What wet/dry vac do you have?

[ChrisC]

My Shop-Vac brand vac died last week. It was a 12yrs or so old, and I need to get another one.

I have been looking at another Shop-Vac, Rigid, and Craftsman.

I DON"T NEED ONE FOR DUST COLLECTION!!!!!! Just plain old dirty work, so I'm not looking for a Festool fellas.

I know they are pretty basic, but what brand do ya have, and what do like/dislike about it.

 

[clowman]

Hmm...... My shop vac just died as well, and I put it on my Christmas list as well, I'm interested in this questions. My old one.. I'm not even sure what brand it was, but it wasn't very good.

I need to see if I can find one for under 75$

 

[stoneskippers]

Chris, I bought the large Ridgid shop vac about four years age and love it .
I use it to clean the shop and general purpose. The main thing is I have my shop piped for a vac system with blast gates at each piece of equipment and I just hook the hose in and use it. Its easy to clean the filter and I dump the saw dust into large plastic bags.

 

[McRabbet]

Chris,

I bought a 16 gal/"6.0 Peak HP" :eusa_liar Shop Vac Contractor series unit at Lowes last year for about $80. It is much quieter than any previous shop vac (Sears or Shop Vac brands) that I've owned. It has great capacity, good tools and hose (plus I have an extra hose) and it picks up most anything except nails or screws (but I never drop any of those; I just tested it ;-) ). I also bought some drywall filter bags because I do use it when I'm using my random orbital or stationary belt sander or my benchtop oscillating sander. No dust gets through them (the unit can also hold the pleated filter canister at the same time).

And, I've used it for wet spill pickups, too -- great value and readily available.

 

[DaveO]

I've got a Craftsman 16 gal. 5.75 HP one, that can be used as a blower also. As a blower it sucks. I tried it to clean some leaves off my deck and I could have created more wind with a can of Pork-n-Beans. But as a shop vac it really does suck and suck well. I use it for general clean-up, but also attach it to my little Delta disk/belt sanding station and my POS router table, and it has served well in those aspects. I can't tell you the cost, 'cause it was a gift. One thing I recommend looking for in a wet/dry vac is the ability to hook up a hose pipe to the drain at the bottom of the can. If you ever have a big need to suck up lots of water, it is great not to have to carry the 16 gal, almost 140 lb. can out to dump, that feature really came in handy after a flood I had in a rental house on a slab. We had over 4" of water run through the living room, and I kept running the shop vac until I had sucked all the water out of the carpet, not having to stop every 10 minutes to empty the can. Dave

 

[ChrisC]

Thanks for the replys all.



Funny Dave, I was really looking hard for the hose connection feature you were talking about. I want the vac to be able to do all kinds of "dirty work".

 

[chris99z71]

I too have a Craftsman. Bought it when I was in a pinch due to the failure of a sump-pump years ago. No problems with it.

Here's a question for you engineers out there - why in the heck can't they design a shopvac with big enough wheels to run over it's own cord!?!?!?!