Dyson DC65 Animal Complete Upright Vacuum Cleaner

The Dyson D65 Animal Complete is an amazingly good machine, but not a perfect one. I purchased this to replace a small stable of vacuum cleaners. I was anxious to get rid of were my Eureka heavy duty commercial upright, a 20+ year old canister vac, and a small hand vac with a rotating brush for cleaning the stairs and upholstered furniture. It’s annoying to have to haul out all this equipment on cleaning day.First, I’m a working guy, not a housewife. I tend to put off cleaning until it things are visibly dusty or dirty. I have a small dog that sheds a lot and live in a very dusty part of a dusty city, Phoenix, AZ. There is farming, construction, and a mine that extracts dirt for landscaping nearby, all raising dust. The heavy duty Eureka upright seemed to do the job on the wall-to-wall carpet throughout the house, but couldn’t get the dog hair off either the shag area rugs or one with very low pile. The carpet downstairs was commercially cleaned six weeks ago and last vacuumed a week ago. After assembling the Dyson D65 yesterday, I vacuumed the living room and dining area. It sucked up so much dog hair and dust that I had to empty the bin after just those two areas. Clearly, the old vac wasn’t performing as well as I thought. What the Eureka commercial vac has going for it though, despite costing almost two thirds less, is durability. It has sturdy metal parts and the brushes in the bar are even replaceable. Unfortunately it doesn’t clean as well as the Dyson, which is plastic and certainly doesn’t feel like it’s made to stand up to heavy use. I also had other problems with the Eureka upright. Small stones get tracked in from the decorative gravel in my yard. They cut up the rubber belt driving the beater bar and I had to replace it frequently. I don’t know yet how the Dyson will handle these.The Eureka upright doesn’t have a setting for bare floors or any cleaning attachments. The Dyson D65 has both. A convenient button shuts off the beater bar motor. I found the Dyson did an excellent job on ceramic tile. The Eureka also has no attachments. That is why I kept the old canister vac and purchased a hand held one. The Dyson has useful attachments, but I have some reservations. One attachment included in the Animal Complete version, the Tangle-free Turbine tool, works spectacularly well. It did a better job of getting dog hair off the couch than anything I’ve tried. My dog also likes to sit on the stairs, where he can look out at the street. I used the turbine tool there as well and it did a great job on the carpet. This will let me get rid of my hated hand-held, which is so loud I have to wear ear plugs to prevent hearing loss. Three other specialty brushes come in the Animal Complete package and they are useful, but the design of the machine limits that usefulness. All of the attachments click into the end of a 2½ ft. long pole that pulls out of a flexible hose. This is great for reaching down to baseboards or up to ceiling fans. However there is no way to remove the pole and connect directly to the end of the flexible hose. This makes dusting things like table tops or dusting in tight spaces very clumsy. Also, when extending the hose you are pulling against the Dyson’s considerable suction power. The hose extends quite a ways. I was able to vacuum a flight of ten stairs with the machine at the bottom. However, I had to exert quite a bit of strength to do it. You will also be pulling the vacuum cleaner along with you until it runs into something to stop it. And, not all the tools are as useful as the turbine tool.The dusting brushes included in the Animal Complete package have splayed one inch bristles. There is nothing like the round brush with lots of long soft bristles that comes with many vacs and is widely available aftermarket. These are great for dusting complex surfaces and the standard ones don’t fit the Dyson’s proprietary assembly system. There is also no way to control the amount of suction. Every canister vacuum I’ve seen has an adjustable vent on the handle that can be opened to lessen the suction power. This is really useful when dusting around delicate items or stacks of papers. I try to do most of my dusting with the vac to cut down on allergy problems. So, it looks like the old canister vacuum will have to stick around. There are also two more tools that clip directly onto the body of the D65. One is a small brushless head I haven’t used yet. The other is a combination brush and crevice tool. The brush slides up and down the crevice tool. This is clever, but it also keeps the crevice tool from being inserted more than couple of inches into any narrow area. The whole point of a crevice tool is to get into, under, and behind things. This is another reason to keep the canister vac — and there is one more. Another place my dog likes to hang out is under beds. The Eureka commercial upright could get under a standard bed frame. The Dyson’s bulky ball and collection canister keep it from going under anything much lower than a dining table.Here’s a list of pros and cons:Cleaning power: This really is pretty spectacular; there is no con here.Maneuverability: Pro: The ball design make it easy to push around. Cleans right to wall.Retractable pole helps dusting high and low.Con: Can’t go under furniture. Retractable pole makes much dusting clumsy.Cord: Pro: 35 ft. long cord gives good range of travel. Con: Cord comes out half way up handle and tends to get caught on the smallbalance wheels unless you hold it. My carpet cleaning machine has a small cliphigh on the handle to take the cord. That would help here. A machine this expensive should really have a retractable cord. Not only do you have to wind the cord, but the lower cleat is near the floor so you have to bend way over with every loop.Materials: Pro: Since it’s new I’ll give Dyson the benefit of the doubt and say these lightweight plastic parts will hold up under household use. However, if a lessestablished firm had introduced this, critics would be all over how flimsy it feels. Con: In Arizona’s dry climate the plastic has already developed a static electric charge and attracts dust and dog hair.Design style: Pro: You’d recognize this as a pricey Dyson from 100 yards away.Con: My background is in design and while some people love the design of Dyson’s vacuums, I’m not one of them. Dyson’s most recent designs, the fan,heater, humidifier, and various hand dryers have an elegant simplicity which is the complete antithesis of the vacuum cleaners. Not only do I find the machine quite ugly, its numerous indentations and complex shapes are going to be a problem. I don’t have a closet for it. I’ll keep it in the laundry room and it will get dusty. Its design means it can’t just be wiped clean. There will always be pockets of dirt.

I have owned about 5 or so vacuums. My most recent was a Dyson DC25. It has been a durable vacuum. I did have to replace the brush head once (more my fault). While durable it was not a good vacuum. From the first day it never cleaned carpet well and anyone who thought it did never had a good vacuum. It wasn't without its good points. It was designed well. Things just worked the way you thought they should. I kept it for so long because I got used to carpet cleaning the carpets more often. If you look at consumer reports the dyson always ranks poorly. I agree. They judge a vacuum on how it cleans and dysons used to not clean well.The new DC65 I think will get a MUCH higher rating. Its easy to use. The tools are great, and it really cleans carpet. I vacuumed and carpet cleaned yesterday. The carpets were as clean as I could get them. They looked close to new. The DC65 came and I tried it out. I filled half or so of the bin with fine dust and other stuff... A lot of this probably came from the edges which as everyone else says this vacuum cleans very well. But the fine dust probably came from the bulk of the carpet. The vacuum is also much easier to maneuver than the DC25 though the suction can be so strong that it does not turn easily. A good problem to have. The DC25 also never had a problem picking up stray "big" objects that would stop the brush. It would simply push them around. The DC65 tries to suck up socks or anything else that gets near. I stopped the brush more times in one vacuuming than I had in years. Again good problem to have and mostly my fault. I am just used to not being able to pick-up anything. FYI this is not from dirty filters on the 25. I cleaned them often since new and it never had great suction.Now not everything is perfect. The plastic seems significantly thinner. The dirt bin seems much more delicate than the 25. Infact the whole machine seems cheaper. The motors however I'm sure added significantly to the cost of construction. It is a heavy machine and so the metal must be in there. It is just not on the outside. Time will tell... It might be the 25 was way over designed on the plastic and way under designed for suction. I always thought there motto of never losing suction was kind of stupid because you need to have some to lose it. The DC 65 has a lot. I thought of a Meile but the cost of the bags and filters turned me off. I think the DC65 is the best vacuum for the money if it lasts more than 5 years. I also think consumer reports will find this vacuum does one important thing... It cleans.One last thought... It was much quieter than I thought it would be. Its not whisper quiet but not the jet engine I thought it might be. I would buy this vacuum again, and plan a long relationship if it holds up. Its a whole new world a dyson vacuum that I like and that actually cleans.