Bissell Vacuums

Melville Bissell patented his carpet sweeper in 1876, and after his death in 1889 his wife Anna ran the company as president until 1919. The business is still privately owned by the family, based in Walker, Michigan, and has grown from sweepers into vacuums, carpet shampooers and wet-dry floor cleaners. A share of product sales goes to the Bissell Pet Foundation, which explains why so many of the models listed here carry Pet in the name.

The models listed here fall into a few groups. The corded uprights run from the CleanView Compact Turbo at $80 and CleanView Swivel Pet at $110, both with washable foam filters, through the CleanView Max FurGuard at $240, which adds sealed HEPA filtration and a detachable Lift-Off pod, to the Pet Hair Eraser uprights at $270 to $300. The second group is the CrossWave family, the machines that vacuum and wash at the same time with separate clean and dirty tanks, a design that won a Good Design Award in 2016. It spans the corded EdgeFind at $230 and the steam-equipped HydroSteam at $280 up to the HydroScrub All-in-One at $370; the cordless OmniForce, with its dry-only vacuum mode, and the cordless X7 Pet Pro are now discontinued. The rest are a $40 corded stick, a $90 hand vacuum, cordless sticks from $300 and the FlexClean FurForce robot at $600.

Owners of the budget CleanView Swivel Pet describe it as loud, poorly filtered and prone to hair wrap, and still praise it for years of service in multi-pet homes. Moving up buys hair handling: Turbo Lift-Off owners in shedding homes say the FurGuard self-cleaning brushroll needed manual help only a few times over weeks of use, though its 0.75 L bin fills mid-room. Across the CrossWaves the reports repeat. X7 and EdgeFind owners say the head leaves a strip along baseboards and wet pet hair clumps instead of lifting, several owners warn that skipping the post-clean rinse brings a sour smell, and OmniForce owners report batteries failing within the first year.

Warranty is the thing to check model by model, because it does not follow price. The Pet Hair Eraser Turbo Lift-Off, Turbo Rewind, SurfaceSense and CleanView Max carry 5 years, while the pricier Pet Hair Eraser DualBrush carries 2, and the CrossWave floor washers carry 2 or 3. Pet owners with heavy shedders should also check the brushroll ends regularly: Turbo Rewind owners report packed fur near the belt can overheat.