Variety of Vacuum Cleaners Available Today

A variety of vacuum cleaner models and styles emerged, forcing consumers to figure out which kind of vacuum cleaner was right for them.

The most common style is the upright vacuum cleaner, which has a bag mounted on the handle. The whole unit is pushed around the floor or carpet, with the suction intake on the bottom.

Another well-known type is the canister, this has the bag and the motor in a cylinder-shaped unit mounted on wheels, with a hose coming out of it to suck up the dirt. The hose makes the canister vacuum cleaner a easier to use when it comes to tight spots, though most upright cleaners have optional hose attachments too.

Some specialized canister vacuums are known as wet vacs or wet/dry vacs and can be utilized to clean up liquid spills, too.

A variation of the canister cleaner is the backpack vacuum, which has the user wearing the canister portion of the vacuum cleaner on his back. This is utilized almost exclusively in cleaning commercial areas such as offices and schools. Wearing the canister rather than pushing it around on wheels means the worker can cover a lot of ground more speedily.

One modern variation is built-in or the central vacuum cleaners. In this system, a home or office has the vacuum built directly into the walls, with ports in every room. You simply plug a hose into the port and do your vacuuming, the debris taken away to a central container that needs to be emptied only a few times a year. Since the unit for suctioning doesn't have to be portable, it can be stronger than the type used in traditional vacuum cleaners.