How we research
Quick answer
Every figure on this site is labelled either a standard, meaning a published manufacturer specification or a defined unit, or a convention, meaning a widely used service rule of thumb. Nothing here has been tested in person, and where no documented figure exists the pages say so rather than estimating one.
The two labels on every figure
Every number on this site carries one of two labels. Standard means a published manufacturer specification, a defined unit, or a physical relationship that does not vary by opinion. Convention means a widely used service rule of thumb, which is useful and defensible and is not a specification.
The distinction matters because the two fail differently. A published specification can be perfectly accurate and still describe conditions you will never clean in, which is exactly the case with sealed suction figures measured with the inlet blocked. A convention can simply be wrong for your particular machine. Knowing which one you are reading tells you how much weight to put on it.
What we do not do
We have not tested a vacuum. Not one, not in a lab, not over forty hours. Everything on this site is researched from published specifications, listings and owner reports, and the diagnostics test your machine rather than ours. If you find a page here that implies otherwise, it is an error and we want to know about it.
We also do not tell you what is wrong with your machine. Every diagnostic gives you a checking order and explains what each outcome would mean, because nothing on this site can see your vacuum. A general procedure is safe to publish; a specific diagnosis from a web page is not something anyone should act on.
And we do not fill gaps. Where a figure is not published, the pages say it is not published. A disclaimer makes general information safe to share; it does not make a wrong number right.
How the catalog is built
Products come from Amazon's Creators API, and only factual fields are kept: the identifier, the title, the brand, the price and the image. A listing with no price or no image is rejected rather than having one supplied from somewhere else. Suction, runtime, bin capacity and battery figures are parsed from the manufacturer's own listing text, which is why 95 machines carry a published figure and the rest carry none.
Two rules exist because they were got wrong first. Listings are never merged because they look similar, since two machines that differ by a model designator, a capacity or a battery specification are two products, and collapsing them deletes the expensive one. And product grids show an even spread across a category's price range with the dearest always included, rather than the cheapest six, because a page that quietly omits the top of a range is not showing you the category.
| Category | Listings |
|---|---|
| attachment | 11 |
| bag | 26 |
| battery | 19 |
| belt | 17 |
| brush roll | 22 |
| canister | 24 |
| carpet cleaner | 22 |
| cordless stick | 51 |
| filter | 40 |
| handheld | 15 |
| hose | 7 |
| mop pad | 8 |
| robot vacuum | 49 |
| upright | 32 |
| wet dry | 16 |
| Total | 359 |
How the reference tables are produced
The 302 reference tables are generated from one factual data file rather than written one at a time, which means the tables and the diagnostics can never disagree with each other: both read the same figures. When a convention is revised, every page using it changes at once.
The money pages are different. Roundups, comparisons and guides are written rather than generated, because an argument about which machine suits which reader is not a computation. Those pages still draw every product from the same verified catalog.
Scope
Household floor care: robot, cordless stick, upright, canister, handheld, home wet dry floor washers and carpet extractors, plus the consumables all of them use. Shop vacuums and workshop dust collection are deliberately outside it. They are a different tool for a different job, with different safety requirements, and pretending one site covers both serves neither reader.
Common questions
Do you test the vacuums you recommend?
No, and no page on this site says otherwise. Recommendations come from published manufacturer specifications, current listings and verified owner reports, judged against what each machine is built to do. Any site claiming hands-on testing of dozens of machines is telling you a story rather than describing work it did, and we would rather be useful than impressive.
What does the standard or convention label mean?
A standard is a published manufacturer specification, a defined unit such as the pascal, or a physical relationship that does not vary by opinion. A convention is a widely used service rule of thumb: real, defensible and not a specification. The two fail in different ways, so every table on the site says which one it is using.
Where do the product figures come from?
From the manufacturers' own product listings, read at the point where the catalog is built. Suction, runtime, bin capacity and battery figures are parsed from the listing text rather than typed in by hand, which means they are the maker's claims rather than ours. Where a figure is not stated in a listing, the field stays empty and the page says it is not published.
How do you choose which products appear?
Every product comes from a catalog sourced through Amazon's Creators API, and a listing is rejected outright if it has no price or no image rather than having one patched in. Grids show an even spread across each category's price range, including the most expensive option, because a grid that shows only the cheap end is not showing you the category.
How current is any of this?
Prices are read when the site is built, so they move when the catalog is refreshed, and every product card carries a note saying prices change often. Specifications change less, but a manufacturer can revise a figure without changing a model name, which is one more reason to check a listing before ordering rather than trusting any third party page.
Every figure here comes from published manufacturer specifications, owner reported measurements and repair documentation, and each is labelled as either a standard or a convention. This is researched general information to help you diagnose and plan, not professional advice, and it cannot tell you what is wrong with one particular machine. Your own manual and the part number printed on your machine are the final word.