Best Dyson Vacuum for Thick Carpet Reviews
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Short on time? These are the top picks for the best Dyson for thick carpet:
You always need to think twice to buy a Dyson because it is pricey. You also need to choose the Dyson with the right features to clean thick carpets. The wrong one won’t clean thick carpets effectively.
So, what is the best Dyson for thick carpets?
The best Dyson vacuum for thick carpet is the Dyson V15 Detect. It has the strongest suction of all their cordless stick vacuums and delivers outstanding performance on low and high-pile carpet. But what’s more impressive is how quiet the machine is considering its high suction power.
If your house has plenty of high-pile carpets to clean, you need the right vacuum cleaner for the job. In this post, let’s find out the best Dyson vacuum cleaner for thick carpets with the right amount of suction power.
Top 4 Dyson Vacuums For Carpet
Below are the best Dyson vacuums for carpet. I have included 4 Dyson vacuums that I have personally tested, all of which can clean thick carpets effectively and remove dirt from carpet fibers.
1. Best overall: Dyson V15 Detect
Let me begin by saying this: if you want the best Dyson vacuum for thick carpet, get the Dyson V15 Detect. It delivers stronger suction power than any of its predecessors and comes with lots of useful accessories, including a laser-equipped cleaner head that reveals dust you wouldn't otherwise see.
Suction power is amazing even on high-pile carpet
I’m a clean freak. My carpet is a high pile and hides all the hair, dust and dirt deep down in some hell scape located just above the pad. This Dyson V15 Detect just sucked up 5 years worth of dirt in about 10 minutes.
The adjustable spinner head works in such a way that it adjusts its suction on the fly to adapt to different floors, from carpets to hard floors. This means you can transition from hard floors to carpet instantly.
If you find it too hard to move over thick carpet or rugs, follow these 3 steps:
- Set the motor sensitivity/responsiveness to low
- Adjust the motorhead to the minus symbol to life those little red gates
- Use Eco mode
Unless you have a really high pile carpet, that should do the trick for your carpet woes. You can also try pulling instead of pushing. The point here is, the Dyson V15 is more than capable of pulling dirt from carpets.
Laser technology reveals particles invisible to the naked eye
What I find unique about the Dyson V15 Detect is the laser technology.
The laser in the dark may gross you out on carpets. You will not miss a speck of dust. I keep a relatively immaculate house and had to empty the bin multiple times after going over my large area rugs. Yuck.
This feature is particularly useful when cleaning area rugs or thick carpets because sometimes, there are dirt particles you may have missed because they are invisible to the naked eye. With the laser technology, you will be able to see the dirt particles and pick them up instantly as you move the vacuum.
Surprisingly quiet for such a powerful vacuum
The Dyson V15 Detect achieved nearly perfect scores in my tests, including excellent ratings for cleaning carpet and bare floors and picking up pet hair. It sucked up the sand, rice, and cereal I scattered on carpet; removed litter from tile floors; and attacked the pet hair in a medium-pile carpet.
But what impressed me the most is how quiet this powerful vacuum is. Even its brand mate, the Dyson V11 Outsize, is slightly louder than the Dyson V15 Detect.
So not only is the Dyson V15 Detect more powerful than the Dyson V11 Outsize (which is second place on this list), but it also has a lower noise level than other vacuum cleaners, most of which are not nearly as strong.
2. Runner-up: Dyson V11 Outsize
The Dyson V11 Outsize goes one step further than the Dyson V11 Absolute, which reached near perfection with its powerful suction, by adding a larger dust bin and a wider cleaning head to reduce the number of interruptions to your cleaning session. Basically, the Dyson V11 is huge, and best suited to large homes.
Picks up anything on carpet
Combined with the powerful motorized cleaning head, the Dyson V11 Outsize impressed during testing. For the test, I scattered cereal on an area of low-pile carpet. Then, I put the Dyson V11 Outsize to work.
Using the High Torque XL cleaning head on Max power, the Dyson V11 Outsize was able to pick 100% of cereal on short-pile carpet. It did have trouble picking up flour, capturing about 90% on the first pass, but it made short work on the rest of the flour on the second run.
From hard floors to carpets, the Dyson V11 Outsize senses the type of flooring you have and adjusts the power accordingly, making it a good investment for homes with several different types of flooring.
Three power modes are useful
The Dyson V11 Outsize comes with three power modes: Eco, Max and Auto.
These are selected using the button on the top of the filter (the LED screen shows you which mode you’re on). It also informs you how much battery life you can expect from the mode in minutes and seconds, which is a useful at-a-glance guide. Recharging takes around 4 hours.
In my opinion, Auto mode is where most cleaning work will be done. It is very intuitive because it changes power levels depending on the surface. Less suction is used on hard floors, while the power ramps up when it hits thick carpet and needs some extra suction.
If you have thicker carpet and have trouble moving the Dyson, try using the Eco mode to reduce its suction power. This prevents the machine from creating an airtight seal with the carpet fibers so you can push it.
The best out of all the V11 series
The Dyson V11 Outsize is the best version of all the V11 series. It is bigger and more powerful in every respect, with a cleaning head that’s 25% wider and a collection bin that’s 150% bigger than the other V11 models.
If you have a large house with lots of carpets to clean, this is the Dyson vacuum to buy. However, this is just the second best Dyson for thick carpet because the Dyson V15 is still better than the V11.
3. Budget pick: Dyson V7 Animal
The Dyson V7 Animal is slightly cheaper than the Dyson V7 Absolute because it doesn’t come with the soft roller attachment. It only comes with the direct-drive cleaning head that works best on carpets.
Because of the limited amount of attachments, the Dyson V7 Animal is only suitable for homes that are made up of mostly carpets. It does, however, offer great value because of its affordable price.
Direct-drive cleaner head is designed for carpet
The Dyson V7 Animal is equipped with the powerful direct-drive cleaner head that is designed to remove ground-in dirt from carpets. It has 75% more brush bar power than the Dyson V6 vacuum.
To test its work on carpet, I’ve scattered a combination of oatmeal and grounded coffee on low-pile carpet. Much to my surprise, the Dyson V7 Animal was able to pick up 100% of the scattered dirt on the carpet.
In addition to the direct-drive cleaner head (which is the default tool for cleaning carpet), the Dyson V7 Animal also comes with the mini motorized brush. The tool is a miniature version of the floor tool. It works great at cleaning embedded dirt on fabric upholstery or carpets such as pet hair or bread crumbs.
More powerful than it looks
Considering the lightweight frame of the Dyson V7 Animal, the suction power of this vacuum is amazing. There are two settings (low and high). Low gets you longer battery life and high gives you more suction.
If you are planning to clean thick carpet, I would recommend using the low setting. This prevents the machine from creating an airtight seal with the carpet fibers. The low setting is enough for carpet.
Many people consider the Dyson V7 as the inferior version of the V8 due to its weaker motor and smaller battery capacity. However, I don’t see much difference in airflow as I expected.
In fact, the Dyson V7 has more airflow at the nozzle in the Max setting. This uptick helps the Dyson V7 perform better cleaning dirt from carpets than the Dyson V8, which is quite a shock for me.
Affordable Dyson for carpets
The Dyson V7 Animal hits the sweet spot when it comes to price and performance on carpets. It won’t clean carpet as well as the higher-end Dyson vacuums, like the V11 and V15, but the Dyson V7 is much cheaper.
Additionally, it is also lighter and works better on carpet than the Dyson V8. Give the Dyson V7 Animal a look if you want a reasonably priced cordless stick vacuum that has a very decent cleaning performance on carpet.
4. Honorable Mention: Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute
The Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute is a versatile cordless stick vacuum. It clears an impressive amount of debris on low and high-pile carpet. The machine can also be easily reconfigured into a handheld vacuum and comes with a very wide assortment of tools and accessories, including a flexible crevice tool and a turbo brush.
Works great on low-pile and high-pile carpet
After scattering a bunch of grains and sand, I put the Dyson V10 Absolute to the test. Much to my delight, the Dyson V10 succeeded with flying colors because it picked up virtually everything from the short-pile carpets.
However, the real test lies in the high-pile carpet. Most vacuum cleaners have a hard time cleaning long pile carpets because the dirt disappears and gets buried deep within the carpet fibers.
Lo and behold, the Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute was able to remove every single bit of dirt, grains, and sand from deep within the long-pile carpet fibers. From all suction modes, the medium power mode works best on the long-pile carpet in my opinion. I was very happy with the result.
Supremely flexible and easy to maneuver
On advantage of using the Dyson V10 is its flexibility. The machine is very easy to maneuver due to the joint between the roller and the tube. You can effortlessly move it through the room and achieve the right angle.
You would also have no trouble cleaning under furniture because you can also lay the Dyson V10 flat on the floor at an almost 180-degree angle. This makes cleaning your house easy, even if it’s full of carpets.
Unlike many other manufacturers, Dyson put the motor of the V10 directly on the handle and not on the roller’s bottom. That also contributes to an easier vacuuming of the dust under the furniture.
There are better options for the price
The Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute is just an honorable mention.
You can buy this machine and have great success cleaning dirt from thick carpets, however, I feel like there are better options for the price. Take the Dyson V15 and V11 for example. Both are sold at a slightly higher price point with the Dyson V10 but are much more powerful and effective for cleaning thick carpets.
If you want to save a little bit of money and would go for something good enough, you can buy the Dyson V10. However, I feel like you would be doing yourself a disservice because there are better options.
Final Verdict
And there you have it, the best Dyson vacuums for thick carpet Without a doubt, the best overall for carpet is the Dyson V15 Detect. It picks up dust and dirt from thick carpets without leaving much behind. Surprisingly, it also has a very low noise level considering how powerful the machine is.
If you want something cheap, the Dyson V7 Animal is a great alternative. It costs much less than the V15 Detect, yet it is able to work on carpets better than the Dyson V8. However, the medium sized bin and less suction power limits its upside, thus making it the budget pick for carpet cleaning.
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Ryan O'Connor
I write about house cleaning and vacuum cleaners. For me, nothing is more important than a clean environment to ensure both a healthy and happy life. Learn more.