The Eureka SuctionSeal line of upright vacuums are a bagless vacuum designed for pet owners with a SuctionSeal feature that helps to vacuum up debris from bare floors and carpets better.
Ease of Use/Performance: 4.5/5
Convenience/Storage 4/5
Appearance/Design 4.5/5
How much I enjoy 5/5
Total: 4.5/5
The Eureka SuctionSeal Upright Vacuum has a unique feature to help go from bare floor to carpets without having to adjust settings and still pick up dirt and dust. The SuctionSeal vacuum that I received is also a pet specific vacuum that helps keep carpets, bare floors and upholstery free from pet hair.
The Eureka SuctionSeal PET is model AS1104A and comes with the vacuum with attached hose, a dusting brush, crevice tool, wand extension, and turbo nozzle. The instructions are pretty easy to follow with no tools required to set up the vacuum for first use, all you need to do is attach the handle and a few parts which all snap in place.
The vacuum features a cord reel but this type of storage for the power cord does not work perfectly every time, a few times when the reel pulls the cord in it gets twisted or bound up. The reel is clearly visible in the window of the cord reel and you can see when it gets tangled or more of the cord winds up on the bottom of the reel.
To battle this problem you simply have to feed to cord in while it reels in to get the cord a bit more evenly distributed on the reel. The cord reel works using an internal spring and a button on the side of the vacuum to reel the cord up and it works well most of the time but again not always.
The bagless feature of the vacuum works well with several parts of the canister that comprise the dirt collection and the canister is easy to empty and replace. The pieces all fit together and it works well even when getting really full like when I vacuumed out my old mini-van and its layers of dirt.
I used my older minivan to haul junk, buy lumber and mainly to get dirt for our garden so the back of the vans interior was plenty dirty with not a little dirt but with pounds of it. I’m not talking about a little dirt spilled from a pot or bucket, I used the van to get dirt with a tarp in the back and shoveled the dirt in from my cities compost pile.
I emptied two full canisters of dirt and dust, leaves, twigs and even a few nuts and screws from the vacuum and still did more vacuuming to get as much of the dirt out as I could. I sold the vehicle so I wanted it looking at least decent and I did get a majority of the dirt and dust out of the carpet using the Eureka SuctionSeal.
The SuctionSeal feature is nice and adds a bit more suction onto the head of the vacuum by the two bars that drop down using spring pressure. The bars are in front of and behind the rectangular area that has the beater bar in the middle and is lower than the rest of the bottom of the vacuum.
These bars hang about an 1/8 of inch from the floor and when the vacuum is on bare floors it creates more of a suction because there is less area for air to enter the vacuum. When you transition to a carpet the spring loaded bars are pushed into the head of the vacuum and will rest on the carpet when vacuuming to help create more of a seal against the carpet.
This works pretty well as you do not have dirt or debris flying around when vacuuming on bare floors like I have had with some upright vacuums. The SuctionSeal can go from bare floors to lower carpets without having to change any settings which is nice for cleaning.
Bagless vacuums are a popular way to get rid of the recurring expense and mess of a bag of dirt but it also comes with its own problems. Suction can be a problem with this type of vacuum but also the dust and debris that the bag filters can be a major problem with the internals of the vacuum, especially the motor.
I took the vacuum apart and found a little dust inside the motor area but after the abuse I put the vacuum through with vacuuming up piles of dried dirt I can’t complain. I have had a previous Hoover vacuum die on me after a two year period but they discontinued the model line probably due to problems with dust getting into the motor.
When removing the cover and looking around I did see the motor is well protected but a little dust is getting inside which will accumulate over time. A yearly cleaning by a vacuum cleaning maintenance shop will reduce this accumulation and allow the vacuum to live a lot longer lifespan as well as help to save your investment.
A service on a vacuum with removing the plastic pieces and cleaning up in the motor area will cost about $40 to $60 so you can have that done as a way to keep your vacuum running longer. I found a local service store in my area that said they will do a maintenance cleaning on a vacuum starting at $40 for simply taking the vacuum apart and cleaning it out.
There are two filters inside the vacuum with a washable foam one inside the canister and another at the exhaust port behind the canister and a plastic holder. The HEPA filter is the only part of the vacuum you will have to change out regularly but they only cost about $10 or so and can be found at Wal-Mart and other local stores.
When looking at the manual I did find a typo with the part number of the filter listed as EF16 while the filter itself has the number EF6 on it. The foam filter inside the canister is easy to wash just like the rest of the plastic parts but you can also buy a new one for about $13.
While researching the Eureka vacuum I checked out customer reviews on Amazon and was impressed with Eureka when they answered customer complaints for this model. It is nice to see Eureka looking for customer complaints and addressing these issues at least with a referral to ask for help at their website or to call their customer service.
It is helpful to know that Eureka, actually the parent company is Electrolux, is looking for problems with their products and trying to resolve them. I am not sure what the company gave as answers to these individual problems but at least they are communicating with customers.
I have had the Eureka SuctionSeal for over a month and had a good time vacuuming up both the daily pet hair and dust bunnies inhabiting my corners and crevices. The vacuum works as well going from carpeted to bare floors or back again without having to change settings as long as you don’t have shag carpeting.
The upholstery tool, Pet Power Paw, does an excellent job of cleaning and pulling hair off upholstery and carpeting with its vacuum run roller to help keep furniture and stairs clean. The vacuum does an all-around good job and costs about $200 with availability at Target and Macy stores as well as online directly from Eureka and Amazon.
I can recommend the Eureka SuctionSeal AS1104A as a very good vacuum but of course time will tell how well the vacuum holds up over the warranty period and beyond. I will be sure to update this review later if anything relevant happens to the machine in my weekly use of it.
SuctionSeal @ Eureka
