Battery powered / cordless shop vacs (vacuums)?

[MikeInOr]

I have a couple of shop vacs and they work great for the shop but I have come to the point where I would really like one for the house. About 9 months ago our German Shepherd adopted us and she has been a great dog. With the weather turning warmer we are drowning in hair! We have shed hair EVERYWHERE! Yes, her grooming schedule has gone from once a week to being brushed out every day and I still have to vacuum multiple times a day. We have a good Kenmore canister vac which takes bags and it does a great job of keeping the hair down but the bag fills up more than once a week. So I finally brought my corded shop vac inside and it is doing a GREAT job keeping up with all the hair.

We have hard surface wood, tile, slate floors throughout the house. We really have practically no use for a beater brush any more because of twe don't have any carpet.

I would like a battery powered shop vac. NOT one of those little dustbuster on steroids things but a REAL shop vac.

I started down the Ridgid 9gal 2 x 18v vac which is no longer made. Then I found the Greenworks 2 x 60V AC/DC vac:

I don't know if you can use a bag in this vac??? 2 x 60v Greenworks batteries + charger are expensive, I might get aftermarket batteries. Greenworks has a half dozen different battery voltages/designs so there isn't much compatibility between all the different Greenworks tools.

Then I cam upon the Milwaukee cordless shop vacs:

6 gallon - 1 x 18v battery


9 gallon - 2 x 18v batteris


and 12 gallon. 2 x 18v batteries.

I am kind of liking the 9 gallon model that takes 2 x 18v batteries. I don't know if these vacs will take generic shop vac bags? The 9g and 12 g use the same vac head and it as also interchangeable with the smaller 6g head.

I don't believe in bagless vacuums. They either plug immediately or they just blow the fine unseeable dust out the outlet neither of which work for me. So a bag is a must! EDIT: All the Milwaukee vacs have the ability to take quality bags!

I am in the Dewalt battery ecosystem so what ever I buy will be a new battery ecosystem for me. None of the Dewalt cordless vacs come near to meeting my needs.

Any experience with cordless vacs would be appreciated! Even if it is the small super dustbuster type... I have no cordless vac real life experience. If there is some super 2-3gal cordless shop vac we may consider it... The thought of being able to throw it into the RV for cleaning up and blowing up kayaks does have a lot of appeal and would extend the use of the vac. I don't need the top end in suction, I need enough suction to get the job done competently. Thank you!

Edit: now that I kno0w the Milwaukee vacs will take bags I am really leaning towards the 6G single battery version. The 9gal dual battery version goes for over $1000 with 2 batteries and a charger.

 

[tq60]

Rainbow vacuum.

Bagless, uses water

No dust escapes

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

 

[MikeInOr]

Rainbow vacuum.

Bagless, uses water

No dust escapes

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

I would really like a cordless vac. It would be great for dust collection for my cordless saw and cordless router too.

 

[Martin W]

We have a Makita cordless 18 volt. Pretty happy..I find the hose is a little short. My wife has the same complaint…..
Martin

 

[GeneT45]

I have the Milwaukee 'lunchbox' vac. Pretty handy, but the noise is horrible. A "full size" cordless would be nice (unless the noise scales with the size...) but $1000 is waaaayyy too much for a shop vac - most of which struggle to be worth $200...

GsT

 

[mac1911]

I have the smaller Milwaukee 18v I use a 5.0 battery in it.
I dont know if it would live up to your needs. It surprised me and its easy to take around the house.

If the larger more powerful Milwaukee are comparable in function and more powerful I cant see why they would not work.

Animal hair is as bad as chips! Finds its way into everything.

 

[mmcmdl]

.I find the hose is a little short. My wife has the same complaint…..

Martin ! This just DOESEN'T sound right !
Work just purchased a robot Makita I believe for $3000 . It may be good in a home , but not in an industrial atmosphere .
Hm.........not sure why the letters changed on me .

 

[MikeInOr]

I agree, $1000 for a shop vac is crazy. I found this deal at HomeDepot:

Milwaukee M18 FUEL 9 Gal. Cordless DUAL-BATTERY Wet/Dry Shop Vacuum Kit with (2) 8.0 ah Batteries, Filter, Hose, and Accessories 0920-22HD - The Home Depot

The Milwaukee M18 FUEL9 Gallon Dual-Battery Wet/Dry Vacuum brings unmatched performance, durability, and versatility to jobsite cleanup. The POWERSTATEBrushless Motor and optimized components Outperform

www.homedepot.com

$699 for the 9gal Milwaukee that takes 2 batteries which comes with 2 x 8.0ah batteries and a dual charger. Currently they are throwing in an extra 8ah for free. When I add it to my cart it shows up as $526.51 for the Milwaukee vacuum kit + $172.49 for the free battery. I have it on good authority that I can take the free third battery back to HD for a refund and keep the vacuum with 2 batteries and a dual charger for $526. Even $526 is outrageous for a vacuum for me but I am going to splurge for a change. The 9g vac that takes 2 x batteries and comes with 2 batteries in the kit is cheaper with this deal than the 6g vac that takes 1 x battery and comes with 1 x battery and a single charger.

Here is a link explaining the HD "hack" where you can buy several different Milwaukee M18 products, get the free battery then return the free battery to HD:

Milwaukee M18 FUEL 18V Lithium-Ion Brushless Cordless Hammer Drill and Impact Driver Combo Kit (2-Tool) with 2 Batteries 3697-22 $399 at Home Depot

Home Depot Hack. Return the free battery and get this for $253. It is the Gen 4 latest version https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-M18-FUEL-18V-Lithium-Ion-Brushless-Cordless-Hammer-Drill-and- ...

slickdeals.net

Kind of a shifty deal but since it is HD I REALLY don't care!

I appreciate everyone's feedback!

 

[RJSakowski]

My wife recently bought a Dyson V15 Detect cordless for the house over my concerns that it wouldn't be up to the task. Apparently, it is. The biggest fault that I find is the battery charge time. A second battery would alleviate that problem but they are pricey. BTW, we have a dog too.

 

[MikeInOr]

My girlfriend with 3 long hair cats loves the Dyson cordless stick vacuums! I personally don't like bagless vacuums. My daughter and I both have pet allergies and I don't believe the bagless vacuums do a good job of filtering the dandruff out of the air flow (just a personal opinion with no evidence to back it up).

Yes, we are allergic to our own dog. We never would have gotten a dog if she hadn't adopted us!

My gf found a dead dog on the back of my property in a big ditch and yelled "There is a dog over here!". I really wasn't looking forwards to disposing of a dog corpse. Then my gf yelled "It's alive!". I ran inside quickly and told my daughter there is a dog so bring out some water and something for a dog to eat! My 17yo daughter came running out with a coffee cup of water and 4 strips of raw bacon... lol! The dog wasn't able to stand up until she had a half of bucket of water in her and even then I had to carry her out of the ditch because her legs were too shaky. We nursed it back to health, informed the local animal shelter and took it into the vet to be scanned (no tags, no collar) two days later (we found her on a Friday evening and everything was closed. 4 weeks later we get a call asking about the German shepherd and let them come and pick her up, with tears in our eyes (well my eyes, my daughter was at school). They said they had just gotten the dog from a friend who couldn't keep her in an apartment any more and planned to breed her with one of their other German shepherds. The shepherd wasn't very motivated to go with them but they took her without even a thank you. They said they live about 10 miles away from me and I sadly said to myself that the shepherd knows where we live if she wants to find us again.

3 months later I am walking down stairs around midnight to check on my daughter and see a black lump on our front door step. I open the door and with both her tail and head hanging between her legs she very meekly walks up the stairs and sits down in my bed room where her temporary bed was. She was scratched up, had large patches of bare skin with no hair on it, many open sores, a bloodshot eye that will barely open and was obviously way under weight again. I gave her water, feed her and took her down stairs to say hi to my daughter. The next morning my daughter screams "She's back! I thought I was dreaming!" as soon as she saw her. We took her to the animal shelter. They look at her, pet her and shake their head about the condition she is in. They take our information and tell us that they will contact us when they find the owners (we wouldn't let them take the dog in). That was 6 months ago and we haven't heard from the animal shelter or the owners since. After having her for about a month we took her into the vet (it took us about a month to get an appointment) who gave her shots and a chip as well as a general check up.

That is how we got Piper. My daughter and gf absolutely love her but Piper won't ever let me be more than 4 feet away from her. Whatever room I am in she is always there with me. Piper loves my gf and daughter but has made it VERY clear that she is MY dog (or that I AM HER HUMAN). She is very well trained. When I leave my daughter says she sits by the front door waiting for me to return. I work from home these days so we spend a lot of time with each other. I can let her out by herself to go to the bathroom unsupervised and 5 to 10 minutes later she pushes the door open with her nose and comes back into my office with me.


This was about a month after she came back to us.

About 30 years ago I had my only other dog, Heidi, also a German shepherd:

Heidi watched over my daughter Nicole like a mother... and cleaned up after Nicole's messy eating habits of the time like a good mom would. Heidi lived to be 14. Nicole claims to remember Heidi but I think she has heard the story of Heidi licking SpaghttiO's off her face so many times that she just thinks she remembers her.