What vacuum cleaner for a boat?

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We have one of the Red Devil mains powered hand ones, they are very small but still have powered brush roller head.
 
I have an old wet and dry vacuum cleaner for the shed and I use it in the boat. I love the fact that it can safely suck up moisture so can be used for carpet cleaning or bilge drying. The down side is that it does not have effective dust extraction at the outlet like the home cleaner does. So for really dusty work it can tend to pump out dust. But i do like the way I can pick up anything with a huge capacity for lots of dirt. I even use it outdoors for leaves etc. I bought a cheap Chinese 12v vacuum for the boat. Yes it can pick up dirt from the floor of the boat when away from 240v but is pretty tedious. Very cheap and I guess better than nothing. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vacuum-Cle...=293183790074da27390f05854f73b91f9898eb307218 ol'will
 
I have two of the cheap Screwfix wet or dry units, one on the boat one in my workshop. The drum is plastic so is immune to salty water and it gets every last vestige out, and is good for general cleaning anywhere on the boat. The boat one is 4 years old now and still going strong.

it is quite large which is not an issue with the cavernous locker space available on my Corvette, but may not be so suitable for a sailing yacht. Obviously it is 240v only, although it could be run from a reasonable size inverter (~1kW) for short periods.
 
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I messed about with a variety of vacuum cleaners until I settled on a couple of Dysons about 4 years ago, (maybe longer).

I have a 240V upright, where the handle slides into the body, so the whole thing is only as high as the dust bucket thing. I think it's a DC50, or maybe its' predecessor.

I also have a rechargeable Dyson V6 stick vacuum, which is a handheld that has a "stick" so you can use it like an upright. Only has 6 minutes on full power, probably double that on medium power, so only useful for shorter smaller jobs. Havent found a way to charge it from a 12V source, so have to use the inverter.

I bought cheap, and bought more than twice.... havent needed to buy since buying "not cheap" :)
 
I agree, most are OK, but dont really do the job. I got the Dyson Animal and it is superb and like having a proper vac on board. Sometimes it is worth spending more, but perhaps over kill unless you spend a fair amount of time on board or have any carpets.
 
Poignard said:
I bought one of these a few years ago in France. It was either at a Carrefour supermarket or Bricomarche and cost about £30. It is surprisingly powerful (700 Watt) yet doesn't take up much room.

View attachment 79771

https://www.amazon.fr/Clatronic-263...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8BFCZDAFQSNEVBD9V3QP

ps. It is not a wet-or-dry vacuum cleaner so sucking up water would be the death of it (and perhaps you :eek:).
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pvb said:
I've been thinking about this too. Currently, the favourite is looking like this - https://shopvacuk.com/small-vacuum-cleaners/micro-4-rechargeable
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The top item is also sold by Draper and I have one. It's okay and I use it for odd jobs in the garage and on the boat. It is only 240V powered and the dust bag is small, hence a big spill is an issue. I also fine the dust bag blocks up and needs a good tapping to clean it up and restore suction. The hose and tools are push fit into receptacles relying on friction to stay in place, which is okay, but if you need to give a good scrub, say to get old boat crud out of corners then the the fittings pull out. The brush heads are about 5mm inside the rim of the plastic so it can be difficult to get right to an edge. For boat use it is small, so stores easily and is powerful but requires mains power. I anchor a lot and that is an issue. I guess I could use an inverter but I don't have one fitted.

The Draper version is available from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-243...03&hvtargid=pla-592078155086&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

The lower one, as advised by PVB, has better accessories than the draper and the great advantage of 12V power, plus is wet and dry with a larger bin. If I was buying the wet and dry feature and 12V power would trump it.

Draper £34, the Micro 4 £59, worth the extra for these features.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
The top item is also sold by Draper and I have one. It's okay and I use it for odd jobs in the garage and on the boat. It is only 240V powered and the dust bag is small, hence a big spill is an issue. I also fine the dust bag blocks up and needs a good tapping to clean it up and restore suction. The hose and tools are push fit into receptacles relying on friction to stay in place, which is okay, but if you need to give a good scrub, say to get old boat crud out of corners then the the fittings pull out. The brush heads are about 5mm inside the rim of the plastic so it can be difficult to get right to an edge. For boat use it is small, so stores easily and is powerful but requires mains power. I anchor a lot and that is an issue. I guess I could use an inverter but I don't have one fitted.
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You are quite right about the shortcomings of that type but the big advantage is how little room it takes up and how powerful it is.

For work on the boat in the winter when I am making a lot of mess I use a larger Ryobi wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner.
 
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