A Dyson shout-out...

A Dyson shout-out...  Debbie reported a problem with our Dyson Animal vacuum cleaner this morning.  Problems are my job. :)  I've written about this vacuum before; we've owned them for about five years now, and we're still amazed at what a great job they do.  We're a bit of a conspicuous consumer of these: we have four at the moment, an older Animal we brought with us from Jamul, two modern Animals like the one at right, and a portable. 

Today I just want to talk about the engineering that went into these.  It's superb, as becomes obvious whenever something goes wrong.  The problem Debbie reported was that it would run, but weakly, for about ten minutes and then shut down.  If you waited an hour or so, then it would run again, the same way.  We've had this happen before, so I knew exactly what it was: the vacuum motor was working too hard, overheated, and then had to cool down again.  There are really only two things that could make that happen: either airway was clogged up, or a filter was so dirty that it couldn't pass enough air.

So I needed to examine all the airways.  With every other vacuum cleaner I've ever owned (and I'm old enough that that's a disturbingly large number!), this would mean an elaborate and confusing disassembly.  Quite likely, it would need tools that I didn't have, or even proprietary tools (Kirby, I'm looking at you, you Communists!).  Not with the Dyson.  One snap-off plastic ring (no tools), one sliding inspection window (no tools), and one snap-off collection container (no tools), and I could examine all the airways.  Total time: about 15 seconds.  Total confusion and frustration: zero.

Our problem today was a piece of cardboard that had gotten stuck in the airway, obstructing it.  One push with a piece of wire and it was out, and the vacuum as good as new.  A few seconds later, I had it all put back together.  No tools.

Now any manufacturer could have made their vacuums easy to assemble and disassemble, at any time in the past 60 years or so.  It's just a bit of engineering, albeit inspired engineering, and a decision by someone to design it in a consumer-friendly way.  There are no magic materials required, no high technology.  Just engineering, done extremely well.  Any manufacturer could have done it, but none did until Dyson came along.  There's lots of other superb engineering in this machine that's obvious at a glance, too – not least of which is the miniaturized cyclone system that Sir James Dyson is justly famous for.  Other manufacturers are doing some of these things now, but they're doing it because Dyson has been so successful, commercially – they didn't (and wouldn't have, I suspect) think of these things themselves.  So I will give my vacuum business to Dyson, should I ever need to buy one again – great engineering like that deserves a commercial reward...

Paradise ponders, winter wonderland edition...

Paradise ponders, winter wonderland edition...  Well, the snow arrived essentially as predicted yesterday afternoon.  By the time we woke this morning there were about three inches of the stuff on the ground.  I was out shortly after daybreak to plow it before it started to melt (that's what the forecast said was going to happy) and got sloppy, or worse, icy.  So I plowed the driveway, used the snowblower where the plow couldn't get, and just as I put the snowblower away it started raining.  Inside of 60 seconds the driveway was perfectly clear, and now, just a few hours later, it's dry.  That worked!

But there's much more snow in the forecast, including up to 8 inches tomorrow...

Yesterday a technician (a guy my age named Jim) showed up from Darrell's Appliances, a local outfit that's given us excellent service on two prior occasions, both times with Jim.  This time we had him out to check out our two ovens.  Debbie's been frustrated with them because the temperature seemed higher than what she set.  Before we called Darrell's, I used an electronic thermometer to verify that both ovens were, indeed, out of whack.  Jim used a more sophisticated thermometer, a thermocouple-based one, and determined that one oven was actually dead on, but the other was almost 150°F hotter than it should be!  We're guessing that the one he tested as dead on has an intermittent problem in the thermostat, and the other is just plain broken.  They're ordering new parts and he'll be back out when they come in.  He was in our house for about two hours, doing a very thorough job, and holding an interesting conversation with us the entire time.  Here's the main reason I wrote this paragraph: that visit will cost us $79, but we haven't been charged yet.  They aren't bothering with that until after the parts are in and he comes out again to actually fix it.  I just love the assumption of honesty that's so common here.  No muss, no fuss, unasked for – they just behave that way by default...