Kirby vacuum cleaners

My Grandma swore by hers in the '70s and '80s. It was indeed very, very heavy and moderately terrifying.

Personally I found ours as a kid heavy, clunky, and overpriced.

I've had mine for 30 plus years...definitely heavy and clunky - but a work out!

The vacuum equivalent of Birkenstocks.

A friend bought a new, lighter vacuum to replace the old heavy Kirby. But he declared his Dyson "a piece of plastic shit" and has since reverted back to his old reliable Kirby.

I’ve been waiting for Kirby to come out with a rider.

I've never owned one but I hear they're heavy, clunky and overpriced.

We had a Kirby when I was growing up, it was great. Around the 90s, they stopped being exceptional. I don't know if they got worse or other vacuums got better

Don't pay full price. If you have carpeting or good large rugs, you need a Kirby. You can easily pick up a used Kirby for no more than the plastic shit on the market.

I'm on my 2nd Kirby. The first one I bought used for $100 about 25 years ago. Last year, it went to Kirby heaven and I was unsuccessful at finding replacements. But it was made in 1958, so I cannot complain. 60 years is reasonable.

If you want the dirt out of your rugs, you want a Kirby.

I was unsuccessful at finding replacement parts.

Sorry.

You still actually need some salesman to come into your home in order to purchase one of these things? Hard no thanks.

I bought a Shark Apex from QVC’s website like three years ago. It works great and I only spent around $200. As soon as it shits the bed, even if that’s next week, I’ll gladly shell out another $200 for a new one. I don’t need some pimply Jeffrey Dahmer type “traveling salesman” coming into my house and throwing potting soil on my floor like he’s Lucy Ricardo trying to make a quick buck in order to keep her checkbook in balance.

[quote]I bought a Shark Apex from QVC’s website like three years ago. It works great

LOL that's like bragging about owning a Kia.

I bought a commercial backpack style vac a couple of years ago, $400, and its awesome. Powerful, easy to use, not too noisy and well made, Pullman brand, have no idea whether its a good brand or not but its a good vac. Kirbys seem crazily overpriced to me

Just go the vacuum cleaner supplies and repair shop in your area. It will almost certainly have at least on refurbished Kirby for sale for a few hundred bucks.

Be sure get the paint sprayer attachment.

My grandmother had one for as long as I can remember. It outlived her. It outlived my mother. It will probably outlive me.

r15

Vacuums are not alive

My first roommate in college (still a good friend) sold Kirby vacuums our sophomore year. I remember the sales bitch involved making homeowners feel as dirty as humanly possible. There were these round, white pieces of paper (we had a million boxes of them in our apartment) you we re supposed to put in the Kirby and in the homeowner's vacuum to show how much more dirt the Kirby picked up, Of course, you were supposed to put the paper in the first vacuum in a certain way and then in the Kirby another way.

I think he maybe sold three vacuums the entire time. One to his mother, one to his grandmother, and one to some random guy who just thought he was cute.

He was much more successful the next year selling CutCo knives. He had to learn how to cut a penny with scissors there.

Eventually, he stopped responding to help wanted ads asking for "young, energetic types."

Your roommate was using the Kirby Dirt Meter. Vacuum the customer's carpet with her vacuum. Take the vacuum bag off the Kirby, replace it with the Dirt Meter and a filter. Vacuum her carpet again. Surprise, surprise. The filter in the Dirt Meter will be coated in dirt. The Kirby is really good with rugs. Do more tests and create more dirty filters.

I read something once online from a former Kirby salesman. They were instructed to close the pitch by laying all the dirty filters on the coffee table and say to the customer, "So, ma'am... It's up to you. Either the Kirby stays and the dirt goes. Or the Kirby goes and the dirt stays."

The attached video features the bare feet of the young man testing his Kirby.

Whatever you do, don't get a Dyson. Overhyped pieces of junk. The brush spinner button will break just after the warranty. Even within the warranty, getting it fixed is a huge pain.

I bought a cordless LG after seeing it on that Netflix B&B show. It's great. Expensive AF though.

I inherited a Kirby many years ago. It had a huge box of all sorts of attachments. I found the invoice in my parent's papers when I was going through the house and saw they had paid almost $1000.00 for the thing. It was obviously a very good quality cleaner but it was too heavy, and removing the cleaning head to put on attachments and putting the head back on was a major chore. I eventually gave it away to someone in my office.

Why is the Kirby supposedly so superior?

I've got a Miele canister, with disposable bags. It's lightweight, works every time, and certainly gets the dirt out. Great suction.

[quote] Why is the Kirby supposedly so superior?

Because they're very well made and last for decades. Most vacuums are made primarily of plastic and if you get 5 years out of them you're lucky, Kirby vacs are made primarily of metal. The unfortunate thing about that is they are so heavy.

No nylon parts. No plastic parts. Not in the actual works of the thing. Some trim is synthetic. The attachments for vacuuming the tops of your drapes, etc. Those are plastic.

But the body and the actual works of the vacuum are made of cast aluminum.

I also have a Miele canister vacuum. I've had it ten or twelve years and it's as good as new.

No one in my circle ever heard of Miele, and if I had to pull it out to vacuum something in anyone's presence, they'd laugh and say "what kind of a vacuum is THAT?!" The canister and I suppose the bright blue color probably made them think it was another of my Aldi finds. "It's a Meal" I'd say, not wanting to pronounce Miele correctly around my visiting Kansas friends and kins for fear of alienating them (white people code switch, too). "Never heard of it!", they'd snort.

My closest friend and I were puttering around Fry's one day and she led me to the vacuum aisle and pointed out a Dyson something or other and said "I have that exact vacuum. THAT'S what you need. But it's $350, so...", she trailed off.

We grew up working class, eating Saltines together, and since we made it out, we've always had an unspoken, passive aggressive competition about our most mundane purchases, the costs of which middle class people wouldn't bat an eye at but growing up as we did, $350 was an unthinkable amount of money to spend on a vacuum. $50 for a pillow was obscene, etc, and I guess both of us quietly get a thrill out of the split second flash of shock on other one's face when one says something like "well of course it rains now that I just spent $45 at the car wash!" Anyway, there was no more delicious one-up than to say "Well, $350 is a lot considering my Meal vacuum cost $700, but I'll keep your yellow vacuum in mind if I decide to get a second vacuum just to keep upstairs."

Who doesn't know Miele? Jesus. It's like Bosch. It's common now. Not a fan of either, but they're out there, available.

I come from a Dirt Devil family, R26.

But next time someone says something about my mystery vaccum, I'm going to huff, roll my eyes and say: Who DOESN'T know Miele? Jesus. It's like Bosch!"

It sounded so natural when you said it.

I love you, r25/r27!

I have two Miele's. The first is 27 years old. It still works well and I keep it on the first floor where it gets everything tracked into the foyer as well as the garage and vacuuming the cars. We got a bigger house and I bought a second Miele about five years ago. It's lighter and has more bells and whistles (longer cord, Hepa filter, electronic controls) and if anything it works even better.

The first one was $500 in 1993. The new one was $750 in 2015. They are thus cheaper, lighter, and as durable as a Kirby. And a helluva lot lighter and easier to use.

40 years ago, my father picked up a barely-used Kirby at an estate auction, with every known attachment included. He paid $75. Most of the attachments had never been used. That thing would suck the hide off of a cow!

My Kirby lifted the linoleum off the kitchen floor when I lowered it to closely to the floor.

[quote] when I lowered it to closely to the floor.

Oh, dear!

I HATE my Dyson and would never buy any of their products again. My favorite was a heavy duty Hoover which I bought used from a guy trying to sell me a Kirby but happened to have a used Kirby in his trunk. I assume it was from the last person he had sold a Kirby to. It was the best and lasted ma about 30 years. now I have as a backup to my Dyson a $25 Dirt Devil that sucks the carpet right off the floor.

Miele canister as well. Very quiet, powerful, and trouble free

Crap! Stupid multi-purpose concept. Does many things badly.

We had a Kirby and no other vacuum cleaner I have ever owned has been half as effective. They also make an unmistakable approaching-diesel-train sound that I thought was cool. The cats disagreed with me.