How to Clean a Hoover Wind Tunnel Vacuum

Well it is officially the first day of Spring, and what a better time to start my awesome Spring Cleaning Series!  Twice a week I’m going to post some awesome and helpful posts to help get your house in shape for Spring. First up: Cleaning your vacuum.

For the longest time I have needed to clean our vacuum. It was loosing suction all the time, and it just looked awful. Now I know what you’re thinking, “isn’t a vacuum used for cleaning?” well yes. But after months of sucking up Cheerios and other toddler messes, there’s lots of dirt and gunk reeking havoc and not letting our vacuum live up to its awesomeness.

Now I found a tutorial about how to clean a Dyson on Pinterest, but I don’t have an awesome and very expensive Dyson. Our lovey Hoover Wind Tunnel was only $80 at Walmart.com, and I deemed myself handy enough to take her apart and give her a good cleaning.

So lets get to it. The first thing you wan to do is make sure your vacuum is unplugged, if not then you could have a nasty mess on your hands when your toddler comes to turn it on for you while working. William tried to do this twice, but then it was nap time 🙂

Look at that nasty mess… The vacuum, not the rest of my living room 🙂

I emptied the canister into the trash and then took the entire thing over to the sink for a through washing. If you don’t have this exact vacuum, check your manual to see if all the parts can get wet/be submerged in water. We don’t want to break anything 🙂

The Hoover Wind Tunnel comes with this nifty washable filter than can be removed and rinsed under running water. You’re supposed to rinse it every 3 months… The last itme I rinsed ours was over 6 months ago 🙁

Rinse the filter under running water until the water runs clear and there is no more debris clogging it. For mine it took a couple of minutes. And yes I wear gloves to wash dishes and things. I hate the feel of slimy dishes.

This is how it should roughly look after rinsing. This was the side that was covered in dirt.

Set that aside on a towel to dry. You’re going to want to let all of the pieces dry for at least 24 hours, that way you won’t have a muddy mess when you use your vacuum again.

Next up is the canister. Mine had quite a bit of caked on gunk because I vacuumed up some grapes once and they stuck to the bottom. 

After a thorough washing, it looks as good as new. Again set it aside to dry for a minimum of 24 hours. 

Now this piece was the tricky one to wash, mainly because of the size and awkward shape. Plus all those little holes on the gray part were a ************* to clean. I ended up getting a toothpick to pick out the dirt that was trapped inside those puppies.

Third times the charm, let all the parts dry for at least 24 hours 🙂

Now while your parts dry onto the belly of the beast. Flip over your vacuum and survey the damage. I’m pretty sure most Hoover Wind Tunnels (I compared mine and the one my parents have) have those nifty red tabs to release the bottom plate.

Pry those bad boys open and you should be looking at something like this nasty mess. I took the bottom plate that came off over to the sink and cleaned it up really well and then set it to try with the other parts.

Pretty gross huh? I’m pretty sure most of the dirt in mine is from Cheerios and other random snack foods that end up on the floor daily at our house. The cheap beige carpet we have does a terrible job at hiding stains; I now realize why the house I grew up in as a child had brown carpet.

Using a seam ripper or scissors, cut all the little strings and pull them off. It helps to have a paper towel or napkin nearby to put at the gunk you fish out onto. That way you’re not just putting it on the floor.

If possible remove the brush and belt from the vacuum. It makes it much easier to clean the nooks crannies, plus you can wash the brush in the sink while you’re at it. Again check your manual to make sure you do this properly.

I found that an old childrens toothbrush worked great to scrub most of the dirty parts of the vacuum. Especially the hole where everything gets sucked up.

I found not 1 but 3 dirt balls like this inside there. They were caked on so I really had to scrub to get them out.

It took my about 15 minutes but I scrubbed everything down, and then took a wet wipe to everything.

I washed the brush and set it aside to dry with the rest of the parts.

Once all of the parts have dried completely, put the vacuum back together and tada… you have a practically new vacuum that should work like a charm. Oh and for those of you who are wondering, yes the cord rewind function is absolutely amazing!

Here is the mess that was left over after cleaning out the base. It looked like the vacuum had eaten a small rodent.

Well I hope this helps anyone looking for an easy way to clean their vacuum so that it works as good as new again. If you have any questions let me know 🙂 I tried to make sure I covered everything, but if something isn’t clear I can give some more advice/guidance.

Come back on Friday because I’m going to have an awesome post about cleaning your washer and dryer without using bleach.