Best Vacuum for Plush Carpet – Cleaning Hacks To Save Carpet

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Best Vacuum for Ultra Plush Carpet

What makes a vacuum cleaner good for carpets?

To understand which vacuum works best on most types of soft surfaces, we tested our vacuums on five different thicknesses of carpet: flat-weave, low-pile, medium-pile, high-pile, and high-pile. For each vac and pile combination, we sprinkled a measured mix of sand and flour onto a medium-sized rug, cleaned it for 30 seconds, and then used a kitchen scale to determine how much debris the vac had picked up.

We found the best overall carpet vacuums:

A brush roll: Suction alone isn’t very effective at cleaning carpet, so you need a brush roll to agitate the carpet fibers. Bonus points if the brush roll can be turned on or off because a rotating brush roll – while great for agitating fibers – can choke on lightweight rugs.

A cleaning head with a manual height or suction adjustment. High-pile carpets (such as shag, frieze, Saxony, cable, or deep pile) pose a problem for some vacuums. Long fibers can wrap around the brush roll, and/or block the inlet, essentially drowning the vacuum. Height adjustments raise the head off the floor to provide clearance for higher pile carpets, and different suction options can prevent the pile from being sucked into the hose and clogging it.

Generally, the higher the pile, the more difficult it is to keep the carpet clean. Debris tends to dig into the bottom of the carpet pile. Most cheap vacuums are good at keeping flat-weaves and low- to medium-pile carpets clean; thicker rugs require specially designed (and usually more expensive) machines.

Generally equivalent to more expensive vacuums, vacuums designed specifically to work on carpets provide a deeper clean.

Best Vacuums for Plush Carpet

Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352 Carpet Vacuum

This reliable, powerful, easy to use, and reasonably priced works well on most carpets.

The Shark Navigator Lift-Away NV352 has been our pick for best vacuum four years in a row. It’s great for cleaning most carpets and rugs, though rugs and other high-pile floor coverings need something more powerful.

In our tests, the Shark performed as well as any vacuum cleaner on the variety of floor types you’d find in most homes, picking up cat hair, dried chickpeas, coffee grounds, shredded paper, sawdust, and sand in just a few minutes. past. We were impressed with how quickly and thoroughly it picked up cat litter from the plush carpet (two and a half passes). It picked up brushed cat hair from a medium-pile carpet in a single pass, near the top of the pack in our tests.

Our Recommendations

We have recommended the Navigator Lift-Away for four years. Picks up cat hair from a shaggy carpet in one pass. Senior editor Harry Sawyers primarily uses a cordless vacuum at home but brings out the Shark when he needs a deeper clean of his carpets.

Other owners also tend to be very happy with the cleaning performance of the Navigator Lift-Away. We looked at a couple of hundred Amazon customer reviews, including those that were voted “most helpful” and a few others with the lowest scores, to get an accurate picture of the vacuum’s strengths and weaknesses. Most praised the Navigator Lift-Away for its powerful suction. “I ran my Oreck over my carpet and then the Shark…wow it picked up a lot that the Oreck left behind,” Amazon reviewer Amrodam wrote.

Defects

High-pile carpets, such as low-pile or corded, pose a problem for the Navigator Lift-Away and most other low-cost upright vacuums. Long fibers can sometimes clog the inlet or entangle the brush roll, preventing the vacuum from working. When we tested the Shark on a wool carpet, the brush roll got stuck, but, impressively, the suction alone picked up more of the carpet surface than just about any other vacuum we tested. However, to thoroughly clean shag and other long carpets, you really need a vacuum designed for the job, and we recommend the higher-priced Miele Compact C2 Electro+ (more below).

If you have medium to medium-high pile carpets that are not as long as short pile, you can deep clean with the Navigator Lift-Away by adjusting the suction level. Turn the Shark’s hose release valve and the suction will drop just enough to allow the vacuum to roll smoothly without choking on carpet fibers. Amazon reviewer LILass, in his “Most Helpful” review of the Navigator Lift-Away, says that “I haven’t missed [the adjustable height] on the various height mats I own, and it’s not wrecking my tallest stacks” .

Warranty

Finally, the Navigator Lift-Away has an impressive five-year warranty and durable construction. Most vacuum cleaners at this price have only a one or two year warranty. Shark’s customer service department also honors the warranty. And the Lift-Away also comes with washable-for-life filters, which is a huge cost savings in the long run.

Best Vacuum Cleaner For All Types Of Floors

Miele Compact C2 Electro+

This nimble vacuum works on any type of floor and should last for decades. It also has maximum height and suction adjustability for any type of floor or surface.

If you have particularly thick or high-pile carpets that require special attention, we recommend the Miele Compact C2 Electro+. This canister vacuum cleaner has six suction settings to handle different piles and surfaces, and it comes with a cleaning head that you can adjust the height of depending on the length and softness of your carpet fibers. Miele canister vacuum cleaners are widely regarded as some of the best vacuum cleaners money can buy, and are built to last for decades.

Miele makes several different lines and dozens of models of their canister vacuum cleaners, but the model we’d get is the C2. It is the most affordable one that comes with Miele’s Electro Plus head. This power brush is the best tool we’ve found for deep cleaning thick pile rugs and rugs, and it works great on other rugs too.

The C2, like all Miele canisters, is built with six levels of suction, the highest for bare floors and the lowest for fabric curtains. The C2 comes with two floor heads, the namesake Electro Plus, made for carpet, and a small parquet head for bare floors.

Tested Product

In our tests, we found the Electro Plus head to be effective on all types of carpet. The C2 sucked up most of our flour and sand mix from five different piles faster and more thoroughly than almost any other vacuum we tested.

It has five height adjustments, allowing you to adjust the height of the vacuum head to the height of the pile of your carpets and rugs. The higher the pile, the higher the head should be.

A helpful tip from an Amazon reviewer: “If you’re cleaning carpet, make sure to start with the highest height setting (should be 5) on the SEB 228 Electro Plus powerhead. Then lower it until it starts to shake/vibrate the mat.

You don’t want to go any lower or you’ll sacrifice airflow. This will give you the best combination of agitation and airflow.”

User feedback agrees that the C2 is ideal for carpets. The Electro Plus head “cleans even the deepest carpets. In fact, it practically crawls along the carpet…. if you have problems with area rugs sucking up, you can remedy this by choosing a higher rug level and selecting the area rug suction setting on the pot,” writes Amazon reviewer Anthony Pantliano.