Cordless stick vacuums are an awesome tool for keeping your space tidy. Lightweight and compact, these vacuums can reach anywhere: The backseat of your car, the top of your drapes, and underneath your kids’ bunk bed. Here’s how to properly maintain a cordless stick vacuum so your appliance keeps working like new for as long as possible—and maintains its suction power!
Keeping your brush roll clean
As someone with long hair, keeping the brush roll clean is the one thing I struggle the most with—with every single vacuum I’ve ever owned. Rotating brush rolls are awesome for achieving a deep clean and lifting larger pieces of debris from your floor, but man, does hair ever get stuck in there!
Whether you’re using an upright vacuum, a robot vacuum, or a stick vacuum, keeping your brush roll clean of tangles is key in maintaining your vacuum. Doing so helps ensure that it’ll work as effectively as possible for as long as possible.
The easiest way to keep your brush roll clean is to slice any hairs or tangles from it at least every month. You can do this with a brush roll cleaning tool if you have one or can buy one—these angled razors are great at getting into the centre of a tangle and are the safest way to slice through hairs. If you don’t have one, you can also use a pair of scissors to carefully snip through your tangle before pulling it out of your vacuum in segments. Make sure to remove hair from the sides of your brush roll too, not just its centre.
Check the stick for clogs
Experiencing a major issue in suction and can’t figure out where it’s coming from? Check your vacuum’s stick for blockages. These shouldn’t happen, but occasionally something will get stuck. Luckily, clogs and blockages are easy to identify and resolve in a cordless stick vacuum as the tube just goes straight down!
Wash and clean the filter of your cordless stick vacuum
Your vacuum maintains its suction power through its motor and dustbin. Follow your vacuum’s recommendations (found in your product manual) to keep these in tip-top shape. Care techniques vary a lot by vacuum model and brand, so make sure that you’re following the directions for yours!
I use a Dyson cordless stick vacuum as my primary vacuum. It’s easy to clean fully: The filter twists off the back end for cleaning and replacement and the vacuum will flash a filter cleaning light whenever it’s getting a little full of dust and debris. To wash my filter, I rinse cool water through it and let it dry fully in the sunshine. Every year or so, when I feel like it’s needing more frequent rinsing, I replace it with a new filter and my vacuum goes back to performing like new.
Clean and wipe down your dustbin
I empty my dustbin after every use, then give it a deeper clean when I wash my vacuum filter. Cordless stick vacuums feature a bagless dustbin design, usually with transparent or translucent sides. This makes it easy to know when to empty your dustbin—and it shows when your dustbin is getting dirty!
Cleaning the dustbin is a bit more of a trial. To deep clean a cordless stick dustbin, you’ll have to refer to your manual. Dyson stick vacuums like mine feature a red button. When pressed, the button releases the dustbin from the motor and you can slide the entire plastic face away. I wipe down the dustbin thoroughly with a damp cloth, going over the entire thing two or three times to get the gaskets nice and clean as well.
Finally, make sure to leave your vacuum’s dustbin next to its filter counterpart to dry fully in the sunlight before reassembling. Here’s where I’ll wipe down other vacuum parts (like interchangeable vacuum heads) if I notice them getting dusty. I find that kitty litter is the primary source of my vacuum dust: It’s so fine that it gets ground into the vacuum’s filter and settles into the corners of the appliance. Before wiping away this type of super-fine dust, try your best to remove as much as possible—kitty litter can turn into clay when it comes in contact with water, and then it’s really a pain to get out. I recommend using pressurized air and a long wooden stick, like a barbecue skewer, to get into hard-to-reach corners and clean any dustbin thoroughly.
With simple, occasional maintenance, it’s easy to keep your cordless stick vacuum performing like it’s brand new for as long as possible.
