$3000 Vacuum Cleaner

I could never have imagined buying a $3000 vacuum cleaner. But we just did over the weekend. It is awfully expensive, but after seeing what it does, I think many people would be convinced they need one like it. I suppose their marketing strategy is really effective. They make you feel really bad about not having one, so that you need to buy one right away. They are certainly pretty good at helping to guide you along toward the “buy” decision.

This is the Rainbow vacuum cleaner manufactured by Rexair LLC. It employs a water bath filtration system, or in other words, it uses water to collect dust, instead of the dust bag used by most regular vacuum cleaner. This is certainly not the first water system that I’ve seen or used. But this Rainbow system is surprisingly effective at picking up dirt.

The “problem” with dust bag that they try to tell you is:

1. Some dust particles are small enough to get through the dust bag. (That’s why the exhaust air filter gets dirty…)
2. The dust bag gets clogged, reducing the effectiveness of the vacuum power. Hence the vacuum cleaner needs a large oversized powerful motor.
3. Imagine if bits of food, or other perishable things, get sucked into the dust bag. They rot in the dust bag, and air is continuously sucked through the dust bag, through the rotting rubbish, and exhausted back into the room. What a health hazard.

So, hence, how perfect a water based system is. No dust bag, nothing to get clogged. Water is changed every time.

Their demonstration focuses a lot on the amount of dust that is picked up by the vacuum, and how much of that could potentially be exhausted back into the environment by regular dust bag vacuum cleaners.

I’m sure regular vacuum cleaners are not as bad as they picture them to be. But definitely their arguments make some sense, no denying that.

Yes, this picture sure looks gross. That’s the amount of dirt collected from just merely vacuuming up ONE piece of carpet/rug. Yeah, we’ve not washed it before, but it has been vacuumed from time to time (with our regular vacuum cleaner). That’s just the dust from one piece of carpet/rug picked up by the Rainbow vacuum cleaner.

Now, you can perhaps appreciate why, after observing one demonstration, that you’d feel so uneasy about the amount of dirt in your house, and guilty about not having such a vacuum cleaner.

I think the “magic” of the system’s ability to extract out dirt comes from the Power Nozzle, which consist of a high speed rotating brush that kind of “beats” the carpet (or cushion, bed, mattress, etc), reaching into the fabric to dig out the dust, then sucking it into the vacuum. The rest of its accessories and functions are not unlike regular vacuum cleaners. Water bath filtration certainly has its advantages over dust bags too.

The big question is, is it worth $3000? I cannot imagine the cost of manufacturing the product would come anywhere close to even one-fifth of that price. They claim technical superiority of their motor system, but well the question again is whether it’s worth $3000?

If the Rainbow vacuum cleaner can last 15 years (it comes with 8 years warranty), the $3000 works out to be just $17 a month. It sounds like a worthy investment for you and your children’s health.

I would love to hear some input about other competing water based vacuum systems.