I had previously bought a cheap wet and dry vac from a hardware store. (NOT this Bosch.) It sat in the garage till I needed a wet vac to clean up a flood in the house. It was useless - a badly designed floor nozzle that barely picked up any water. I took it back for a refund. As well as being useless, it was deafeningly loud, had a short hose and short power cord. You could see why it was so cheap.
Second time around I was more careful, did some homework. the Bosch has a good long hose and a reasonable length cord, the cord could be longer though. It is MUCH quieter than the returned one. Still fairly loud, but not painfully so. It has a good floor nozzle for hard floors and for vacuuming up water. It is very very powerful. It fits together nicely for storage, the hose can be held in place with two elasticated loops when not in use, and the fittings clip in to the base for storage. It comes with an adaptor to fit Bosch power tools so sanding doesn't make such a mess. It might fit other brands of tools, too? This product has been thoughtfully designed and it shows.
i was so impressed I started using it as the regular household vac and there is isn't so fantastic. It is still incredibly powerful despite using only 1000 watts of electricity, so it is very energy efficient. But it doesn't come with a suitable floor nozzle to use on carpets, you can't retract the brush so it is very hard to drag across carpet. The combination of very strong suction and a floor nozzle that grips carpet means it clamps itself to the carpet and you need quite a bit of muscle to move it. I tried using the floor nozzle from my old Miele vac and it fitted the Bosch tubes, and worked very well, gliding easily over the carpet but collecting every bit of dirt.
The paper bag needs to be fitted exactly right and it isn't very clear in the instructions. At first I fitted it sitting out a couple of mm and it leaked dirt and fluff, making the secondary "cloth bag" filter dirty after one use. I had a close look and could see the bag has to be pushed over a slight barb around the fitting to snap in place tight. Once that was right, it works great.
This vac is a little bit more expensive than those metal drum type wet vacs, but it is certainly worth that bit extra. It works really well and feels solid like it will last for ages.
I recommend this vac strongly, but try to source a suitable floor nozzle if you want to use it dry on carpet. If you see a dead old Miele vac on the hard rubbish collection, grab the floor nozzle...
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