Black & Decker DustBuster CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum
- Design: Handheld
- Technology: Wet/Dry
- Tank / Bag Capacity: 0.05 Gallon
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656
The Black & Decker 7202 Dust Buster has made my life so much easier
Pros
Sucks up just about anything, Easy to use, Easy to clean
Cons
Not super-powerful, Removing it from the charger can be difficult
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Black & Decker's CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum is a very handy tool for quickly cleaning up small messes.
I like the large houseplants my husband has nurtured for the past several years. The problem I have is that my 15 month old son likes the soil and small rocks that accompany those plants. We have thick carpet surrounding these plants, so sweeping up the dirt and rocks is not an option for me. My fingers are not a very good method of picking them all out either, and my Hoover Empower vacuum freaks out about the rocks, making a noise that scares me. My solution to this was to get my hands on a Dust Buster, a petite little hand-vac that doesn't have brushes or rolls to mess up, can handle small rocks moving around inside of it, and keep on sucking. I am happy to say that we found success with Black & Decker's CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum.
How we decided on the CHV7202
I wish I could say that I used an educated process to select my Dust Buster, but it turned out to be a simple decision. Standing in the aisle at Target, with my husband at my side, we had to choose between a $19.99 Dust Buster model (the CHV7202), a $29.99 model (the CHV9600), and a $44.99 model (the CHV1568), all from Black & Decker. My husband was looking to spend as little money as possible, but get a decent amount of power, so he was leaning toward the CHV9600, which had a 9.6 volt battery and fit in between the 7.2 voltage of the CHV7202 and the 15.6 volt CHV1568.
Initially, I was in agreement, until I noticed that they only one of the three vacs that worked to suck up both wet and dry materials was the CHV7202. Remembering how clean my neighbor's carpet remained after he sucked up a juice spill once, I kind of wanted a dust buster that would suck up spills. Our children are pretty young, so liquid spills are likely to happen over the next few years, although we hadn't had any for a few months. Then came the conundrum: do we get the more powerful vac and then curse ourselves down the line when we suffer a huge spill that wastes plenty of towels to clean, or chance it with the less-powerful wet/dry, knowing that we may never end up using the "wet" function? Uncharacteristically, my penny-pinching husband decided that we could go with the wet/dry, and get a more powerful one next year if we felt we needed one.
Taking the CHV7202 out of the box
Upon opening the box, you will find the vac, a circular charging base with cord to plug it in, an attachment to reach into crevices, and a squeegee attachment.
The vacuum itself feels a little heavy, despite supposedly only weighing one pound. It has a sleek look, measuring 15 and a half inches long, five inches wide and about five inches deep at its deepest point. The nose of the cleaner is a clear blue color and twists off for cleaning.
While the vacuum will have a bit of battery juice at purchase, the manufacturer recommends charging it for sixteen hours before the first use. To do this, you set the vac into the charger and plug in the charger's cord. Depending on the space you have available, you can decide to hang the charger on the wall (it comes with two screws for doing so) or set on a table or countertop. Black & Decker recommends that once the vac is charged, you do not over-charge it.
One thing that would be nicer in this respect would be if there were a little light somewhere on the unit or charging base to let you know a) that the unit is charging, and b) that charging has finished. Most chargeable items have this function, and while it does not get in the way of using the CHV7202, it would be a convenient feature to know that the vac is charging as expected.
Using my Dust Buster -- A dream come true
As soon as the sixteen hours of charging were up, I pulled the CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum off of its charger and went straight to the two recent soil/rock spills. I pushed the switch on, and the vac picked up everything! It's that simple. The only problem I noticed was that the vac blows out air through the two ventilation slits on the sides when it is on, so holding your head too close to the vac while vacuuming dirt would not be good for your allergies. I quickly learned that as long as I don't align my head with the slits, I was fine.
Another trick I learned fairly quickly was that the vacuum tends to do a more complete sucking (i.e., no need for a second swipe over the area) if you use a forward lifting motion to vacuum. In other words, you wouldn't want to run it back and forth, or "back" at all, because it sucks much better on the "forth" part.
The battery is one of short-term, designed to work for eight minutes at a time, and the nose only holds six ounces of material (about a cup full), so this is not for huge cleaning projects. For cleaning up chunks of dirt and small rocks, this Dust Buster is the perfect size. It's also ideal for cleaning little pieces of rice, cheerios and noodles off the floor after meal times. After a particularly messy meal, I attach the crevice tool to clean the food out of my son's high chair, and it only takes thirty seconds (at most) to get it clean.
I can get the back row of our family car cleaned fairly quickly and completely without the crevice tool, leaving just a trace of crumbs in the corners. This works well for cleaning when there is a mix of chunky and tiny mess. After emptying out the nose of the cleaner, I add the crevice tool to get into the corners.
Total cleaning time for the back row of the car: six minutes (max)
No more crying over spilt milk -- Wet Pick-up
I mentioned before that I was doubtful that we would ever end up using the CHV7202 Dust Buster to clean up anything wet. Well, apparently karma was listening to me, because the first night I had the battery charged up, my daughter knocked over a full cup of milk. A week earlier, I would have rushed for the nearest napkins to contain the spill. Instead, I calmly grabbed my Dust Buster, walked over to the table, and vacuumed up the milk. I was shocked at how well the pile of milk disappeared. Having said that, I need to point out that there was still a trace of milk left behind, but it was easily wiped up with a sponge. My only remaining problem was that I now had to convince my children to forget how cool that looked. I didn't want anyone intentionally dumping over beverages to watch the hand vac suck it up.
Cleaning the CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vac -- A piece of cake!
The instruction guide only insists on an immediate cleaning after sucking up wet stuff, but since the nose only holds a cup full of material, I clean my Dust Buster after each use. After unscrewing the nose (which comes off easily), you lift out a circular foam pad and yank out the rubber-lined plastic insert. The foam is easy to clean by scraping the dirt off with your finger, or you can rinse it out in the sink (just make sure to let it dry completely before putting it back in). Almost no dirt clings to the plastic insert, so a quick shake over a garbage can is all you need to do. Likewise, I usually just tap the nose of the vac against the edge of the garbage can to get everything out. Occasionally a couple of Cheerios get stuck in the corner, but a couple extra taps against the garbage can work well to get them out.
Depending on how dusty the inside looks, I may choose to rinse out all three pieces, which does not add extra stress. When I throw in that extra step, it still takes me less than two minutes to do a complete cleaning of this Dust Buster.
How the Black & Decker 7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum has changed my life
So, I really bought this vacuum for the sole purpose of vacuuming up the rocky dirt chunks my son leaves around our houseplants. What I found was a solution to a lot of pet peeves. I hate it when I have to sweep up little chunks of food every night. As soon as my son sees a little pile of food garbage, he runs over and tries to pick food out to eat while I'm adding more food to the sweep pile. Sweeping also streaks my hardwood floors if there are wet rice or noodles in the mess. I don't have either problem with my Dust Buster. Now, I only sweep in the kitchen if there is a widespread mess or am about to mop. Otherwise, a quick dust busting gets all the yuckies out of the way.
Another added perk, if you have preschool aged children who want to get involved with basic housework (because they do not yet know any better), is that the CHV7202 is lightweight and compact enough for most young children to handle on their own. My daughter is almost three, and she had no problem vacuuming up some eggs for me this afternoon. Actually, she was very excited to help me vacuum and liked the instant gratification of being able to see that the stuff was really getting picked up.
The only thing I dislike about this Dust Buster is that it is kind of hard to pull it off of its charging base. Now that my husband hung it on the wall, I'm always nervous that I'm going to leave a hole in my drywall while trying to wiggle the Dust Buster out of its charger.
Final Thoughts
Black & Decker's CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum has been a wonderful addition to my household. Aside from picking up stuff I had trouble getting to, it has saved me a lot of time and hassle after dinner, when it's just me and the three little munchkins. I highly recommend this machine for anyone who has a need for quick pick-ups of chunky items. In particular, I think this item would be valuable to households with children or animals.
How we decided on the CHV7202
I wish I could say that I used an educated process to select my Dust Buster, but it turned out to be a simple decision. Standing in the aisle at Target, with my husband at my side, we had to choose between a $19.99 Dust Buster model (the CHV7202), a $29.99 model (the CHV9600), and a $44.99 model (the CHV1568), all from Black & Decker. My husband was looking to spend as little money as possible, but get a decent amount of power, so he was leaning toward the CHV9600, which had a 9.6 volt battery and fit in between the 7.2 voltage of the CHV7202 and the 15.6 volt CHV1568.
Initially, I was in agreement, until I noticed that they only one of the three vacs that worked to suck up both wet and dry materials was the CHV7202. Remembering how clean my neighbor's carpet remained after he sucked up a juice spill once, I kind of wanted a dust buster that would suck up spills. Our children are pretty young, so liquid spills are likely to happen over the next few years, although we hadn't had any for a few months. Then came the conundrum: do we get the more powerful vac and then curse ourselves down the line when we suffer a huge spill that wastes plenty of towels to clean, or chance it with the less-powerful wet/dry, knowing that we may never end up using the "wet" function? Uncharacteristically, my penny-pinching husband decided that we could go with the wet/dry, and get a more powerful one next year if we felt we needed one.
Taking the CHV7202 out of the box
Upon opening the box, you will find the vac, a circular charging base with cord to plug it in, an attachment to reach into crevices, and a squeegee attachment.
The vacuum itself feels a little heavy, despite supposedly only weighing one pound. It has a sleek look, measuring 15 and a half inches long, five inches wide and about five inches deep at its deepest point. The nose of the cleaner is a clear blue color and twists off for cleaning.
While the vacuum will have a bit of battery juice at purchase, the manufacturer recommends charging it for sixteen hours before the first use. To do this, you set the vac into the charger and plug in the charger's cord. Depending on the space you have available, you can decide to hang the charger on the wall (it comes with two screws for doing so) or set on a table or countertop. Black & Decker recommends that once the vac is charged, you do not over-charge it.
One thing that would be nicer in this respect would be if there were a little light somewhere on the unit or charging base to let you know a) that the unit is charging, and b) that charging has finished. Most chargeable items have this function, and while it does not get in the way of using the CHV7202, it would be a convenient feature to know that the vac is charging as expected.
Using my Dust Buster -- A dream come true
As soon as the sixteen hours of charging were up, I pulled the CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum off of its charger and went straight to the two recent soil/rock spills. I pushed the switch on, and the vac picked up everything! It's that simple. The only problem I noticed was that the vac blows out air through the two ventilation slits on the sides when it is on, so holding your head too close to the vac while vacuuming dirt would not be good for your allergies. I quickly learned that as long as I don't align my head with the slits, I was fine.
Another trick I learned fairly quickly was that the vacuum tends to do a more complete sucking (i.e., no need for a second swipe over the area) if you use a forward lifting motion to vacuum. In other words, you wouldn't want to run it back and forth, or "back" at all, because it sucks much better on the "forth" part.
The battery is one of short-term, designed to work for eight minutes at a time, and the nose only holds six ounces of material (about a cup full), so this is not for huge cleaning projects. For cleaning up chunks of dirt and small rocks, this Dust Buster is the perfect size. It's also ideal for cleaning little pieces of rice, cheerios and noodles off the floor after meal times. After a particularly messy meal, I attach the crevice tool to clean the food out of my son's high chair, and it only takes thirty seconds (at most) to get it clean.
I can get the back row of our family car cleaned fairly quickly and completely without the crevice tool, leaving just a trace of crumbs in the corners. This works well for cleaning when there is a mix of chunky and tiny mess. After emptying out the nose of the cleaner, I add the crevice tool to get into the corners.
Total cleaning time for the back row of the car: six minutes (max)
No more crying over spilt milk -- Wet Pick-up
I mentioned before that I was doubtful that we would ever end up using the CHV7202 Dust Buster to clean up anything wet. Well, apparently karma was listening to me, because the first night I had the battery charged up, my daughter knocked over a full cup of milk. A week earlier, I would have rushed for the nearest napkins to contain the spill. Instead, I calmly grabbed my Dust Buster, walked over to the table, and vacuumed up the milk. I was shocked at how well the pile of milk disappeared. Having said that, I need to point out that there was still a trace of milk left behind, but it was easily wiped up with a sponge. My only remaining problem was that I now had to convince my children to forget how cool that looked. I didn't want anyone intentionally dumping over beverages to watch the hand vac suck it up.
Cleaning the CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vac -- A piece of cake!
The instruction guide only insists on an immediate cleaning after sucking up wet stuff, but since the nose only holds a cup full of material, I clean my Dust Buster after each use. After unscrewing the nose (which comes off easily), you lift out a circular foam pad and yank out the rubber-lined plastic insert. The foam is easy to clean by scraping the dirt off with your finger, or you can rinse it out in the sink (just make sure to let it dry completely before putting it back in). Almost no dirt clings to the plastic insert, so a quick shake over a garbage can is all you need to do. Likewise, I usually just tap the nose of the vac against the edge of the garbage can to get everything out. Occasionally a couple of Cheerios get stuck in the corner, but a couple extra taps against the garbage can work well to get them out.
Depending on how dusty the inside looks, I may choose to rinse out all three pieces, which does not add extra stress. When I throw in that extra step, it still takes me less than two minutes to do a complete cleaning of this Dust Buster.
How the Black & Decker 7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum has changed my life
So, I really bought this vacuum for the sole purpose of vacuuming up the rocky dirt chunks my son leaves around our houseplants. What I found was a solution to a lot of pet peeves. I hate it when I have to sweep up little chunks of food every night. As soon as my son sees a little pile of food garbage, he runs over and tries to pick food out to eat while I'm adding more food to the sweep pile. Sweeping also streaks my hardwood floors if there are wet rice or noodles in the mess. I don't have either problem with my Dust Buster. Now, I only sweep in the kitchen if there is a widespread mess or am about to mop. Otherwise, a quick dust busting gets all the yuckies out of the way.
Another added perk, if you have preschool aged children who want to get involved with basic housework (because they do not yet know any better), is that the CHV7202 is lightweight and compact enough for most young children to handle on their own. My daughter is almost three, and she had no problem vacuuming up some eggs for me this afternoon. Actually, she was very excited to help me vacuum and liked the instant gratification of being able to see that the stuff was really getting picked up.
The only thing I dislike about this Dust Buster is that it is kind of hard to pull it off of its charging base. Now that my husband hung it on the wall, I'm always nervous that I'm going to leave a hole in my drywall while trying to wiggle the Dust Buster out of its charger.
Final Thoughts
Black & Decker's CHV7202 Handheld Wet/Dry Vacuum has been a wonderful addition to my household. Aside from picking up stuff I had trouble getting to, it has saved me a lot of time and hassle after dinner, when it's just me and the three little munchkins. I highly recommend this machine for anyone who has a need for quick pick-ups of chunky items. In particular, I think this item would be valuable to households with children or animals.
