I have the same vac as Ron has. It is powerful and I love the clear canister. But it is heavy, especially when you compare it to a regular bag vac (sanitaire, eureka, etc.)
What is good about it being heavy is that the weight slows you down. You don't want to make short, choppy strokes like you would with a lighter vacuum. With this vac you can make long easy passes and see the dirt and hair come into the canister.
I am always suprised at the amount of dirt that i pick up even though I vacuum my house two or three times a week. You can see the dirt and you can see that it is very fine, like a powder. It also picks up cat hair very easily. I have a long haired orange cat so the fur is all over the place and you cant miss it. You don't have to go super slow in order to pick up the hair. Just one slow pass and it's gone.
I know that I don't vacuum as slow as Ron does. But I do spend extra time on the traffic lanes and I can see if anything is being picked up. The cleartrak is especially good if there is deoderizer powder in the carpet. You can see how much you got in a certain area and you can always empty the canister very easily and go over that area again to see if more is coming up.
Knowing Ron he took extra time with the stairs expecially when he say the green stuff going into the canister. To do a hall and 3 bedrooms would probably take me about 25 minutes to vacuum. But I know that by using the cleartrak I am getting up a lot of dirt and hair.....maybe not as much as Ron did but a good amount for sure. And then the TM will get whatever it can, so most if not all the dirt will be gone from the carpet. Using this vacuum and a high performance TM is a great combination. I don't feel like I have to rush the vacuuming part because it is an important step and accomplishes a lot all by itself.
Richard, this vacuum is not one that you would want to use if a quick once-over is all you want your techs to do. It is too heavy and not small so it would be a bad fit for that. But if you have places that you can really take your time and do a great job (I think Ron charges 50 cents a foot for cleaning) then this vacuum would be a great choice for you. I haven't used it on a commercial job yet but I think that it will do very well there too, especially if I use my Whittaker with a soft brush to break up the traffic lanes and then vac before the PS and wand cleaning.
When you see the suction power of these vacuums picking up the dirt and hair so easily it really makes you proud of having such a high-quality item to help you clean the carpets. You do get used to it being a very heavy vacuum but when that clear canister fills up like it does with Ron's pictures then you know that a lot of dirt is not there when you go and clean it with the wand.
