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The best upright vacuum cleaners for spotless carpets and hard floors
An upright vacuum cleaner may seem old fashioned, especially compared to cordless or robot vacuums. For power and reliability, however, an upright is unbeatable.
Uprights have a significantly larger capacity, making them a good choice for bigger homes. As with a cylinder vacuum, uprights generally plug into the mains rather than being battery-powered, so you won’t run out of charge halfway through a deep clean.
These vacuums are free-standing and narrow, making them easy to store, too. Prices for a good model start at around £150, with leading brands including Shark, Vax and Sebo.
“A corded upright would have an advantage for a thorough clean,” says Katerina Petrova of the Happy House Cleaning Company.
The downsides are weight and bulk. Upright vacuums are usually more cumbersome than sticks, meaning they can be harder to lug up and down the stairs or get into tight spaces.
Our reviews of the best upright vacuum cleaners are below but first, here’s a quick look at five of our recommendations:
The best upright vacuums: At a glance
How to choose the best upright vacuum
Check capacity and cable length to make sure it will suit the size of your home. Look for a larger dust bin and longer cable if you’ve got a bigger space to clean.
If you have carpets and hard floors, you need a vacuum with the option to switch off the motorised brush roll to protect wood, tile or linoleum floors. Or look for models that come with separate, dedicated floor heads.
Finally, suction is also important as it will help to achieve a deeper clean. It is difficult to assess from specifications, though. Most vacuums come with an input power rating in Watts, although this is not quite the same as measuring suction. After all, a badly-designed vacuum might have a powerful motor but fail to transmit that to the business end.
In an ideal world, all vacuum cleaners would come instead with an output rating, measured in AirWatts (AW). Dyson lists this, but it’s not widespread. Below we have listed whatever information is available to help you compare, but our at-home tests compare how well they suck up large, medium and fine dirt, as well as hair, on a variety of surfaces.
