Hoover HL4

Design and Features

• Lift-off cylinder
• Crevice tool
• Anti-Twist floor head to prevent hair tangling

Slim and relatively lightweight at 5kg, the Hoover HL4 doesn’t take up much room, but provides enough power to clean anywhere well. It’s a nicely designed vacuum cleaner, too.

In its full upgright mode, the flexible hose doesn’t swing out too far, and there’s a side clip that holds the 7.6m power cable when not in use. At this kind of length, you should be able to clean most floors in a house using only one or two power sockets.

Underneath is an accessory holder, which takes the crevice tool. It’s nice to have the onboard storage, as it seems that few vacuum cleaner manufacturers provide this any more.

However, a single accessory is a bit stingy. Sure, the crevice tool will do for most jobs, from cleaning around edges to cleaning out your car and drawer, but it would be nice to have some kind of upholstery tool for dealing with sofas or similar.

If you want something like this, the more expensive HL4 Pet is a good shout, as it comes with a mini motorised tool.

The crevice tool can be attached to the end of the wand, which is good for cleaning up high or for cleaning while bending over. If you need a bit more flexibility, then you can drop the wand and use just the hose and handle.

For ease of use, the cylinder lifts off the floor head, so you can carry around a smaller handheld unit. It’s a shame that you can’t use the floor head in this mode, as you can with the Powered Lift-Away on Shark cleaners, such as the Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty IP3251UKT, as this would make it possible to clean under sofas; with the cylinder attached with the HL4, you can’t get under low objects.

The floor head is one of Hoover’s Anti-Twist models, which is designed to prevent hairs from tangling and getting wrapped around the brush bar.

I found this vacuum cleaner very easy to use. There’s a simple power button with three options: off, hard floor and carpet. For the latter two modes, there’s no difference in the suction power, just how fast the brush bar spins.

If you find that there’s too much suction and the HL4 is hard to push, there is a Suction Control vent on the handle that you can open up to reduce air flow. This switch clicks into the available positions, which is handy as the vent won’t accidentally slide open during use.

With the vacuum cleaner on, I just need to put my foot on the floor head and tilt the handle back to go. I found the HL4 easy to push and pretty nimble.

Dirt goes into the 1.2-litre bin, which is a good size and should easily take a whole home’s worth of dirt. The entire bin lifts off, and the bottom flips open for emptying. It’s worth sticking the vacuum’s bin into your bin to prevent dust from dropping out during emptying.

There are two washable filters, one pre-bin and one outlet, which should be removed and washed regularly.

Performance

• High suction power
• Good dust collection on all surfaces
• Avoids most tangles

I started by measuring the Hoover HL4’s suction power in AirWatts. As there’s only one power mode, I found that the vacuum cleaner delivers a solid, constant 246AW, which is similar to the Boost power on most cordless cleaners, and a similar level of power to the Shark NZ860UKT and the Dyson Multifloor Ball Animal.

That kind of suction power is useful for tidy-up jobs with the crevice tool, as the HL4 can collect dust from a good distance, making it good for cleaning out drawers and cars. With rice grains, I discovered that the HL4 could collect mess from 2.4cm away, which is an excellent result.

Moving on to the real-world tests, I added 20g of flour to the test carpet. I started by moving the cleaner through the mess forwards and backwards. Looking at how the HL4 collected the mess, the strip looked mostly clean, but dust collection towards the edge of the floor head is a little uneven.

I then finished off cleaning the carpet, moving forwards and backwards until the carpet appeared to be clean. At the end of the test, I found that 94.15% of the dust was collected.

I then added 10g of flour to the carpet tiles, spread right up to the skirting board. After cleaning this up by running the vacuum cleaner’s head along the skirting board, I found that 89.7% of the dust was collected, which is good, although a little way behind the Dyson Multifloor Ball Animal. I had to finish the job with the crevice tool

On hard floor, the HL4 managed to collect 100% of the 20g of rice that I spilled, with no grains dropping back out.

I also tested with pet hair, combing cat hair into the carpet. This was easily removed by the vacuum cleaner with no hair left behind.

Finally, I added human hair to the test carpet and then used the HL4 to vacuum it up. At the end of the test, most of the hair was collected, bar a few strands; however, these weren’t tightly wrapped around the brush bar, so they were easy to remove.

I measured the HL4 at 71.3dB, which is about average for a corded vacuum cleaner.

Should you buy it?