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This little corner of the CrazySquirrel website is devoted to the cleaning and repairing Dyson vacuum cleaners. Now that's a pretty odd thing to be writing about I hear you cry and yes I suppose it is but I have good reason for doing it.
As I am sure you know the Dyson vacuum cleaner took the country if not the world by storm and, in my opinion, quite rightly. It's certainly a very novel and effective design but it does have a few problems. The build quality of Dyson vacuum cleaners is generally quite good. Most parts that need attention are fairly easily accessed by clips and maintenance isn't required that often.
There are, however, a couple of problems that traditional (bagged) vacuum cleaners don't suffer from. The first is a problem with very light dust such as that created by sanding plaster and wood. Now, I know that Dyson vacuum cleaners weren't designed to be used as DIY vacuum cleaners but that doesn't mean I, and many other people, don't use them to pick up this type of dirt. If I was picking this type of stuff up ever day I would get an industrial strength cleaner.
The problem is that very light dust can pass straight thorough the cyclone and get caught in the primary motor filter (located at the base of the machine normally). I realize that this can happen with bagged machines as well but in my experience the problem isn't anywhere near as bad with bagged machines. I would like to see an optional additional filter before the primary motor filter. Looking at the arrangement of pipework this shouldn't be hard to engineer in. I would buy two or three of these components if they were cheap enough so that I could change them during a days work (thinking about it I suppose I could buy more primary motor filters and change them regularly but that wouldn't increase protection that much).
The second major problem is with the collection chamber. After picking up dust for a while the cyclones become clogged and the suction drops dramatically. My solution to this problem was the main reason for writing these few pages.
I hope you these pages help you solve problems with your Dyson. If you have any feedback (contact doozer) I would very much appreciate hearing it.