I'm looking for the vacuum lab here at Consumer Reports.
And I actually think that might be the door.
Hold on a second.
No, it's not.
It's-- these doors are always a little--
Jack?
Oh, hi!
- Hey!
I just bought my carpet here because I
thought I might need it.
- Well, you didn't need to bring it.
Because we have plenty of carpets here to test.
But I'm Sue Booth.
And I'm the project leader for vacuums.
And this is the vacuum lab.
Oh, This is the vacuum lab!
Wow!
Yeah, this is great.
OK, we can put this down now.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that was hurting a little bit.
The humble vacuum cleaner.
These noisy staples of modern life
were first developed back in the 19th century,
the early versions were incredibly heavy.
And some needed to be cranked up by hand or foot.
By the 1950s, vacuum cleaners were more portable,
less expensive, and best of all, electric.
Here at the vacuum lab, testers put these little suckers
through their paces.
So Jack, as long as you're here, why don't I
show you a little demonstration of what we kind of do here.
What's this over here?
So we got our carpet.
You can start setting up.
This is a measured amount of rice.
All right.
And the reason we do this is because we're
simulating different sizes of particles
that you may have in your home.
In this demonstration, we'll be using rice, sand,
and breakfast cereal.
In an actual test, technicians use different amounts
and place them at specific spots on the carpet.
We want to be as consistent as possible
when we're testing products.
And why so consistent?
Well, if you're testing one product against another
and comparing them, you want to make sure that you give them
a level playing field.
So your tests have to be exact.
The last item is not fur the faint of heart.
Here--
Wait a minute, what is this?
Is this hair?
It is hair, it's cat hair?
Ew!
I know.
You can kind of pull it apart and put it on the carpet.
This is going to be hard for any vacuum to pick up,
I can already tell.
You would think.
The demonstration is ready to go.
All we need is a vacuum.
So Jack, you can pick any of these vacuums
for our demonstration.
Are you-- any single one of--
Any vacuum you want to pick, OK?
All right let's see, which one.
I'm going to pick one of these robotics right here.
This one.
OK, that's an right interesting choice.
But go ahead.
Where do I put it, right here?
OK, yes, put it right over the mess.
OK, and--
Go ahead.
You might want to step out of the way a little bit, too.
Whoa!
You can even direct that with the remote if you want to.
If you want to get these areas here--
yeah, see you're steering it.
See?
That is so cool!
It's like a video game!
Yep, exactly.
All right, come here, come here, buddy.
It seems like the robot did a great job.
But Sue isn't convinced.
So this is what you picked up with the robot vac, right?
Do you want to go ahead and just delicately--
Sure.
OK.
So you got a lot of stuff, right?
You got a lot of sand.
That's most of everything.
Yeah.
So now I'm going to show you what you missed.
So that all was in the carpet after you thought it was clean.
So the point is that people think
they may be cleaning their carpets with these.
And they are really good tools.
They're more of in-between maintenance tools.
Got it.
So if I want to just pick up something on the surface
maybe the robotic vacuum probably works.
Absolutely.
So upright model models are best for that deep down clean.
But exactly how deep can they go?
The answers are locked behind this big metal door.
Sue leads me into a humidity-controlled chamber
for the next stage of testing.
Here, testers can control that variable
while they clean up tiny particles like sand and talc.
The reason why we have masks on is because talc
is very, very fine particles.
And we don't want them in our lungs.
To be as precise as possible, testers
weigh the vacuum and carpet before the debris is added.
That way, they know the clean weight of each item.
Then, we pour 3 and 1/2 ounces of this fine powder
onto the carpet.
Keep going down, almost like you're
putting cheese on a pizza.
OK?
Next, Sue has we pick up a 30-pound weight
to help push the material deep into the carpet
to help simulate typical household conditions.
To make this as scientific as possible,
even the vacuum strokes need to be timed.
Testers have developed metronome-like lights
to keep vacuum strokes consistent.
OK, follow the light, 1, you're going
to do 16 strokes, 2, 3, 4.
15, yeah, there, you got it.
You do exactly 16 strokes.
And that's it.
Turn it off.
OK.
After the test has been run, the carpets and vacuums
are weighed again to see how much of the debris
the vacuum managed to pick up.
We're able to tell consumers, hey,
you may not have to spend a lot of money
to find a really good vacuum.
My day at the vacuum lab was a suck-sess.
I got to go.
But you've demonstrated really mad vacuuming skills.
So I'm going to leave you with this little mess
to clean up, OK?
Just make sure you turn off the lights when you're done, OK?
Good night.
Hold on a minute!
Sue!
[ROBOTIC SPEAKING]
My lost.