New Shop Vacuum

Yesterday while I was continuing my garage cleaning project I decided I needed a new shop vacuum. The one I have must be over twenty years old. I bought a new hose for it but found I could not remove the old hose because it seems to be frozen in place. I have tried everything I could think of to remove it, but every attempt failed. The old one still has powerful suction, but it has always been top heavy and tips over very easily.

 

I checked Amazon.com for shop vacs and got an idea of the price range. I also checked Pricegrabber.com. The main brand seems to be called Shop Vac. They are yellow in color. My old vacuum is a Sears Craftsman. I looked at Sears.com. I saw one that was on sale and could be picked up at the Parkdale Mall store. They wanted $11.90 shipping charges. I tried to place my order. Somehow it wanted to have me pick up the order at Central Mall in mid-county even though I had checked the Parkdale Mall box. I went through the process twice. I gave up and decided I would just go to Parkdale and buy it.

 

It was a good thing I did go to the store. There were many more models available than the web site showed. The model I was planning on buying was a 16 gal. model. My old vacuum is a 12 gal. I decided the 16 gal. model was too big for me to handle. I told the sales lady my old one was a 12 gal. She pointed to a box up on the shelf that had a 12 gal. model. The 16 gal. model was on sale. The 12 gal. model was not on sale and has a less powerful motor and had the same price as the 16 gal. model. I went ahead and bought the 12 gal. model. I then had to drive my car around to the merchandise pickup door.

 

It has been years since I had purchased a large item at Sears. I went in and was just standing there trying to figure out what to do. A lady walked through and asked me if she could help me. I told I was there to pick up my vacuum. She took my receipt and stuck it in a reader. The receipt had a barcode on it. My name popped up on a video screen on the wall and had a counter that showed how many minutes I had been waiting. I saw the average wait for the day was slightly over four minutes. They had statistics on the wall that said 95 percent of the merchandise had been delivered in under five minutes the previous month. Time passed and a man came out and asked to see my receipt. He asked me when I had made the purchase because they could not find the item. He then took my receipt and disappeared. I stood there and watched the timer. Finally when the wait was close to 13 minutes two men came out with my vacuum. I had ruined their statistics.

 

They could not fit the box in the trunk of my car. They tried and tried. I was afraid they were going to damage my car. I told them to open the box and take the vacuum out. It was still questionable whether the vacuum would fit in the car. I told them to take the motor housing off the tank. They did. Then all the pieces were safely in the trunk. I asked them to break down the box so I would have it in case I had to return the vacuum.

 

When I got home and unloaded my car, I carefully checked the list of the parts that were supposed to be included. Fortunately nothing got lost in the chaos that took place while the vacuum was loaded. I assembled the casters. I think the vacuum is going to be just fine. They seems to have corrected the design flaws of the old model. The new one is short and fat. There is no way that it is going to tip over. There is a button to release the hose. I have decided I will disconnect the hose after each use. There is cord storage. Also the motor housing is black. The old one had a red tank and a red motor housing. The motor housing had faded to an ugly orange. I think the new one looks like a short, fat R2D2. Now if it were a really a robot, I could tell it to go clean the garage. Unfortunately it does not work that way.

 

I have many accessories such as a dusting tool for the old vacuum that did not come with the new one. Fortunately I can use the old tools with the new one. Now I have to load the old vacuum into the trunk of my car and take it to Goodwill.