How to Clean a Vacuum Cleaner
Most of the time, the basic yet thorough cleaning we’ve outlined above will get your vacuum back into top form.
But if you still aren’t getting much oomph, or the power keeps cutting out, or the vacuum just won’t start, you have a few other possibilities to consider:
- The batteries are dead (on battery-powered vacuums), or there’s some other fault in the charging system, such as dirty charging contacts or a broken power adapter.
- If it’s a robot vacuum, a dirty sensor can cause the bot to behave strangely.
- A cracked hose is leaking air and reducing suction.
- Either the belt (cheap to fix) or the transmission (more expensive) for the brush is broken.
- You have a “phantom” clog in the bag, the narrow tips of the cyclones, or the filter. These can be caused by debris such as flour, plaster dust, or other fine, white, gummy stuff. The clogs are hard to spot but act like cement and choke the airflow.
You can find tons of DIY repair videos on YouTube, and they can be a great guide to fixing these problems. But sometimes your best bet is to bring your vacuum into a shop and let an experienced technician give it a shot.
Sabine Heinlein contributed reporting.
