Kirby Vacuum Vs. Reg. Store Vacuums

I felt the same way after buying my Kirby!! but I have had it for 2 years know and love it!! It is a bit cumbersome and heavy but it works wonderfully!! Have never used a vaccum that ram this great, except for my Grandma's Kirby, years and years ago!! I Used my Mom's new Riccar vaccum over the weekend at her house and it was also very nice (great suction, light wieght) but I still love my Kirby!!

I don't like Kirby sales tactics AT ALL. But I have a Kirby I bought for $700 in 1988 and it still works like new today. I felt suckered into it at the time, but actually I love my Kirby and I'm hoping it lasts for quite a few more years. I've had it in the shop a couple of times for cleaning, but that's it. I think it was a great investment.

Interested in seeing what peopole had to say about Kirby.....I read someone say Dyson.... AK! My mom had a Dyson and I thought it had a poor suction.
Fast forward three years later and my hoover wind tunnel broke - I went to buy a new one and they were so pricy so I ended up buying a Dyson. It seemed to suck up fine at the store and at first but here it is a year later and my original thoughts on the Dyson are the same-It sucks. I think it has poor suction compared to my hoover. I wouldn't recommend one.

I'd just like to comment that I'm a Kirby saleslady, and I don't feel like I sucker people into anything. Whoever you purchased your Kirby from may not have been completely sold on the product, which could have made you feel that way. I'm completely sold on this item and feel like I'm helping save people on carpet replacement and paying someone to "steam clean" their carpets. (Which have you ever noticed after steam cleaning the same stains come back because they don't bother to pull out the condition underneath, and then it just works it's way back to the top? Plus, what happens when the padding gets soaked or crushed? It's kind of like purposely flooding your house.)
Before I worked at Kirby, I bought a Sentria for 2600 dollars and felt it was worth every penny. I never have to buy swiffers, brooms, mop and buckets, plastic vacuums, or any other dusting tools again. Not to mention lint rollers or compressed air again. Which I learned just redistributes the dust anyway and that's not what we're trying to do when we clean, right?
Anyway, if ya'll have a Sentria and it seems heavy, make sure your drive button is down. If you're doing carpet and it's in neutral, it will be heavier. Always put it in neutral to clean hard surface flooring since you don't have the friction if carpeting, otherwise the wheels can scuff your flooring.
To clean your stairs you don't always have to use the handheld portable. I would do that every 6 months or so for a real deep clean and use the Zipp brush for maintaining the stairs.
And if you're not cleaning your mattress, I really think you should if you have allergies. It's not the dust mites or the skin that could be irritating you, but the dust mite feces is what gets us. It has an enzyme in it that can trigger those reactions. With the filtration and the Hepa 2 bags, you can reduce the dust and dirt in your home by 85% if you vaccum every day for two weeks or every other day for a month.
It's great if ya'll like the Oreks and Dysons...I almost bought an Orek before I learned about Kirby. I've tested many Oreks, Dysons, Rainbows, Meiles, and even Filter Queens. and none of them have the cleaning capabilities of the Kirby. Believe it or not, a Bissell has more suction power than a Dyson. My plate tester fell right off the Dyson with the brushes going and the suction, whereas the Bissell was able to hold the plate on during the same test. However, the plate has to be slid off the Kirby from the side...it can't be pulled straight off the front like the rest.
As far as the tray on the shampooer, having it open like that causes less stench and bacteria. If it gets too full, I would just empty it when I got finished with half the room for a while until the amount of condition is less. I like to tell my customers to vacuum for a whole month with the upright before they shampoo because with less condition under the padding and at the base of the carpet, the shampoo comes out so much brighter. I would also use the shampoo to pretreat spots and then go over it with the shampooer, and work the solution in so the stains have a better chance of coming unbonded from the fabric. I would then wait until the carpet is dry again, and vacuum once more. This reduces the (very little) residue that would be left.
I hope you're still enjoying your Kirby, and I agree that it is a good investment. The Sentria has a minimum life expectancy of 40 years, plus you can always use the lifetime rebuilding agreement at any time as many times as you want. Your Sentria also has a fire relacement plan on it too. Btw, $1300.00 is a steal! My boss won't let us go below 2000 very often because we had them at $1888.00 for so long corporate called us and said we had to raise our prices. It really depends on the distributor. If you got it for $1300.00 you were sincerely lucky considering how much I paid for mine. However, if you hadn't bought it new, Kirby wouldn't honor those warranties on an old machine. I've learned that nothing good is cheap and nothing cheap is good. Plus, you really don't know what condition an older machine is in, what the people before were vacuuming up, ect. The Kirby is powerful enough to vacuum up things like staph infection, and old vacuums are like used toothbrushes. I personally wouldn't want to do that but to each his own. I do collect the antique Kirbys but would never use them to vacuum my home.

Ah, the inevitable Kirby buying remorse! :) I have it too, only we've owned ours for I think 5 years now. I like it for vacuuming on a single level. It is terribly hard to use on stairs (but our salesman swore it was easy, he even did it but the thing weighs a TON!), and yes, the attachments are a little difficult to change. You paid less than I did so that is great. Um, but all in all we like it. Won't buy another one, cause they last for centuries I hear. Don't run over/vacuum up bobby pins though, they DO get stuck in the 'jet engine'!! But are easy to remove for sure. My mother is a strict Oreck user and her vacs are so much lighter and her carpets DO look great. Not to mention you can buy one for a FRACTION of the cost of a Kirby. That will be my next vac purchase if I ever need one!!

Oh did I mention that they are freakishly heavy... ya they are. But my father in law borrows ours once a month to vac his whole house and he owns a Dyson for the rest of the month. It is quite humorous to loan it out. But he loves it, just not enough to purchase one!!!

Good luck with your decision. And no, I've never sucked the dust mites out of my mattress, although our sales guy told us and showed us how.

V.

I love my Kirby. I have the Diamond G Edition (the one right before yours) and have had it for 5 years. The nice thing about the Kirby is you can get the Hepa bags for it for your dust allergy. My hubby has a dust allergy as well and he's noticed a difference with the Kirby. Like I said, I love mine!

M.,
Congrats on getting an awesome vaccuum. After years of having to replace the cheap $75.00 vacuums every year I am so glad to have a Kirby Sentria.

After using it a few times, you will find the attachments to be really easy to change out. My only complaint about the vacuum is it is quite heavy to carry around, but when it is on and in "drive" mode it is awesome.

The carpet shampooer is FABULOUS. Seriously, shampooing the carpets is so easy. I can do the whole upstairs within a half hour. My carpets smell nice for weeks after I shampoo them. You should not have any issues with the "dirty" water spilling as it is mostly foam at that point and it sticks well to the tray.

Here is the only thing- you could probably get a much better deal on your vacuum but I am not sure how as we got ours from the door-to-door salesman. We paid $700. This was after much negotiating, telling him we really couldnt afford it, blah blah, he kept lowering the price. I have looked online and this seems to be how most of the salesman operate, they will do a lot to get you to buy. You can get the Sentria on Amazon or Ebay for decent prices, I beleive $8-900 was what I saw when I looked online 6 months ago. So maybe check that out and see if you can get a better deal. But you WILL love this vacuum.

We got a kirby too and had the buyers remorse as well! I called him the next day and told him we couldn't keep it as it was more than our house payment! So he lowered the price! Yep call them and tell them you can't afford it! They will lower the price! You couldn't also ask them about a refurbished one! They are cheaper too! I love the vacuum! I had to use my mom's when I ran out of bags for my kirby and had to wait for them to come it, and it was awful! I was eight months pregnant and had come so accustom to having my kirby that pushing her vacuum around jsut wore me out lol! My DH even shampoos the carpet now as it is so easy! I love that part lol!

I have had my Kirby for about 13 years. Still love it. We've had to replace a belt once. I don't use the carpet cleaner feature for it, but other than that, I have used it a lot and am still satisfied with it!

I have owned our Kirby for six months now. I also had buyer remorse the next day. So I also asked a question on mamasource and read how much others had paid for theirs. Someone said they got theirs for $800 10 years ago. So I called the phone number they gave me and told them that I had heard of other getting the vacuum for cheaper and if they would not give it to me for $800 they could come and pick it up. So she put me on hold and a few minutes later said that they could do that (but not to tell anyone, oops!) So after getting it for a good price I felt better about it. I really do think it vacuums my carpet well and I like the attachment for my hardwood floors. But I am not in love with the carpet cleaning attachment. But I know we will have it for awhile. I hope this helps and good luck with your decision.

I would never spend that much on a vacuum cleaner, but that is my opinion. I think Kirby is no greater than Kenmore or Dyson. I had a Kirby salesman do a shampoo demonstration on my carpet and it left such a bad residue that within an hour my carpet turned almost black. (I have almost white carpet). I had to redo the shampooing and was never able to get it completely clean again.
Sears makes a Kenmore vacuum that is very good. When I was a teenager my parents bought this vacuum and I have it now and it still works as it did the first day they bought it. My friends have a Dyson and she is vacuuming freak, I mean she has to have specific lines in her carpet from the vacuum cleaner, and she would not get anything else.

I bought a Kirby about one year ago. My Mom had one for many years while I was growing up. After purchasing many different brands from local stores, I decided to spend the money for one that would most likely last long and preform well. So far,so good. I'm happy with this vacuum but I do agree that it is bulky and heavy and difficult to carry to the second floor of our house. After changing the attachments a bunch of times, it got easier to change from carpet to wood floors, but it works great. I agree about the shampoo attachment, I probably won't be using that part. I don't have to change the bags that often and the suction is great, should be able to depend on this for many years, I hope.

Kirby vacuums are great machines that seem to last forever, they are expensive new but don't hold their value if you ever try to sell it used.

In July 2010, I bought used but almost new condition, two Generation 4 Kirbys for $25 each (both have tech-drive) but no accessories. This was to replace a Kirby that I bought used in 1986 with all the accessories for $20. I didn't care about the accessories this time around because I only used them one time with old Kirby.

The machine I bought in 1986, I've used for the past 24 years without any problems other than normal wear on the belt. The only reason I've replacing the machine with the G4 is the G4 is self-propelled and I bought two so I can leave one G4 upstairs and the other downstairs, saving me from lugging a vacuum up and down the steps.

From experience, my advice would be to return the new vacuum, get the $1,300 back then buy a used Kirby for less than $50. Kirby vacuums are great but you don't have to spend $1,300 to get that quality.

My ex-husband had just perchased a kirby right before we had met. He raved about it and talked about how great it was. After several months of dating and then gettting married when all was said and done I was the one using it. I found it to be difficult, changing attachements to do baseboards or the hard wood floors. The bags might last 5 months but really it is only as good as it is full! We had the vacuum our entire marriage 6 years and I complained about it everytime I had to use it, not convenient or easy there was no QUICK vacuum before guests arrive cause everything had to come out inorder to use it. Since our divorce he took his "wonder vac" and I have gone back to a store bought vacuum, with all my easy attachments right at my finger tips. Honestly I would rather spend $100 - $200 every couple years just for the convenience of not having to lug all that other stuff around. Oh and the carpet cleaning attachments were such a pain that it was suppose to be a wonderful feature, never used it once just borrowed my friends big carpet cleaner.

Best of luck, single mother of 2 a 3yog and a 4 yob.

I've never had a Kirby but we do have a Roomba and love it, you can turn it on and leave it to vacuum while you work on other things. It really picks up a lot of stuff that you wouldn't think it could. The floors come out clean. We still have our Bissel with the canister as a back up and stairs. It works good. We got the Roomba on sale, don't pay full price.

We have a Hoover Platinum Max Extract w/heat carpet shampooer and love it, it is the best shampooer we have used, the heat really makes a difference. We do have a carpet guy that when he comes every couple of years uses hot water w/the professional shampooer and the carpets just come out so much better.

We have a lot of tile in our house so we also have the Hover Floor Mate and it works well on the tile. It cleans and then drys in the same machine so you don't have to wait for the floor to dry (a think I hate).

We spent about $650 on all 3 items.

I recommend using the heck out of the Kirby and make a decision based on storage space and how well it works. If you like it, they do last a really long time and you will get your money out of it. If you don't get rid of it and buy higher end vacuums and shampooers and you will be satisfied with it too.

OMG keep your Kirby! any other vacuum just doesn't cut it. I have had mine for ten years and I swear buy it. Yes I know it was a lot of $$$ and youre having buys remorse but you really will be thinking yourself later!! It actually does what a vacuum is suppose to do. You can have confidence that your carpet is actually clean. It is no exaggeration that the other vacuums do not actually have the suction to clean. Also to note on the bag.. your first bag will fill up quickly because you are cleaning years of dirt left behind from your other Vacuums. Once you've gone all over your house the bag will last that up to 5months time frame :) I would buy nothing but a Kirby in the future even though it is a lot of $$$ it is one of the few things worth the $$$ second to a washer/dryer! You'll pick up on the attachment things after a few practices...it is sooooo worth it. Mine works and look just like it did ten years ago! and ?? you can email me at ____@____.com

oh and on the heavy aspect, I think it is worth it being heavy to know it is ACTUALLY WORKING!

THE OTHERS MAYBE LITE WEIGHT BUT YOUR ARE THROWING YOUR $$$ AND THEY ARE NOT NOT NOT I REPEAT NOT DOING THEIR JOB 100%. IT IS NOT A SALES PITCH IT IS THE TRUTH.

oh and the company that runs the Kirby vacuums is owned my Birkshire Hathaway aka Warren Buffet. He invested his $$ because it had great value!

oh and i do not work for kirby, i am just a regular home maker living in a small town outside of Dallas TX.

keep it, pricey but worth it.our pipes backuped, sewage smelling water soaked into the carpet downstairs, a couple of runs with the shampoo attachment and voila, just saved myself hundreds of dollars to have someone clean my carpet, or replace it!

Well that's kind of a tough one.
If you're a person who likes to buy new things don't keep the kirby. Mine is 17 years old and othr then having to replace the belt a few times and the little rotor thingy a couple times it keeps right on chugging along without a bit of trouble.
I'd like to try one of the new ones, they've gotten a lot lighter over the years and there are lots of fancy new features on other brands, but my hubby sees no sense in replacing this one until it dies.
Basically if you want a machine that is a workhorse and dependable the kirby is all that, and i'm jelous i tried one of the newer ones a year or so ago and they are so much lighter and easier to use.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

I had a Kirby years ago, and gifted it to my sister when I moved out from her house. I thought it was heavy, and difficult to push, so I was happy to leave it behind. Had the department store vacuums for a while, and went through four of them. When my husband and I put hard wood floors in our home, he did a lot of research about vacuums and we finally bought a Miele. The Miele was about $800.00 seven years ago, but we love it! It is the very best vacuum I've ever used. It is a canister vac, and has bags. I, too, have a dust thing, and I NEVER sneeze when I change these bags. It comes with attachments for furniture, hard floors, and carpet. You will be amazed to see how much it picks up. The whole thing about not needing a bad for several months is really scary to me, now that I have this Miele. It works so well, and I change the bag about every six weeks. Miele bags are half the size of the Kirby bag, but easy to put in and take out. Oh, the Miele has a micron filter for the exhaust system, and I don't get any return dust and minimal smell (we do have a dog). I suggest you check out the Miele before your three days are up on the Kirby. Miele is light weight and easy to maneuver.

Hi,
I purchased a Kirby bagless, vacumn cleaner, w/o shampooer, years ago in the mid '70's. It was very expensive. I hated it. It was heavy, cumbersome, noisy, and to clean the dirt container caused more dirty issues-you had to empty the bag on an old newspaper which scatttered the dirt and dust around, then you had to gather the newspaper and toss it in the trash yuck. And, just to mention it again it was expensive. A year later Kirby salespeople came by again to sell me a new improved Kirby. Needless to say, I didn't fall for their salespitch. Hope this helps.
V.

My parents did buy our Kirby for over a thousand and got the Ultimate G edition one, Honestly it is the best vacuum compaired to all the others, The motor lets you push with ease and it always always does a fantastic job lifting about everything from the ground. I bought the new $700.00 Dyson Cinetic or whatever and was not as happy as with I was with the kirby!

I have one and I absolutely love it. I love all the attachments (wall thing, brushes, hose etc) ... which aren't that hard to use once you use it a couple times. My kids 6 & 7 use it. They know how many times to press down to lower the vacuum, they know to put it in D, and to leave it up when they are done. They can easily switch off the belt & unattach the front to hook up the hose. I feel like it has better suction than other vacuums. I prefer a bag to a canister. I like the dirt contained and not dumped on the floor and back into the air when you go to empty it. The bags can be pricey but I vacuum almost every day or two, and don't need to replace them that often. I love the shampooer too. I cannot tell you how many times I have used it. It's easy to use & takes no time to do a room. The wait for the floor to dry is the only thing that takes a few hours. I used all the cleaner that comes with it, and think it's the best but have used laundry detergent as a substitute. (obviously not a lot, since it's concentrated, you'd have to research how much to use) I don't have a problem with spilling. You'd just have to stop before the tray gets full. I shampoo, let it sit, then suck up the water a few times, emptying when you need to. No big deal. Tell the kids the vacuum is not a toy & to stay out of the dirty water. Personally I love mine, but that's me. Use it in the next 3 days. Try your features, watch the video, shampoo your carpet. It's your choice & money. If it doesn't work for you it doesn't work.

Hi M., I don't have a Kirby, but I do have to say that I bought a new vacuum cleaner about a year and a half ago from Sears and love it. It's a Kenmore upright (progressive with intelliclean) and works very very well. We have a dog that sheds a ton and two small children so you can imagine the messes we have on our carpets. It has several attachments that are stored on the cleaner itself. IT costs about $325 or so. It does take vacuum cleaner bags, but the cleaner has an indicator to let you know when to change it. There is a filter, but we haven't replaced it yet. My sister bought a Kirby probably about 7-8 years ago. She does still have it, and did have problems with it within the first year or so of ownership and I think it cost her quite a bit for repairs. Good luck.

I can't speak from experience since I've never owned a Kirby but also I can't think of spending that much for a vacuum. They might last forever but I also know that in about 6-8-10 years I would like to have new technology anyway. So why spend all that money when you might like to have something 'new and improved' and be stuck with an expensive vacuum. That's just me.

When I bought a new vacuum over a 1 1/2 ago, I referred to a Consumer Reports article just on vacuums. I ended up with a canister from Sears, a Kenmore model. Although it does take a little getting use to (like having the canister follow you around on a hose instead of in front of you on the upright), I really like it now. It is great on stairs, has a telescoping handle to reach high places, a button for an automatic cord rewind (no more rolling up the cord myself! YEAH!), a POWERED hand attachment for the stairs (must have the powered one, not the air driven one), hand controls on the handle, etc. One of the things I like most is that I can get under low places (like the bed & coffee tables) and completely vacuum since there is no canister to worry about getting in the way on the upright.

I would really recommend using the heck out of the Kirby while you still have the time to do so! Do stairs (if you have any), floors, hard to reach places, etc. Then make your decision based on how practical it is for YOU!

Best of luck on your decision! Post back and let us know! :-)

Sorry, but have to say I agree totally with the previous post! We fell for the Kirby thing and I HATED it. It was a huge hassle to change attachments, the bags don't last NEAR as long as they would have you believe, and on top of all that the darn thing weighed a TON. Plus, it never really cleaned as well as their salespitch would lead you to believe. We regretted it for the two years we kept the thing until we traded it for a Rainbow. The Rainbow, I love. Easy to use and I actually feel like my carpets are getting clean. But it is an investment, just like the Kirby. But at least this investment was worth it for us. We have a dog and it is wonderful at getting all the dog hair up. We have had it for almost a year now and I can see why friends of ours that have one love theirs so much - she was always trying to get me to listen to their salespitch and I always put it off. Wish I would have done it years ago. Good luck!!

I bought a Kirby several years ago and do not like it. It's heavy and hard to manage. I bought a Dyson a few months ago and love it. It doesn't have the carpet shampooer, but honestly after a few years, I really don't think think that part worked well. What really made me mad about the Kirby was the group of sellers that came by a few years later to show me the "updated" Kirby and how much better it work. Hello? If your product is so good, you shouldn't be showing me how crappy it seems next to the new version. It should still hold up. If I had to do it again, I'd take it back in the those first 3 days and spend 1/2 that on a Dyson. Good luck!

Honestly, I hate my Kirby. It doesnt work any better than the dirt devil vac that I bought at walmart for 200 dollars. I agree that the bag changing thing is really nice..but thats the only feature that I like above the dirt devil.

Your children running up and playing in it?? Come on, REALLY??? Keep an eye on them.