7 on Your Side: Consumer Reports ranks best stick vacuums

Friday, November 11, 2016

Stick vacuums have a lot of variety and Consumer Reports narrows down which ones are the best for their value.

Stick vacuums now come in all shapes and sizes. Some are slender, light weight pick-me-ups, while others are beefier with larger heads and motors.

Whatever you buy, you want one that gets the job done. Consumer reports found out which clean up the best.

Stick vacs are handy for light picking up at the end of the day or a quick sweep around the house when a company is dropping by.

But consumer reports found some don't do a good job. The Electrolux Ergorapido just pushed around a test mixture of cheerios, rice and sand. It costs $220.

The Electrolux is also among the worst on the edge test, leaving behind a swath of sand after two passes.

The Dyson V6 absolute showed how it's done, picking up all the sand along the edge.

"The Dyson V6 lightweight, weighing just five pounds, but it has a hefty price tag: $600," said Dan Diclerico of Consumer Reports. "It was excellent at surface cleaning a carpet and picked up embedded pet hair easily."

The rechargable battery runs for about 14 minutes.

Another recommended vaccuum, the $230 Shark Rocket Deluxepro Truepet has a cord so you don't have to worry about running out of power. It weighs about nine pounds and does an excellent job picking up pet hair.

A light on the Shark's deck illuminates dirt in dark, hard to reach spots, like under furniture.

For far less, the $130 Bissell Trilogy Superlight also does a great job sucking up pet hair and is quieter than a lot of the machines Consumer Reports tested. On bare floors, the Trilogy is even better at picking up little bits of debris.

So some of these new stick vacs can be a big help around the house, but they still don't approach the deep cleaning power of a regular vacuum. So don't consider them a replacement.

Consumer Reports is published by Consumers Union. Both Consumer Reports and Consumers Union are not-for-profit organizations that accept no advertising. Neither has any commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor on this site.