Best Dewalt Vacuum Cleaners

Handy but mediocre performance and loud – I bought the DCV517N-XJ DeWalt Vacuum for its convenience, for example, picking up flakes of lead-based paint around the house, when using our larger… Read more

corded model is too cumbersome. I figured that the DeWalt model was the way to go over other brands for me because I already had DeWalt batteries. Though at $190 just for the skin, it still wasn’t cheap!

I had searched for reviews and watched a video beforehand which compared this DeWalt model to a similar Milwaukee model, which apparently found that the Milwaukee model could suck a given volume of water in half the time as the DeWalt model could, but the DeWalt battery lasted twice as long as the Milwaukee (both batteries being the same capacity). Thus before purchasing my DeWalt vacuum, my expectations on its performance weren’t high.

Having had the product for more than a year now, my expectations weren’t exceeded unfortunately. The main issue, as I’ve alluded to above, is that it’s just not very powerful, it just doesn’t suck very hard. To be honest I’d prefer the vacuum to suck twice as hard and the battery to last half as long (like the Milwaukee). Its nozzle is also fairly narrow and doesn’t come with attachments. These factors combined means it’s fairly useless for vacuuming large areas. I find if I need to vacuum anything larger than a small patch and I’m in the vicinity of a power point, I’ll usually just go to the hassle of fetching our large corded barrel vacuum cleaner instead, and plugging that in. So I guess it’s for very small vacuuming jobs outside of the house (and away from power points) where this device is most useful.

The other problem with this vacuum is that it’s ridiculously loud. It’s way louder than our big powerful barrel vacuum cleaner. It sounds like it’s revving way too high yet achieving little, like it’s in too low a gear or something. It’s an annoying characteristic because it means I can’t just use it for quick little jobs around the house if our baby or someone else is sleeping. I also worry that it’s damaging my hearing, but the prospect of using earmuffs with it basically cancels out its advantage as the quick convenient vacuum option, which is why I bought it.

The tank size is decent, though in practice it’s effectively not as big as its specifications state (1.9L) because the filter cylinder takes up a large part of it. It’s also made of an opaque black polymer, which is a shortcoming because you can’t see how full it is without opening it. It’s handy that it’s a wet/dry vacuum, though I’ve hardly used it for wet things myself. The filter doesn’t seem to be particularly fine either; at 99.7%, it doesn’t achieve HEPA standards (which require >99.95%), which is a little concerning when I’m potentially vacuuming fine lead-based paint dust.

The hose is quite short, though I haven’t found this a problem, you just have to move the unit wherever you’re vacuuming, and be careful the exhaust air, which comes out on one side of the unit, doesn’t blow what you’re trying to vacuum.

I own a bunch of other DeWalt tools, most of which I love, but I don’t think this vacuum is one of their best products. I see that there’s a new hand-held vacuum available from Total Tools, which I suppose will be replacing this one in their product line-up, which is at least a little more powerful, based on the specifications. However a 54V version would be nice! So overall, I’m a little disappointed with this vacuum, especially at the price.