Bissell 3576 Bagless Upright Vacuum

I used to own the Bissell CleanView I, but it's now in a friends possession. I was pretty satisfied with the original CleanView,and brought it over to my friend's house to win a bet. She had a fancy cannister vacuum that she said cleaned great. I bet her that she would be disgusted after seeing how much dirt my Bissell picked up from her carpets after she vacuumed with her cannister one. Well, I won the bet, and I knew I was moving into a new carpetless place, so I let her keep the Bissell.



Now, a year later I have moved again into a place with one carpeted room, and several rugs. I saw the Bissell 3576 CleanView II on sale for $70 at a Home Depot, and grabbed it. The CleanView II is 12 amps, with "bagless technology" for better suction. It has a Easy Empty TM dirt container, HEPA Media Filter, and stretch hose with two onboard tools.



Upon opening the box, I thought this machine looked as same as the first, but it says it has a Wide Cleaning Path with dual edge cleaning. It was very easy to assemble, a few pieces just had to be snapped in place, and one screw had to put into the handle. The odd thing is that this machine feels heavier than the old one, but also cheaper. I can't really put my finger on why it seems cheaper, besides maybe the plastic just seems lower quality than before.


I started it up on my 25 X 10 ft berber carpet. The vacuum has 7 height adjustments, from bare floor to high carpet. The lowest one is for bare floors, but it's what I use on the berber carpet. It's not what I would suggest using on any other carpet or rug though, besides berber. I set it on that to get the deepest cleaning, but on other materials, it can pull carpet fibers out, and catch and rip out rug fringes. It's light came on, and I started vacuuming. The carpet looked great afterwards. The suction power is very high. I went to empty the dirt container, which was already half way full. It's not very large. I was grossed out by what was in there though. Lots of pet hair, lot's of sandy looking dirt and dust. Much more than you think can be hiding in a carpet. When emptying the container, I put a plastic bag around it, and then turn it over inside the bag. It's the best way to keep dust from flying back into the air.



The 27' power cord on this is a decent length for my needs, since I only have one fully carpeted room. But it seems long enough to not have to unplug it at every room if your whole house is carpeted. It loops on the side when you're finished. I do have many corners and drapes to vacuum too, which leads me to the onboard tools. The hose they connect to is wire re-inforced, and looks like it would be stretchy, but is actually quite rigid. The box says it's "extra long", but it didn't stretch enough for me to get to really high corners. The tools are a crevice wand and dusting brush/upholstery tool. There is a extension wand you can use with either, that gives you at least another foot and doesn't seem to lessen suction. But even with that extention wand, the hose is too stiff and short for me to be able to reach everything without having to stand on a chair while holding the vacuum. The crevice tool does it's job though, and got out lots of crumbs from behind my chair and sofa cushions. The brush side of the other tool is for flat surfacees like books, furniture and shelves. It got all the visible dust off of everything I used it on. The upholstery side worked not quite as well on my curtains and sofa. It got the dust, but not all of the pet hair. The pet hair gathered on the brush a lot more than actually being sucked into the vacuum. I had to remove it from the brush with my hand often. One thing to be aware of is that the rotating floor brush keeps going while you're using the hose and tools. So don't put it close to objects you don't want to get sucked up by the floor brush. I learned this by setting it on top of a 1 1/2" rock that was on the floor. While cleaning a curtain, I heard a horrible racket as the stone was sucked up, and went up through the vacuum. I thought the vacuum was a goner, but it was fine. I was impressed it had even sucked that rock up!


The Bissell has a Stair Cleaning handle above the dirt container for easy transport. I don't have to vacuum stairs, but it's a nice little feature. It does seem a little heavy though for an upright to haul up and down stairs. The handle release pedal on it allows you to put it in various positions from upright to flat to clean under beds, etc. My Bissell unfortunately didn't come with the Turbobrush, which I think is specially designed to get hair from carpets. I think many of the Bissell Cleanview II's do come with it though.



Onto the filters. There are four all together. A pre-motor filter that looks like a little steel wool pad, a post motor filter on the side of the machine, and two circular filters above and below the dirt container. I have only owned this two months. All of the filters, except the HEPA post motor one are washable. They're easy to remove and just clean up under a faucet. The only thing I don't like is that when you're removing the circular filters, if there is a lot of dust, it can go flying everywhere. It is nice to have a HEPA filter though, just to get dust and allergens out of the air. All filters are replaceable. I vacuum about 3 times a week, and these get dirty after about a month. I haven't noticed much loss of suction with it when they're dirty though. This vacuum does run hot, and I have noticed that it blows a lot of hot air out of the HEPA filter, which can be uncomfortable if your leg is next to it for long.



I don't ususally use this to clean bare floors, but have once or twice. It doesn't grab big things well off of floors, like plant leaves. You have to run over them a few times - might as well just pick it up. It does get everything else. If you have crevices/corners under cabinets it will pick up most of the dirt with it's dual edge cleaning, but that last little 1/4" by the cabinet will be missed.



I have yet to get any major clogs with this. I have sucked up rug fringe which needs to be unwound from the floor brush, like with any vacuum. I haven't yet had to buy any new filters, belts or lightbulbs. Since this vacuum seems to be sold just about everywhere, those items seem to be easy to find. If not, you can order them from www.bissell.com. There is also a one year limited warranty offered on this machine.



I'm giving this four stars. Yes, it has it's flaws. However, for a machine in the $80 range, it does an excellent job of getting dirt up.




UPDATE: Well, my machine bit the dust - literally! I can't say it's really the fault of the machine. A visitor thought it was a good idea to suck out the 6" of ash in my woodstove with the vacuum. Well, I think that would do most vacuums in. The ash turns into a sticky dust, which coats everything inside the machine. The vacuum still had suction from the bottom, but wasn't able to suck up anything into the dirt container. Luckily, I was able to return this for a new one. The new one is the same, except it also comes with a turbo brush to pick up pet hair. It works ok. It has spinning brushes to grab hair, which it did well on my chairs. I have a corduroy couch though, and it didn't grab much of the pet hair off of that. So, it's not a feature to get too excited about.
I'm leaving my rating as the same. I think it's common sense that sucking up 6" of ash is a big no-no. The new vacuum performs as well as the old one.

UPDATE #2: As of May 2008, this thing is still alive and kicking. I've replaced all the filters, which are never that cheap, and it's as good as new!