Vax Air Lift Steerable Pet – Stair Cleaning

We seriously debated keeping the Vax Air Lift Steerable Pet just for cleaning our carpeted stairs – it’s that good.  In lift-out form and using the Turbotool we romped up the stairs at pace, cleaning each carpeted step as we went. The super-long cable ensures you won’t have to stop half way through to change plug sockets and the on-board crevice tool means detailed cleaning into tight corners was a breeze.

At just 3.6kg, most people will be able to carry this cleaner up and down stairs and it can be placed down on each step as you go for a rest. Only polished wooden surfaces posed a bit of an extra challenge for this model as it simply doesn’t have a perfect tool for this. We used the dusting brush but its compact size meant it was more of a marathon to clean wooden stairs rather than a sprint.

Vax Air Lift Steerable Pet – Pet Hair

Against an otherwise solid test record to this point, the Vax Air Lift Steerable Pet was actually a little disappointing when it came to pet hairs and debris. While the main floor head did a great job on removing assorted mud and hairs from the surface of the carpet, the beater bar’s stiff bristles seemed to struggle a get a grip on hairs twisted into the pile. To an extent the same is true of the Turbotool, but we expect that from smaller handheld rotating tools.

On the test patch of mixed Collie and Labrador fur rubbed into carpet pile, the Vax Air Lift Pet took around 16 seconds to clear the area completely, requiring quite a few back and forth passes to pick up missed debris. We re-did this test a couple of times in case we had some particularly twisted-in hairs the first time, but the results remained the same.

This Vax is still much, much better than floor heads without turbobrushes for pet cleaning duties, but the best pet-specific cleaners will clear this area in under 10 seconds.

Should I buy the Vax Air Lift Steerable Pet?

The Vax Air Lift Steerable Pet offers good carpet and hard floor cleaning, superb lift-out versatility and AAAA EU rating, all for a relatively affordable price. It is let down a little by its average pet hair cleaning performance, small tools and minor niggles, but for a versatile all-rounder that won’t break the bank the Vax Air Lift Steerable pet has a lot to like.

Verdict

Good value versatile, but not the best for pet owners despite the name.

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