Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design Review

Design and Features

• Clever LiftOut mode
• Lots of tools
• You can turn the brush bar off

Although it resembles any other corded upright vacuum cleaner, the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design features some clever design elements that make it easy to use. This starts with the clearly labelled power button, which can be reached without bending down.

To operate the vacuum cleaner, I just had to tilt the handle back to start pushing it around. At 6.63kg, this isn’t the lightest upright but, aside from having to carry it up stairs, most of that weight sits on the floor, and I found the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design easy and quick to push around.

There’s no power control, but there is an air vent that can be slid open to reduce suction power if you find that the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design is sticking to the floor a bit too much and is getting hard to push around.

When using a corded vacuum cleaner, the cable needs to be kept out of the way. I’d normally do this by looping the cable over a shoulder, but I don’t have to do that with the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design, as it has a Cord Hook at the top of the wand that does this job. It’s often the simple things that make life easier.

I like the option to turn the brush bar on and off, via the dedicated switch. A brush bar is great for carpets, but on hard floors, suction alone will do the trick without flicking larger bits of debris around.

One issue with all uprights is that the bin location makes it impossible to get the vacuum cleaner under low bits of furniture, such as sofas. That’s where the LiftOut option comes into play.

There’s a handy foot switch on the vacuum cleaner, which releases the bin and motor from the floor head, effectively turning this model into a more flexible cylinder vacuum cleaner.

In this mode, the hose and wand can be detached, giving reach to get into tighter areas, such as when vacuuming a car or cleaning stairs. With the hose and wand attached, there’s plenty of reach, so it’s easy to clean around the skirting boards without bending down, or clean cobwebs off the ceiling.

The wand can also be detached, leaving just the 2m hose, which can be used with any of the tools.

In the box, Vax provides a crevice tool, which has a handy slide-down brush; a pet hair removal tool; a stair tool; and a mini motorised brush.

There’s space for the crevice tool plus one additional tool on the vacuum cleaner’s body. It’s always handy to have your main tools with you.

I’ve seen other vacuum cleaners with a similar design to the LiftOut, but I’ve only ever seen Shark vacuum cleaners, such as the NZ860UKT, that let you use this mode with the floor head.

Shark’s design is a touch neater, as its Lift-Away mode takes the bin out but leaves the floor head attached. With the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design I had to remove the wand and reconnect it to the floor head. Admittedly, this is a fast job.

In this mode, the vacuum cleaner is much more flexible, as it’s easy to get under sofas, sideboards, and other low pieces of furniture.

Buy direct from Vax and you get a car cleaning kit worth £40 included, which includes some extra tools: a flexible crevice tool, deep debris tool and a fine dusting brush, plus an additional filter, which is handy. 

The pre-motor filter should be washed regularly under a tap (max 40°C), but needs 24 hours to dry. With a spare filter, I can wash one, put the dry one in and I’m ready to vacuum again.

There’s a secondary post-motor filter, which is a long-life model that can’t be washed. Instead, when this is discoloured, it should be replaced.

There’s a very large 2-litre bin, which lifts out. It’s clear inside, and both the top and bottom flaps can be opened for easy dust emptying and to clean the bin out.

Performance

• Excellent carpet performance
• Doesn’t get tangled

As with all vacuum cleaners, I started by measuring the power of the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design in AirWatts (AW). With one power setting, I measured it at a constant 151AW, which is a touch lower than some of the competition, such as the Hoover HL4 Pet.

The trade off is that the Vax uses less power (600W) compared to the HL4 (850W), so the LiftOut is more economical to run.

The level of power makes a small difference when it comes to using hand tools. With the HL4 Pet, I could collect rice from 3cm away when using the crevice tool. With the Vax LiftOut, collection distance was 2cm.

That’s still good, but it does mean that the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design needs to get a bit closer to debris to pick it up, such as when cleaning out the bottom of a wardrobe or inside a car.

The total power available is still very high, and running at a constant 151AW, the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design is more powerful than your average cordless cleaner on its standard mode.

I moved on to my carpet cleaning test, adding 20g of dust to the floor. Running the cleaner backwards and forwards through the middle, I left a clean strip, edge-to-edge, which is impressive. Overall, the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design picked up 97.37% of the dust.

A tougher test is the edge test, which has 10g of flour added right to the edge of the skirting board. In this test, the Vax LiftOut Multi Pet-Design collected a decent 92% of the mess, but left some behind that I had to tackle with the crevice tool. The HL4 Pet did better in this test.

On the hard floor test, I added 20g of rice to the floor and then vacuumed with the brush roller turned off. I’m pleased to say that 100% of this mess was collected, and grains of rice dropped back out.

I then combed cat hair into the carpet. A single pass was enough to remove all of this with ease.

Finally, I added human hair to the carpet and vacuumed it up. Thanks to the design of the brush bar, no hair was wrapped around the floor head at the end.

I measured sound at 73.2dB, which is similar to other similar plug-in vacuum cleaners.

Should you buy it?