Hoover HL5 Pet Review
Lots of power, no tangled hair from this upright vacuum cleaner.
Verdict
A new floor head lets the Hoover HL5 Pet pick up hair without getting itself tangled. For all other jobs, the Hoover HL5 Pet is a powerful cleaner, although I did find that it took a few swipes to pick up everything, while the best cleaners suck up as much dirt on a single pass. Still, given the price, the Hoover HL5 Pet is a good choice for those that want quality cleaning without paying premium prices
Pros
- Good value
- Doesn’t get tangled with hair
- Powerful
Cons
- No power to floor head in Push&Lift mode
- Edge performance could be better
Availability
- UKRRP: £297
Key Features
- TypeThis is an upright vacuum cleaner, with a Push&Lift mode that allows the central cylinder to lift out.
- PowerI measured this vacuum cleaner at a powerful 332AW, giving plenty of suction power, particularly for the handheld tools.
Introduction
While a brush bar makes a vacuum cleaner more efficient, without tech to stop hair wrapping around, it can be a nightmare to keep everything clean.
On that basis, it’s nice to see that the Hoover HL5 Pet come with its Anti-Twist tech to stop hair getting caught up.
Design and features
- Push & Lift turns vacuum into more nimble handheld
- Only two accessories in the box
- Very large bin
With its bold blue and yellow finish, the Hoover HL5 Pet looks smart and powerful. It feels well made and has some nice touches, including a clear porthole in the top of the bin, so I could see how full it was while cleaning.
Hoover has managed to fit a large 1.4-litre bin on this model, which is plenty big enough to go a couple of weeks without emptying or for tackling the biggest jobs.
The filter lifts out easily enough, and opens at the top and bottom, so it can easily be fully cleaned out. That’s worth doing from time to time, as it will reduce odours that can build up over time.
With the bin out of the way, there’s a washable foam filter beneath it, plus a HEPA filter at the front that is also washable and keeps dirt locked away inside the vacuum cleaner.
In upright mode, the Hoover HL5 Pet is largely very easy to use. I just had to press the power button, put my foot on the floor head and tilt the vacuum back to get the brush bar spinning, with a set of LED lights turning on to highlight where I was cleaning. This is handy in dark rooms, even if the light doesn’t highlight dirt in the same way as the laser on the Dyson V15 Detect.
Weighing just 5.9kg, the vacuum cleaner feels good in the hand and was easy to push around. There’s only one true power mode, but there is an air vent that can be opened to reduce power if you find the cleaner hard to push around.
There’s also a button to engage the carpet mode, which puts the brush on its maximum speed; turn this off and the cleaner is in hard floor mode.
Hoover’s brush bar has V-shaped bristles, designed to stop hair from getting caught around the roller. Internally, the roller has a soft finish to it, designed to attract dust.
The only minor issue is that the bulky bin means that the floor head can’t get underneath low furniture, such as sideboards, sofas and beds.
There is Push&Lift on this cleaner, where the cylinder lifts out. This makes the vacuum cleaner slightly more nimble and makes it easier to use the tools for cleaning other areas, such as stairs and inside a car.
Unlike the similar mode on the Shark Stratos NZ860UKT, Push&Lift doesn’t provide power to the floor head, so any low furniture will need to be tackled with the provided tools.
In this case, there’s only a crevice tool and a motorised pet tool in the box (handy for stairs, pet beds and sofas), with storage for the crevice tool onboard only. That’s not many tools at all, and I’d have liked to have had a dusting tool in the box, too.
With the wand and hose, there’s good reach on this vacuum cleaner, and I had no trouble reaching up to clean around the top of the walls where they meet the ceiling.
Performance
- Lots of suction power
- Floor head is not that efficient
- Stops hair getting tangled
I started off by measuring the raw power of the Hoover HL5 Pet at the handle. Here, the vacuum cleaner came in at 332AW, which is a lot of power. More, in fact, than I’d expect to see on an upright. In comparison, the Shark NZ860UKT has 268AW of power.
Raw power like this is most useful when using the handheld tool to clear mess, such as DIY debris or a kitchen spill. Placing a line of rice on a desk, the vacuum cleaner managed to pull rice in from 3cm away. That kind of power makes it much quicker to use the crevice tool than vacuums with lower power, which need the tool placing on top of the mess.
I then moved on to my real-world tests. First, I started by sprinkling 20g of flour on my test carpet. Running the vacuum cleaner forwards and backwards through the mess, you can see that it left mostly a clean streak, but there were clear areas where the flour hadn’t fully been removed.
It took another few swipes across the entire carpet to pick up everything; the Shark NZ860UKT did the job faster, needing just a single swipe for a clean sweep. At the end of the test, the carpet was clean, and I measured that 95% of the dust had made it into the bin; the remaining dust will most likely be in one of the filters or elsewhere inside the vacuum cleaner.
Next, I moved onto the edge test, which is extremely hard for a vacuum cleaner. Here, I put 10g of flour down, up to the skirting board. Running the vacuum cleaner along the skirting board, a single sweep wasn’t enough to pick up everything, and there was a fair amount of mess left behind.
I gave the vacuum cleaner multiple sweeps until the dust had been removed, and tacked the edge with the crevice tool. In the end, I registered that 90% of the dust had made it into the bin; again, the remaining flour was inside the vacuum cleaner elsewhere.
Next, I combed pet hair into the carpet. Here, the Hoover HL5 Pet did brilliantly, removing all traces of hair without leaving any behind.
I also used our test human hair, placing strands of it on the carpet. Here, the Hoover HL5 Pet only needed a single pass and picked up everything without any of the hair getting tangled around the brush bar.
Moving on to the hard floor test, I dropped 20g of rice on the floor, and then let the Hoover HL5 Pet pick up the mess. It did a good job, leaving the floor visually clean, but picking up the vacuum cleaner, a few grains of rice dropped onto the floor. As a result, 99.55% of the dirt was removed.
At 75.8dB, the Hoover HL5 Pet is about average for an upright vacuum cleaner. That is, it’s plenty loud enough to hear, although I didn’t particularly find its sound annoying.
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Should you buy it?
You want good value and plenty of suction: This is a great-value vacuum cleaner with enough power for even tough jobs.
You want better edge performance and faster cleaning: There are alternative vacuum cleaners that will pick up dirt in fewer passes.
Final Thoughts
It’s good to see Hoover introduce tech to stop hair getting caught around its brush bar, which is particularly important if you’ve got pets or anyone with long hair in the house. Raw performance is very good, with a lot of suction power, but the design of the brush head meant that I had to take several swipes to pick everything up, so it takes a little longer to clean than with a more efficient cleaner, such as the Shark Stratos NZ860UKT, which also has a powered Lift-Away mode. That said, the Shark cleaner is a lot more expensive, making the Hoover HL5 Pet a good budget alternative. Check out my guide to the best vacuum cleaners for other alternatives.
How we test
We test every vacuum cleaner we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main vacuum cleaner for the review period
Tested for at least a week
Tested using tools to measure actual suction performance
Tested with real-world dirt in real-world situations for fair comparisons with other vacuum cleaners
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FAQs
This is a series of combs on the floor head that prevent hairs from getting wrapped around the floor brush.
No, only the hand tools (the motorised brush and crevice) can be used.
Full specs
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
