  Much as I hate to sound like an infomercial, I used our Simplicity upright to clean our house for almost a year after we bought it (BTW, the previous owners had a dog).  The Miele wasn't up to the task of cleaning the carpets (only had the smaller power head which is really suited for low pile carpets).  A year later enter our little golden retriever puppy and I decided carrying an upright up and down the stairs was silly, so not wanting to spend Miele money, I added a dyson.  I had to empty that canister after cleaning each carpeted room!  Some had never been accessed by the puppy, they were unused and were cleaned for a year by the Simplicity vac.  I was astonished!  On flat bare floor it did such a good job that a follow up cleaning with a wet mop turned up very little dust.  However small irregularities reduced it's effectiveness (a little bit, not a lot).  It seems like the head forms a very good seal on carpets or flat flooring and that's when it's able to do the best job.  But if you have a kid dropping cheerios all over your floor, the dyson would just push them around (not enough room for it to squeeze under the head and into the zone of suck).  Dyson makes different models, and they are indeed a little different, mine being geared for pet owners.  The best thing about it...I can empty the canister each week (it fills up about half).  No smell like the bagged  models.  I now hate the idea of a bagged model for the house, particularly throwing out  less than half filled bags because they stink (the Dyson, Miele and Simplicity have HEPA filters installed), but more importantly no more running the air through 3 months of debris you've been collecting and fermenting.  I have found 2 downsides to the Dyson (aside from the Cheerios).  It doesn't like heavy pile carpeting even on it's highest setting.  We have one room that still requires the Simplicity because the Dyson jams in the carpet pile.  The second is it seems to be overly complicated in design and had an exception number of plastic parts which have suspect longevity in my eyes.  I'm sure it will last through the 5 year warranty, but have serious doubts about whether it's life will be measured in decades like the other vacs.  In spite of that, it's my go to vac for house cleaning, and I lug it up and down the stairs to do every room except for the one with the deep pile carpeting.  You'll note the irony because this is the very reason I bought it...NOT to lug the vacuums up and down flights of stairs!

Now, I haven't used my CT26 in the house yet.  Without a brush head attachment it's only useful on bare floors.  I'm sure it would be more than acceptable for for hard floors, but so are the other vacuums in this respect. As a canister vac though, it's even bigger and clunkier than my other canister vacs, which I generally don't like except for very specific cleaning tasks.  But, if I didn't have another canister vac in the house, a mini would be a solid second choice behind a Miele (mostly due to sound considerations).  And if I was allowed to use it in the shop with the other Festoys, that would elevate it to first.  But don't make assumptions about that last part!  

 

[PA floor guy]

This is really strange that this topic came up. I have a 4 working floors in my house.  The first 2 levels are cleaned with a ct22.  And the upper 2 levels are cleaned with a pro team backpack vacuum.  BUT. My wife just bought a dyson animal ball last week. And she already commented that the 22 is better than the dyson...festool rules!!!!!!

 

[Stone Message]

I have had an old Dyson DC-02 in my workshop for years until it finally gave up the ghost about 2 months ago. On another thread we talked about emptying the bags of a CT from the hole at the front - well I used my baby Dyson to do that. It was HEPA rated and bagless.

With everyone using CTs in their homes I am just waiting for the first person to slice bread with a TS55 or peel carrots with a PSC 420 - oh and you are not to try cutting your toe nails with a Kapex as that is not approved in NA (yet).

Are we having a quiet day on the FOG?

Peter

 

[RKA]

I actually use a planer for the carrots and it works beautifully when I remember to put a clean bag in the CT (I don't like my carrots breaded).  I tried the bread loaf thing with the TS55R, but lost a whole loaf when the blade didn't retract.  Bread everywhere...it wasn't pretty.  [wink]

 

[Kev]

I actually use a planer for the carrots and it works beautifully when I remember to put a clean bag in the CT (I don't like my carrots breaded).  I tried the bread loaf thing with the TS55R, but lost a whole loaf when the blade didn't retract.  Bread everywhere...it wasn't pretty.   [wink]

You got the Julienne head too eh?

I hear the Seneca guys are working on a better set of parallel French Fry cutting guides ... can't wait.

 

[dltflt]

We use a CT22 for house and love it.  Used to use an Oreck.