Following my wildly successful “Unusual Spinning Tools” post, I offer this post as my almost-last opportunity in 2006 for a follow-up. The Unusual Spinning Tools posts continues to be my all-time leader in search traffic – well after the “wet girls” post, but we won’t go that direction. Further, the Spinning Tools post is the only post ever to get on anybody’s top 100 list – even if it was number sixty-seven on a list that no longer exists.

Our new Dyson vacuum cleaner qualifies as one of those spinning tools one ought to have, but doesn’t want to use.

You see, ours is a very dusty house. Fiber is only one of the dusty habits hobbies that contribute to the dust in the house.

Our primary heat source is wood. Anybody who has a fireplace can tell you that wood is a dusty way to heat. Bringing wood in brings dust in. Hauling ash out leaves dust in the house. Opening the door lets smoke into the house, and those smoke particles eventually settle as dust. When asked at fiber shows if my fiber comes from a non-smoking home, I’m prone to answering something to the effect, “The people don’t smoke, but the fireplace has been known to do so.”

Because we have no air conditioning, the windows are open all summer long and the dust blows right in. We don’t have open windows or outdoor dust in the winter time, but we simply track the mud in and it dries to become dust once inside.

Fiber is probably the third largest source of dust in this house, but it would rank much higher if I did my carding inside. Spinning, skirting, and general moving fiber around create a lot of dust.

We vacuum and we dust, but not nearly enough given the volume of dust in the house. With our old vacuum cleaners, I would start sneezing if I vacuumed for very long – even though we used allergy bags in the vacuum cleaners. Mostly we had to dust and we tried to wet dust because dry dusting simply puts more dust in the air without really eliminating it.

Each year, my employer makes special offers to employees right before Christmas. Dyson cooperates with my employer to make sure there is a special discount offered on Dyson vacuum cleaners. This year, after much thought, we decided to purchase a fancy Dyson. There’s no way we could afford one at the regular price, but because of the special offer, the employee price ended up to be something we could afford. (It’s a smart move by Dyson, several employees purchased the vacuums this year, and we’ve all sung their praise to customers …)

I just wish we’d brought this vacuum when Sweet Pea was still alive. She left a lot of cat hair on the furniture, and this thing is wonderful at picking up animal fiber.

When we brought the Dyson home, I took my old vacuum over part of the floor. Then, I vacuumed that same area with the Dyson. I was amazed at the quantity of dirt, dust, garbage, etc. that I pulled out of that same section of floor. The Dyson really does pick up stuff other vacuums leave.

The best part about the Dyson is that I can use it without sneezing. Even with the allergy bags, I would start sneezing after using the old vacuums. Not so with the Dyson. The Dyson uses what’s essentially a continuous centrifuge – the company calls it a cyclonic filter – to remove particles from the air. You’ve probably seen the TV ads that say the machine has no filters to clog and therefore doesn’t lose suction. Based on my experience, I believe it is much more efficient at removing small particulates from the air than my old vacuum. And, because it uses the cyclonic filters to remove the particulates, the air then passes through a HEPA filter before being returned to the room.

That’s right, a vacuum that separates particulates from air well enough to use a HEPA filter. Trust me, the so-called allergy bags in my old machine are no comparison.

I generally put an old towel under the spinning wheel and chair to catch the majority of the dust and debris from spinning. It’s nice to be able to fold up the towel to clean up the dust. However, having run the Dyson over where the towel was, I can tell you there is a lot of spinning debris working it’s way through the towel.

I’ve been working my way through the house reducing dust with the new vacuum for almost a month now and I think I’m finally starting to see reduction in the rate of dust accumulation on surfaces. This, at a time when we’re running the fireplace hard because it’s cold, when I’ve been sorting fiber for the move, and when I’ve actually been spinning a bit as well.

It’s not one of the sexiest spinning tools around, but it sure is nice to actually clean up that spinning dust instead of just blowing it around.