If so how often do you disassemble it and give it a good cleaning?
Monday night I took the canister out and emptied it, took it out to the garage and used DH's air compressor to spray it out. There was a ton of dust in all of the compartments. In the past I even unscrew the bottom and get all up in there but I didn't have time Monday night. I sprayed out the filter that is in that little door under the canister. It was pretty clean.
It was used yesterday and today I look at it and there is already sooo much dust in it. I looked in that little door and that thing is again lightly caked with gunk. I read somewhere that that filter should never need replaced - I've replaced it once and I swear I want to replace it monthly it's so gross!
I usually give it a good cleaning every couple of months but that doesn't seem often enough. I feel like I need to get it apart and clean all it's crevices!!
The filter should be washed twice a year, more if you have a lot of stuff in your house that would gunk it (for me, that's pet hair, and just generally extra slobbiness.)
No soap, no dishwasher, no hot water for the filter- run it under the sink in cold water until the water runs clear (just like when you dye your hair. Takes forever if it's bad.) Then let it dry all the way - which for me means at least a day with an excuse to not vacuum, lol.
I have an original DC07, so I take every piece apart and clean it. every piece that possibly detaches. Which, I don't know about the others, but on the 07, it's a flipping ton.
-- Edited by Cuppycake on Wednesday 4th of May 2011 01:37:01 PM
Btw, in case someone looks this up later and does it - don't repeat my mistake. The first ton of times I did it, I didn't follow the directions on the filter, and just ran it in water all together. I didn't know to take the foam piece out and do it seperate. It had been running clean, but doing that, I was disgusted on how much I missed. Also, I'm getting ready to do this to my canister because it's nasty, and you motivated me to take care of it today. http://www.askannamoseley.com/2011/02/how-to-clean-your-dyson.html
Yay, I'm glad you liked it... I only just happened upon it when I was trying to show what exactly I do wash. I just now learned that I was missing a whole part of the parts to clean (it inside of the canister, I didn't realize that it was open in the bottom. Just did it, almost freaking fracking ralphed EVERYWHERE. So fricking nasty. Cannot believe I was vacuuming with that and thinking I was getting shiz clean. No wonder my canister wasn't *totally* coming clean when I dumped it. Thanks, Kris for the activity for today, lmao.
I use to be real good about cleaning mine every 6 months. It has not been done though since about 2 weeks before Ryder was born. So getting close to 9 months. I really need to take the time to clean it again.
btw, I have replaced my filter once, I have the original DC07 as well and at one point my suction just really wasn't there while using the attachments I googled and it said to replace the filter so I did and it has worked fine since.