Hit the floor

Project: Home

Hit the floor

By Shelley Mann

Vacuum cleaning and mopping are nobody's favorite chore, but everything's more fun when you're cleaning with magic wands and other fun attachments. Or with robots. Here's a rundown of some of the more interesting cleaners out there, depending on what you're looking to do.

Picking up pet hair

It's not cheap, but Dyson's powerful DC17 Animal Cyclone upright vacuum cleaner ($599) has lots of nifty gadgets to clean up pet hair without clogging. A mini turbine head picks up hair from tight spaces like couches and stairs, while a low-reach floor tool vacuums up the hairballs hiding under beds and sofas. You can use it on all different kinds of floors — the motorized brushbar used to suck up pet hair can be turned off when cleaning rugs and hardwood floors.

Cleaning wood and tile floors

Unveiled last year by iRobot, the same company that brought us the Roomba, Scooba 380 ($499) is a rechargeable robot that'll scrub your sealed hardwood, tile and linoleum floors. Let the little guy loose, and he vacuums up loose crumbs and dirt, scrubs the floor using a special cleaning solution, then sucks up the dirty water. Scooba uses sensors to navigate through each room, cleaning underneath cabinet edges and tables, as well as to avoid carpet, rugs and stairs.

Saving the environment

You already use eco-friendly household cleaners, now take it a step further with Eureka's new Envirovac ($72), which will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart starting next week. The machine's eight-amp motor uses about a third less energy than a typical 12-amp upright model, and it comes with a washable and reusable HEPA filter to capture dust and allergens. To top it all off, it comes packaged in completely recycled and unbleached cardboard.

July 3, 2008