Another thumbs up for Kenmore canister. After 10 years ours is still doing well, although that flood back in 2002 got fine materials into the engine and it runs alot louder than it did when it was new.
But it's still running.
We also have central vac but the accessories are terrible (no power brush for the carpets) so it gets relegated to hard surface floor duty only. Even then the wide floor attachment is so wide that it doesn't have much suction near the edges. I had to trim the bristles on it as well since there were no 'openings' to actually suck in the particles. It used to just broom stuff around the room like a Swiffer until i lifted the attachment off the floor to suck up the pile.
A terrible design (Eureka brand).
On a related topic, anyone have any experience with carpets cleaners?
We have used Bissells for some time, seem to have the occasional issues with suction, replacing gaskets and so forth, but we've had 2 in 8 years now with the first lasting 5 years and paying itself off many times.
Now we're contemplating this:
http://www.bissell.com/Big-Green-Deep-Cleaning-Machine/Apparently Lowes and Rona now rents them out.
This market was traditionally held by Rugdoctor machines which were in every grocery store and Home Depot:
http://www.rugdoctor.com/
