Deidre in GA Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 my Oreck, inherited from my mom, is broken. i'll get an estimate on the repair but i want to be prepared for balancing the repair or replace options. i've been intrigued by the Roomba. i only have carpeting in one 10 X 15 foot room; the rest of the house is hardwood floors. ds 15 seems to leave crumb trails and we have one low-shedding dog that seems to track leaves and dirt in and out. is this a good situation for a Roomba? i'd still have my hand-held corded Oreck to do touch ups with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet in Toronto Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 I love my Roomba! I think it does better on hard floors or wall-to-wall than on area rugs. We have rugs in our living room, they're a little high, and everytime the Roomba goes from the floor to the rug it leaves a little pile of (dog) hair on the edge. But it's fantastic on our upper floor (wall to wall) or hardwood/tile floors in the kitchen. I got my Roomba for Christmas last year and i'ts been a dream come true! If the Roomba could vacuum the furniture (dog hair again)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2abcd Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 We have one for sale. It took hours to clean our floors and we had to lift chairs, move things, etc. to get them done before the battery wore out. Not worth it. The thing covers the entire area that its in, but when it bumps something, it takes off in another direction. If we had a room with nothing in it, it would get done faster, but who has a room like that? LOL Really, I can't imagine it working well for anyone, but I guess some people like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Well, it works well for us! In fact, only the Roomba gets used now! Central vacuuming is no longer used at all. That said, the Roomba does take longer than standard vacuuming, but you're free to do something else. I found that it's better to restrict the Roomba to a small room each time. With the 'walls' this is possible. I let the Roomba loose in the kitchen for 20 minutes. While it goes round and round, I clean the living room. Then, I move the 'walls' and restrict the Roomba to the living room and I move on to another room. I tried once to let the Roomba completely loose in the house. It took forever and never did a good cleanup. Sometimes I use a broom, and just push the dirt in front of the Roomba. It does a better cleanup than I ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
umarider Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 We have a longer-haired dog. How do roombas do w/ that kind of hair? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdie Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 (edited) I love our Roomba!! We also restrict it to a small area using the virtual walls and it does a great job. Our upstairs game room needs to be broken into three sections to get a complete cleaning and it runs about 45 minutes for each cleaning. I don't care because it is way better than hauling our upright vac up the stairs and vacuuming by hand. The downside is that they don't have a very good reliability record. We bought our Roomba at Best Buy with an extended warranty. It broke after 6 months, but Best Buy gave us a brand new one when we took it in for repair. I also have a Scooba that mops tile floor. The handle to the tank broke after six months, but iRobot sent us a free replacment tank since it was still under warranty. The replacement tank took 3 weeks to arrive and I was in misery without my happy little robot mop. LOL! I just wish they made a robot to clean my shower and windows. Forgot to add that we have a medium length haired dog and the Roomba works great on picking up dog hair. I clean the brushes after each use and vacuum the room our dog frequents, with the Roomba, twice a week. Edited January 2, 2009 by Ferdie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissel Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 (edited) I absolutely love our Roomba too. I don't like it for our main living area, where the carpet is wall-to-wall, light-colored, and quite deep and thick. I feel like it needs a deeper cleaning and stronger suction (and the pattern it leaves the floor drives me a little :willy_nilly:, but that's because I'm neurotic :lol:). But I use it and love it in every other part of the house. It gets used in the kitchen nearly every day, and it does a great job on the carpets in the playroom and the girls rooms. I do use it on the main carpet if I just need a quick pickup--for example, once I had people coming over and forgot that I wanted to vacuum up the crumby living room, but I had to run out and pick up food. I set it up and let it run, and it was done by the time I got back. If I had a big house full of hardwood floors, I'd gladly use it for everything, and I might even buy two! Our first did die after a year (early model), and our second is still going quite strong after six months, so we'll see. Frankly, though, even if I had to buy one a year, I'd still consider it money well spent. I also agree with Cleo, that I find it works best when I confine it to a room. I run it in the kitchen for awhile, then move it to the bathroom, then do each girl's room before I need to charge it again. Sometimes I can even get the front door landing done, if I didn't let it go too long in the kitchen. It gets a big thumbs up from me! My aunt even saw it work when she visited and went and bought herself one when she got home :lol: Edited January 2, 2009 by melissel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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