EU Vacuum Cleaner madness

richardhomer

My 'Hoover's German - a seething 1300w Sebo that lifts nails out of floor boards.

Will I be allowed to keep it?

chrispy108

Grumpyrocker said:

As ever reporting of EU issues is chock full of shrill nonsense. This is merely a drive to force manufacturers to offer better and more efficient equipment to consumers. It has already done so with televisions and fridges. No Brussels stormtroopers are not coming for your Hoovers.

3) Obviously more energy efficient appliances are good for consumers, who will have reduced energy bills and in this case quieter vacuum cleaners into the bargain. The new labelling system will help them make informed choices.

4) The new rules are based on a tried and tested approach which has already delivered results for all sorts of other appliances and made life easier and cheaper for consumers. A similar labelling system was introduced for fridges and freezers 20 years ago. They now use only one-third of the electricity they did then. Two years after regulations were introduced for television sets, 70% of those on the market were in the top class for energy efficiency.

5) Markets alone won’t make improvements in energy efficiency happen, at least not quickly. Innovation often needs to be given a push. Business wants certainty over the rules and to be sure that competitors will not be able to steal a short-term advantage by continuing to produce and market inefficient appliances.

8) As we pointed out last year, studies have shown that more efficient vacuum cleaners would save 19 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy annually in the EU by 2020. As a comparison, that amount of energy would keep the London Underground running for up to twenty years.

Points 3, 4, 5 I disagree with. We already had the power of vacuum cleaner labelled, and consumers could chose to buy an energy efficient model if they wanted to. I don't see why the state needs to get involved in this.

If we'd not been pushed into CFL energy saving light bulbs (which are shit), forcing manufacturers to spend alot of money and effort making them less shit, maybe we'd all have affordable LEDs in our houses by now?

I can't believe the energy saving in point 8. 19TWh is roughly 0.6% of the electricity consumed by the EU in year. (According to Wolfram Alpha).

I started to do the sums, but this guy already has for me: http://bogpeople.com/blog/?p=99

To get to the figure of 19TWh you'd need every man, women and child to spend an hour a week vacuuming, and for them to all bin their old monster vacuum and run out to buy a new one.

Fretwired

I didn't know that there were so many vacuums that need cleaning .. the EU are a funny lot ...

Corvus

johnnyurq said:

imalone said:

 

  You want to get this checked, because that may be a body.

LOL.

it just sat there with its long nose and funny attachemets looking dumb.

You may want to get that checked, it could be a cartoon elephant.

Talking of Dysons, when it breaks again and they send their people round, one way to pass the time is call it a hoover at every possible chance which makes them say "it's a Dyson sir, not a hoover" every time.

ICBM

chrispy108 said:

If we'd not been pushed into CFL energy saving light bulbs (which are shit), forcing manufacturers to spend alot of money and effort making them less shit, maybe we'd all have affordable LEDs in our houses by now?

I dont agree. I strongly suspect that if there hadn't been a push for CFLs, manufacturers (because incandescents are cheap to make, expendable and hence an endless revenue stream) and buyers (because they are cheap, at least in the short term) would have continued with incandescents indefinitely and LED would have remained expensive. It's only because we were forced into CFLs and then only because they are shit, that LED is finally being taken seriously and costs are coming down.

But I do agree that CFLs were otherwise a counterproductive step in themselves since they are not only shit but don't even last that long, and are expensive to make. Hopefully lower-powered vacuum cleaners won't have some inherent flaw that reduces their usefulness too...

Phil_aka_Pip

ICBM said:

 Hopefully lower-powered vacuum cleaners won't have some inherent flaw that reduces their usefulness too...

Unfortunately they will have. The clue is in the name ...

ICBM

It depends on whether they can be made more efficient as well. If they can't then the whole thing will be counterproductive because people will just spend more time cleaning. If they can, no problem.

Gassage

I'm gonna rewire my Vac with a Partridge Output transformer. I'll hoover Brussels up.

mellowsun

We recently bought a Dyson DC-59. It's only 350W, but it's pretty powerful (as well as being as light as a feather and cordless). 

It's fine for our small house, if you have a big house it's probably not the best, although we usually get 25 mins of continuous use before each recharge. But so long as you don't have it on constantly it works fine.

The days of heavy, bulky, inefficient hoovers is over. I think the EU directive is a step forwards, and will encourage further innovation.

Bogwhoppit

A Darwinian event will take care of all the worlds current issues. Our descendants can then have a fresh start and use fuel injection on future vacuum cleaners. Putin, Blair and the worlds other a-holes can then be recycled into pet food; and most importantly, all the guitars will have been burnt for firewood leaving Gibson, Fender and the others to re-introduce GAS to the new order.

I'm up for a bit of reincarnation. I can restart my guitar collection whilst sucking up the house dust with a Hoover 1.1 L GLSi (GT Ghia x).

 

Sambostar

People will be using variac's on their hoovers.  Need for Speed 11, featuring Henry vs. Dyson with Henrietta and George as supporting actors.

Sambostar

Now the EU want to ban high energy consuming hair driers, smartphones and.....kettles. 

Are they actually aware of the Laws of energy conservation and thermodynamics? 

Or do they seriously think a kettle that consumes less energy will use less energy to boil a cup of water or a hair drier that has a quarter of the energy consumption won't take four times as much time or longer to dry someone's hair in a salon?

menamestom

I was thinking of voting in, but the thought of unrestricted vacuum power is very tempting.

Think of all the time we could save with those extra watts!

The time I save hoovering, I could use to good effect by eating a banana with malformation or abnormal curvature.

Fuck the Bank of England, International Monetary Fund, CBI and Stephen Hawking, they won't restore our carpet pile, will they, eh?

fields5069

It's not the suction though, but the way the carpet gets beaten which makes a good cleaner. Our SEBO is 1100 watts and is a fantastic carpet vacuumer.

Sporky

Evilmags said:

Utter idiocy. Just buy a building site one. About twice the power of a Henry and not covered by this regulatory idiocy.

Henrys are by far the most common vacuums on building sites.

menamestom

I'm gassing for a Dyson V8.  Not very efficient but they sound amazing.

 

Sporky

I've not been mad-impressed with our Dysons. They're not very well designed in a lot of ways - the hose, for instance, is too "strong" and will easily pull the whole thing over while trying to hoover the stairs. Just switched to a bagged Miele and that's lighter, easier to use and more powerful.

randella

menamestom said:

I'm gassing for a Dyson V8.  

How times change language - if someone had said that sentence out loud 15 years ago, they'd have been told to see a doctor.

Fretwired

menamestom said:

I'm gassing for a Dyson V8.  Not very efficient but they sound amazing.

Not as good as my vintage '59 Hoover .. it's faded to a cool copper hue and has a clear warm tone that only comes from a vintage British vacuum. I replaced the brushes on the front with a set of EL84s which has removed some of the high end whine whilst improving the suction.

Bogwhoppit

We just replaced our 2100 watt Pet clean Hoover with the replacement 750 watt EU version - its doesn't suck !

I'm searching through gumtree to see if can source the old 2100 watt model, or find someone who'll rewind the motor.  I could clean the carpet better telling a druggie I spilt some coke on the carpet and give him a couple of straws.

Vote leave - get some suck !