If you have largely hard wood floors with the occasional area rug, just buy it. Don't think about it. Just buy it. I run a cleaning business in Oregon where absolutely everyone has hardwood floors and area rugs. This thing is a breeze and makes short work of large areas. I use to have some complaints about it, but have gotten over them by making a few changes in the way I use it. Once you are nice to your vacuum, it will be nice to you. Here is a list of why this is the greatest vacuum you will ever own and why you will want to buy it for all your friends and family: 1) small and light weight. At Green Clean Queen (my cleaning business) we are all pretty petite women. As long as you aren't stupid, wear at least the waist strap (those with large busts find the chest strap just makes things uncomfortable, but it's not that necessary anyway), and stand up straight, it will not hurt your back. Really. "W.O.W." It's on the side of the vacuum 'Wear right. Operate right. Work right." It does have a tendency to undress you. So watch out for that. The waist strap likes to pull your shirt up and the back of the vacuum likes to push your pants down. Either deal with your crack showing a bit or wear a longer shirt and a belt, or vacuum when no one is there to watch you. Problem solved. 2) the metal wand. I accidentally bought the C2401 (NOT C2401-010) and was DEVASTATED that they were not the same thing. The metal wand on this version (C2401-010) is straight. We use this to our advantage in my company by sticking the mop in the vacuum wand so we only have to carry one thing instead of awkwardly carrying two. Over time the friction fit has let me down, but I have learned to deal with it. The floor attachment is permanently stuck to the metal wand. That's fine by me because then it never falls off. The connection point between the two sections of the wand has become super weak and doesn't like to stay together. Not to worry, a bit of velcro and some zip ties has created a quick release strap to hold the two pieces together. Now they stay together when you want them to (vacuuming and carrying it around with a mop inside) and they easily come apart when you want to use one of the smaller attachments for upholstery, blinds, anything that is just out of your reach. It's alright on cobwebs, but if you have even a moderate cobweb problem, vacuuming them will just kill your neck, back, and hand (it's not the right angle for comfortably reaching up... perfect for down though). I find it annoying that the attachments don't easily stick to the vacuum in anyway. Easily remedied with a plastic baggie and a binder clip... Put the attachments in the baggie and clip the bugger to the belt. Problem solved. 3) the floor attachment. I hate, hate, hate brush floor attachments. To me they are useless. They gather dust bunnies and move them around your house and they make it difficult to suck up larger things like marbles, spare change, legos, crayons, etc... The floor attachment on the C2401-010 is seriously the best option for about 75% of possible floor types. It makes a horrible irritating noise across slate and tile, but it really sucks (in the best way). It is fantastic for wood floors and laminate and maneuvers easily to get around under things without having to move heavy furniture. The trick is to get closer to the ground (so squat, but keep your back straight), twist the handle and wand so it is parallel to the floor. If you don't do this, the back wheels will be like a lever and pull the business end off the floor so it doesn't get it all. And because it doesn't have brushes on it, but instead parallel, collapsible squeegee-like stuff you can easily move from hardwoods, to under the edges of rugs, to the tops of area rugs. It does not have a beater bar so if there is a lot of weird stuff in the carpet you have to be the beater bar and quickly run it back and forth bringing the stuff to the top to be sucked up easily. It does get tiring after a while and does require both hands, but it is infinitely easier than hauling out the upright to do an 8x10 ft area. I also love the floor attachment because it actually picks stuff up. Not just dirt and dust bunnies, but quarters and crayons and kitty litter. It only pushes around large stuff that is just a little bit too tall for it. BUT! Those are also the things on the floor that are easy to see so you just have to lift and place the vacuum to suck it up. The only thing that is has a problem with are garment tags. They seem to be everywhere and I always hope that the vacuum will get it because I don't want to bend down to pick it up. They will ALWAYS get stuck until you can suck up something big enough to dislodge it or shove your finger up there to try to fish it out because the high pitched squeal is starting to annoy you. The wand occasionally clogs if you suck up enough long rigid things like toothpicks and qtips, but it's easy enough to take apart and fix. It does not do well with high-pile or shag carpet. If you house is mostly tall carpet, this probably isn't for you. Though it does make cleaning corners, edges, upholstery, blinds, curtains, etc into really easy work. 4) HEPA filter. Enough said. The last thing you want is to spew what you just vacuumed up back into the air to settle later. No bueno. 5) volume. It's actually pretty quiet. Maintain it, and it will not make that horrible loudness of a dying vacuum engine. 6) clear dome lid. You can see all the nastiness that you are picking up! It's gross yet satisfying. It really sucks to empty the cloth dust bag, but if you empty it into an empty, kitchen sized garbage bag OUTSIDE and DOWNWIND. You'll get use to it. Because I use this vacuum literally every single day I have to empty it a lot so I don't want to get paper bags because of cost and waste. It helps to beat the cloth bag against something like a fence or tree to get the dust out. Be mindful of the wind direction! 7) it comes with a ridiculously long cord that you can replace if necessary. When you get your vacuum, do yourself a favor and throw away that white rubber thing that holds the cord to the vacuum. Just cut it off and throw it away. Either tie a knot, or buy a $1 "S" connector at the hardware store. With the cord being so long you can get a lot done without having to unplug and replug in every room. You also have about 50' of heavy duty extension cord to get stuck under doors and around chairs and pulling itself away from the vacuum. That's annoying when it happens. So tie a knot, get use to either getting stuck and having to backtrack, or get really good at carrying the cord with you. (We work in teams so whoever is mopping after the vaccumer has to mind the cord.) Also, by throwing away the white attachment thingy you save yourself the hassle of trying to awkwardly recoil the cord so it doesn't get all knotted. We just unplug it from the vacuum, unplug it from the wall, and coil it around something (arm or plastic coily thing). It will work it's own knots out then. Also because we have to carry a vacuum, floor attachments and mop, and buckets of cleaning supplies to and from the car all day, we invested in reusable velcro ziptip-esque things. Then we coil the flexible hose around the back and velcro the bend handle and the cord all to the top handle on the vacuum. You can also hook bags of rags and the like over the hooks on the top if you wanted. 8) TWO YEAR COMMERCIAL WARRANTY! TWO YEARS! Every other commercial vacuum only has a 1 year warranty. Not that I've ever had any problems with mine and I've been using it pretty much daily for the last 7 months. I'm sure I could come up with more reasons why this is the greatest vacuum ever, but I feel I've written enough. I have shared my tips and tricks and feel I have made enough of a case as to why everyone in the world should buy this vacuum (NOT the C2401 or any other vacuum, but the C2401-010). I think I'm going to buy them in bulk to give as
