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This is the list of best vacuum for hardwood floors.
In fact, we have tested these hardwood vacuum cleaners personally and found them satisfying.
So, if you are looking for a vacuum cleaner for a wood floor that doesn’t scratch, you will love this post.
Let’s get started.
What makes Hoover different from other vacuums is – its FloorSense technology that detects floor types and automatically adjusts its brush rolls speed to provide you best floor cleaning. Whereas, Hoover’s extended reach feature gives you a wider cleaning reach without moving the heavy furniture.
Its WindTunnel surge captures more dirt, dust, and pet hair while cleaning. Hoover’s advanced swivel steering ensures that you clean hard-to-reach areas without any hassle.
Owners find its performance quite satisfying and love its suction power. However, some say that FloorSense has a problem with lower pile carpets. Well, you can fix this issue by switching off the FloorSense setting and allow the brush roll to perform when reclined position is.
Overall Hoover is a great vacuum cleaner for hardwood floor and carpet cleaning except for its weight if you are habitual of using Shark vacuum.
Customer reviews by feature
The Shark Rocket DeluxPro Vacuum is super lightweight and has an attractive look. If you are looking for a bagless vacuum cleaner for wood floors, then Shark is worth checking out.
Its powerful 2-in-1 vacuum and 30 feet cord length allow you deep clean your carpets and hardwood floors without any problem. Cleaning pet hair from floor and carpet is quite challenging and who can understand it better than pet owners. But that won’t be a problem anymore when you have a Shark vacuum in your home.
Some owners were scared using Shark on rugs, and they were worried about snagging the rug, but that can be solved by attaching the shark mini motorized brush for pet hairs.
The vacuum picks up everything that comes close to it, whether it is dust, particles, or pet hairs. Assembling Shark is super easy. The vacuum comes with two suction settings, powerful and tornado, and you can use them as your requirement. Additionally, it has washable filters paired with the bagless canister, so you don’t need to waste money on replacing these items.
Buyers love lights on both the main floor attachment and handheld attachment that makes them see all the little dirt and debris even if it is dark. In short, this vacuum won’t disappoint you.
Customer reviews by feature
The Miele Compact is a beautiful but powerful canister vacuum cleaner. The model is designed to clean all types of hardwood floors as well as low to medium-pile carpets.
Its adjustable stainless steel telescopic wand easily accesses the hard-to-reach areas like under furniture. You can turn on and off the brush roll from the handle and adjust the head height by tapping the foot pedal.
If you have a large area to clean, then Miele is the vacuum you need. The canister vacuum is lightweight and easy to move. Whereas, the turbo heads do a fantastic job on low pile carpet and are manoeuvrable enough on the stairs to vacuum the stairs.
Some owners are not happy with the dust bag size, but that isn’t a big deal. You can always replace that with a Miele AirClean dust bag.
Customer reviews by feature
If you are looking for the best cordless vacuum cleaner for hardwood floors, Dyson V11 Torque is worth checking out. The model has a powerful suction that automatically adjusts on types of floors whether you are vacuuming on over high-pile carpet or a wood floor.
Its powerful machine filtration catches 99.97% of microscopic dust particles. You can do hassle-free 60 minutes floor cleaning depending on the power mode you have set. You can see how much battery power is left on the LCD screen. Keep in mind not put it straight on the charge after use, let the battery cool first for the long run.
In the box, you get a torque drive head, mini motorized tool, crevice tool, stubborn dirt brush, soft dusting brush, combination tool, wand storage clip, docking station, and charger.
Customer reviews by feature
If you are looking for the best robot vacuum cleaner, then iRobot is what you should check it out. After using this vacuum robot, you might want to replace your housekeeping. Because it’s clean base automatic dirt disposal with allergentlock bag holds 60 days of dirt, dust and hair.
The robot vacuum has imprint smart mapping that helps the robot to learn the map and adapt the home. The best part is you can operate it through Alexa or the Google voice assistant. Some buyers say that it sometimes stuck that somehow was true for earlier, but an updated version of Roobma successfully avoids getting stuck and does a pretty good job in cleaning rugs and wood floors.
Overall Roomba is by far the best robot vacuum cleaner you can find on the market; however, it is a bit expensive but does a pretty good job from carpet to wood and vice-versa without your involvement.
Customer reviews by feature
Looking for the best wet and dry vacuum cleaner for wood floors? The Bissell CrossWave is the vacuum cleaner you should check out. The CrossWave has a unique cleaning system that vacuums and washes the floors at the same time.
Its dual-action multi-surface brush roll has an innovative microfiber and nylon brush to mop and pick up dry debris at the same time. Whereas, the two-tank system keeps the cleaning solution and dirty water separate, ensuring that you use only a mix of freshwater and cleaning solution to clean the floor.
Owners say they love its smart touch controls on the handle that let them switch between the cleaning hardwood floor and area rug as well as control the solution as per their wish.
CrossWave can be your huge time saver if you have a pet who continuously sheds pet hair on the floor. If budget isn’t a concern go with the Crosswave, otherwise the Floormate is a damn good cleaner for the money.
Customer reviews by feature
The Swiffer 2-in-1 sweep and vacuum cleaner is pretty good at floor cleaning. This rechargeable, cordless cleaner is a combo of Swiffer with the suction of a vacuum that cleans dirt, dust and hair.
It uses thick Swiffer sweeper dry sweeping cloths to deep cleaning wood floors and picks up dirt from textured grout lines and crevices that traditional vacuums often miss. On the other hand, its powerful vacuum sweeper captures bigger particles like crumbs.
One buyer on Amazon who has vinyl flooring tile on the house said it works great for picking up the dirt and pet hair smoothly. The only complaint he had was its battery life, and he wanted the battery to run longer than a year or two. Apart from that, he said, “I would recommend this little gem to anybody and will definitely purchase again.”
Customer reviews by feature
Feature to look for in a Vacuum for Hardwood Floors
Most vacuums on the market are designed to clean both floors and carpets. They can be too aggressive when cleaning hardwood floors. Majority of vacuum cleaners come with rotating and bristled brushes to pull the debris and dirt in the suction port. These brushes are effective at removing dirt but might scratch the floors.
While others are heavy and only work well on the surface which can handle their weight. With many features available, you must know what makes a vacuum cleaner suitable for hardwood flooring.
Versatility – You may have both carpet and wood floors on your home. Therefore, you want a vacuum that can clean both hardwood floors and carpets. In other words, you don’t want to buy a different vacuum for different surfaces.
Additionally, you might want to clean higher places such as ceilings, windows, shelves, etc. Some vacuums come with 2-in-1 features that allow them to use on different types of floors and carpets. When you buy a 2-in-1 vacuum make sure you choose a model that comes with two different brush rolls. So you can use the gentle brush on the hardwood and bristled one for carpet.
Lightweight – Heavy vacuums are not suitable for hardwood, and they might create a dent or other types of damage to the floors. The best vacuum cleaners are lightweight that rolls smoothly on floors without scratching them.
Moreover, lightweight vacuums are easy to carry and clean. If you are planning to buy a lightweight vacuum, then the canister vacuum is the one you should look for. Canister vacuums are lightweight and have powerful suction.
Suction-Only Nozzle – When buying a vacuum for hardwood floors, make sure it doesn’t have hard bristles. Hard bristles are great for carpet cleaning, but they might scratch the surface and remove sealing.
To keep your costly wood flooring safe and clean, we would recommend you to choose a vacuum that comes with a soft, fluffy brushroll or one that doesn’t use at all. In fact, you can buy the vacuum that uses suction to remove debris and dirt. These vacuums won’t scratch your surface as they don’t use bristles to remove dirt and debris.
In case, if you have a floor that requires the use of a beater bar, we would recommend you to go for the model that uses microfiber cloth brush rolls to clean flooring.
Suction – When you are choosing a vacuum that comes without a beater bar, then having a strong suction is essential. A weak suction might not be effective in removing dirt as you don’t have a brush roll in your vacuum to loosen up the dirt.
Some vacuum comes without suction specifications; in that case, you can consider the wattage of the engine to gauge, to know how powerful vacuum could be.
Soft Wheels – Vacuums come with types of wheels such as plastic and rubber. Plastic wheels are suitable for carpets but won’t be effective on hardwoods and can scratch the sensitive floors. Additionally, they make extra noise when rolling on the hardwood floors.
The best vacuum for hardwood floors should have soft rubber wheels. Rubber wheels glide smoothly on the surface without scratching or putting extra pressure on the flooring. Most of all, rubber wheels don’t produce much noise when cleaning. The best vacuum you can find for cleaning hardwood floors is a lightweight one and has rubber wheels.
How to Keep Harwood Floors Clean and Dust-Free
- First thing first, to keep your hardwood flooring clean, you must take out things that make it dirty like shoes, dirt, pebbles, pine straw, and gravel. Get a shoe rack and put shoes on it.
- Every one-to-two months do wet cleaning to your hardwood floors. Use hardwood floor cleaner (we recommend Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner spray) and microfiber mop to clean hardwood floors.
- If you notice any scuff on the surface, then apply little baking soda on it and gently rub with a damp mop until the mark disappears.
- If you have pets, you may want to consider cleaning hardwood floors as often as every other day—the best thing you can do is pretty fast with hardwood vacuum cleaners.
- Last but not least if you have prominent areas you’ll need a vacuum cleaner to clean it. You can also use a microfiber mop for hardwood floor if you don’t have a vacuum.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, they do clean hardwood floors. There are robot vacuums in the market which can do better cleaning than your housekeeping.
Vacuum basically is used to clean floors and carpet depending on the requirement.
There are five features that you need to look for in a vacuum:
- Suction
- Versatility
- Lightweight
- Soft Wheels
It's simple - carpet and hardwood floors are two different things. A carpet needs hard cleaning while hardwood floors need gentle cleaning.
A bagged vacuum contains collected particles in disposable bags that you can remove or replace when it becomes full. Whereas, a bagless vacuum depends on filters. The bagless system can be a bit messy to maintain.
To be honest, a vacuum is by far better than sweeping your hardwood. The vacuum uses powerful suction that attracts dirt and dust which sweeping often misses.
To keep your wood floor clean it should be vacuumed at least once in a week. If you have pets at your home, you might want to clean it once every 3-4 days.
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