****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I often help my wife check out and work and identify bottlenecks at commercial cleaning accounts before we turn them over to our employees. We have used a lot of different vacuum cleaners under many and varied conditions. Commercial vacuums take a beating, and what seems like a strength can sometimes end up being an Achilles heel. In mixed spaces with carpet, hard floors, stairwells and dusting, this vacuum is a pleasure to use. It's light and versatile. In a single motion, you can pull the quick draw suction tube to vacuum crumbs out of an executive chair and a second later, have it back in place to continue vacuuming the commercial carpet. For other than dedicated wide-area cleaning, we won't even look at a vacuum cleaner without single-motion suction hose availability btw. Carpet and bare floor performance are very good. The brush roll is very effective. The height adjustment comes in handy for the occasional domestic rental unit cleaning where you usually see deeper pile carpets.Suction measures a respectable 60" of water on my gauge. I don't own a digital mass flow sensor, but the airflow is plenty to achieve fast effective cleaning. It works well on deeply textured commercial walk-in mats, always a challenge. It's relatively quiet in operation and bag changes are quick and easy. The two-stage handle adjustment makes it easy to raise the front of the vacuum when desired although it does add a step when you want to lower it flat. Overall, I consider it a plus.The most surprising feature is the thank-you we often hear from our workers when we replace a far more expensive vacuum with this one. At this price, we often dedicate one to a floor or area. My wife and I have fought over who gets to use a far more expensive commercial vacuum with impressive on-paper specs and who gets the cheap little Bissell that weighs 10 pounds less. For applications requiring HEPA filtration, such filters are available as an inexpensive (<$10) retrofit. We use those inexpensive multi-ply bags from Clean Fairy and have noticed that the motor prefilters rarely need cleaning.The design engineers at Bissell hit several sweet spots with this tough, light, versatile general-purpose upright. We don't use them in all our accounts because one size never fits all, but it's always on our short list of choices.
