Importance of Vacuuming:

As we have stated before, your floor is the largest horizontal surface in your home. Just as dust gathers on your shelves, TVs, and tables, your floor picks up even more! It is important to vacuum thoroughly as often as your busy schedule allows.

How often you vacuum is up to you. A good guide is to take the number of people in your home and vacuum that many times per week. Five people in your home, vacuum five times a week. This is only a guide but vacuuming as often as you can extends the life of your carpets and keeps the buildup from damaging your carpet fibers and keeping it looking its best.

Types of vacuums:

What kind of vacuum should I get/have?

First off, do not let price influence which vacuum to go with. Both cheap and expensive vacuums may offer the same quality of cleaning. Look for one that feels comfortable to you and has all of the features that you want such as a long hose, attachments, and the type of dirt storage you want.

Things to look for when picking a vacuum:

Bag or bagless? This is up to you. Bagless offers a great way to get away from traditional paper bags and helps keep the vacuum's power more even due to not having a bag filling up and slowing the airflow. A bagless vacuum however tends to release more dust when emptying since you are just pouring it out. Neither is better then the other. Pick one that works best for you.

Hose:

Make sure it has a long enough hose to get to the hard to reach areas. Also make sure it seems to be made of quality materials. You want to be able to get good use out of the hose and attachments. Also, you do not need a lot of attachments. One with a brush on the end for dusting and one for corners is usually good enough. Some offer a pet hair tool that is good for picking up hair from your fabrics.

Cord:

Seems funny worrying about the power cord but it is an important part of your vacuum. You want a good quality power cord and one long enough that you wont have to stop often to move it to another plug. When a power cord becomes damaged, please replace it. An appliance repair shop should be able to help you with this.

When Vacuuming:

....it is important to take your time. It doesn’t have to last for hours but you want the vacuum to do it's job. Move over the same area more then once and do slow back passes. Also spend the most time in high traffic areas. You don’t have to do it every time but break out the hose and run it along the edges to clear out dust and dirt that gets pulled into the fibers through moving air in your home.