Customer Reviews

BISSELL Cleanview Helix Plus Upright Vacuum, Bagless, 22C1

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

UPDATE: I've vacuumed my apartment every other day since my last review. I am happy to say it's running as good today as it has the day I got it. It still picks up an amazing amount of dirt, and I have not had to change the HEPA media filter yet (although I can already see discoloration-I will probably by a reusable this May).

I received my Bissell 22C1 from Amazon today so my review will be my immediate views and I plan to update this once again later on this winter. As a quick background our household had 2 adults and a medium haired cat living in an apartment with white, poor quality carpet. We both suffer from allergies.

Assembly & Parts:

When the package first arrives it requires minimum assembly. The filters are all in the correct places already, and the one tool you need is a screwdriver to screw the vacuums handle onto the body. It took more time opening the boxes than it took to put the vacuum together. The cord is long enough to vacuum my living room.

Test drive:

Since you have to screw the handle onto the body, the power switch is on the side of the vacuum, which seemed kind of weird to me.

I honestly cannot believe how much dirt it picked up from my carpet (both hair and dust). My carpet has always looked dirty, but after vacuuming it looks like the color lightened up by one shade. Of course it wont work miracles, but I am so much more satisfied with my carpet than I was before. Even when vacuuming the edges of the carpet (along the wall), the vacuum gets very close to the wall. It's not to the point where you wont need to use the crevice tool every once in a while, but at least you wont have to worry about it constantly.

Cleaning the dirt container is extremely easy! My old bagless vacuum made me take a tank out of the body, and lift the filter out of the tank before I was able to toss the dirt out. With this tool all you do is slide a knob from the left to right, then the tank is easy lifted away from the body and dumped out without having to touch anything gross inside.

In case you're wondering about how much parts will cost with the unit:
the part number for the 'Style 9 Drive Belt' (2 pack) is 32074
Standard headlight Bulb: 203-1297
Style 16 outer circular pre-motor filter: 69B1
Style 7/9/16 HEPA media filter: 32076
Style 7/9/16 Post motor filter: 3099

The manual gives directions on how to replace all bulbs and filters, as well as details on how to service it (yourself) and common vacuum issues like fixing a clog.

So far the vacuum's been great. I'm happy I purchased it and would recommend it. Great product for the price! And the manual is very helpful so hopefully in the future I wont have to bring it into the repair shop!

A neighbor whose son has asthma recommended this when our old vacuum bit the dust, so to speak. The other had a filter that needed to be removed and cleaned after every use. These filters don't. The other had a dust cup much smaller than this one, so I'd have to empty it twice with each use. The tools are all on the vacuum, work wonderfully, and are arranged well. I used to hate using the hose and attachments, but I like doing it now!

MY FIRST HAS LASTED 6 YEARS AND IS STILL GOING STRONG IN OUR LOWER LEVEL. NOW HAVE ONE FOR THE UPSTAIRS. YOU WONT FIND A BETTER BAGLESS VAC FOR PERFORMANCE AND VALUE.

After reading a lot of reviews of vacuums under $100 bucks, I selected this Bissell. The only fault, which I knew in advance, is that if using the hand-held brush, the main beater bar continues rotating. Not a problem for me, but others have complained it has worn spots in their carpet.

So far I'm very pleased, no complaints, really cleans the carpet, including carpet that had been cleaned with my old vacuum. Dirt cup is easy to empty and no clogging of the hose that feeds the dirt into the cup, a problem with my old vac.

I do find that frequent adjusting of the carpet height knob is required when changing from flat berber-type carpet to plush. If not, the vacuum is extremely difficult to push. This is to be expected, but some higher-end vacs automatically adjust.

I will recommend this vac, and since I paid under $80.00 delivered, it was a tremendous value.

Our previous Bissell vacuum wore out after about eight years of service so I went shopping and got this one. It picks up more dirt than its predecessor, it is less noisy, it is bagless, and it has better tools. I particularly like the TurboBrush tool, because that provides rotary brush cleaning in places where an upright vacuum cannot fit.

The construction of this one feels solid, and the previous one survived eight years of heavy use, so I expect this one also should prove reasonably durable. This one does have a key design feature that was missing from its predecessor: PRE-motor filters to protect the motor from small objects that might get into the mechanism. With the previous one I had to be careful about picking up objects that might damage the blower.

This vacuum really pulled up a lot of both dirt and fiber from my wool rugs after a couple of months in place (the rugs). It seems to have lots more suction than I have experienced with bagged vacuums.

One thing! - buy extra drive belts!

January, 2011 - further review - the Bissell Helix continues to do a great job. However, it pulls up so much fine dirt and dust that I find myself having to clean the fin-particle filter once a month. Just shows how much fine particles are floating down, and the Helix takes care of everything after 9 months of average house use. Still four stars!

Don't get me wrong, this vacuum really sucks up dirt. BUT, i lighted used the vacuum for about 5 months when the carpet length adjustment broke making it very difficult to push the vacuum. It is a cheap plastic piece that broke and now it is a real workout to push it, and I am a 165 pound male.

My second complaint is that I washed the HEPA filter and pre filter according to manufacturer instructions and now the HEPA filter smells worse than the foulest smelling dirty laundry. It is unbearable. I had to air out my apartment and spray air freshener throughout to get rid of the odor after vacuuming for less than 5 minutes. Bissell should have anticipated this problem and included an antimicrobial coating into the filter media to prevent this problem.

Overall, I cannot recommend this product due to these problems.

I really like this vacuum. I purchased this one to replace a famous make one that was purchased probably 25 plus years ago and cost more that 4 times the price of the Bissell.

I did some research on this product so I didn't think I would be terribly surprised but when I received it, assembled it in a few minutes, tightened the one screw and gave a it a try, I was indeed very surprised.

Having to empty it many times shows what a poor job my old vacuum was doing.

I highly recommend this product.

I have owned two Bissells and both had the same problem. The foot kick that holds up the vacuum handle when you stop vacuuming breaks. So you end up with a vacuum cleaner that falls over and won't stand up while you move the plug, move a piece of furniture or whatever. And, even better you CANNOT get a replacement part for it even though it would be very easy to change. If this small piece were metal and better plastic this problem could be avoided. I bought a Hoover this time and will never go back to Bissell.

I used this piece of crap vacuum a total of 5 times on NEW carpet in two small rooms and the belt broke!!!!! The people at customer service were reading a script and kept having to pause to let the next page of "troubleshooting load", it was awkward and pathetic all at the same time. Go to you tube and look up vacuum belt changing because they won't give you anything.