Dyson DC23 Canister vs Kenmore Intuition: Vac Smackdown!

(Last Updated On: November 8, 2019)

We’ve been looking for the perfect vac for our casa for about six years now. Shout out your quest for vacs on Twitter and you’ll be greeted with a flurry of responses, brands, styles.  Everyone has a tip, a trick a brand and a style. Before you know it, you’ve compiled a list that reads like the kama sutra of cleanliness. You can do it upright! Cordless! Hands Free! There are vibrating attachments, power parts, remote controls and if your carpet’s really kinky with fur… do it animal style!

Call me old fashioned but after multiple failed attempts to clean my stairs with upright Bissells and Hoovers, I decided that I would follow the timeless wisdom of hotel cleaning ladies and my own mom. I decided what my home really needed was an old fashioned canister vac. Sure, the bevy of uprights we’d tried were serviceable on the carpet in the upstairs hall and master bedroom. The bare floors in the rest of the house were easier to clean – happy to be cleaned with a broom or a mop (we’ve settled on a Hoover Floormate that works great).

But it is our stairs that truly test the mettle of any vacuum cleaner.  The wide, carpeted,  split staircase in our home is in constant use and is a dust/dirt/pethair funnel. Keeping the staircase clean is a true challenge.

Two brands were repeatedly named in my search, over and over again by vacuuming well wishers: Kenmore and Dyson. I tweeted about my search so much that the lovely folks at Sears agreed to furnish me with the two final contender vacs for a bit of a vac smackdown.  I was ready for the challenge. Sleeves rolled up, I took a close look at the competition:

The Dyson DC23 Turbine is very lightweight for a canister. It has the distinct advantage of being simple and portable. The bagless container, the washable filters and limited number of attachments make for fairly straightforward use. Click through to read some of the Dyson’s features.

The Kenmore Intuition is no lightweight, but rolls around without too much trouble.  It comes with a host of attachments and uses true HEPA cloth bags as well as regular vac bags. There are filters that will need replacing, eventually. Click through to learn about the Kenmore’s features and parts.

First Blush:

I immediately fell in love with the Kenmore when I used it to clean a dusty vent. The included dusting tool that attached to a telescoping wand really worked like magic to clean out our vent of shame in a flash. Before I knew it, I was sucking down the cobwebs above the kitchen cabinets, cleaning the tops of high bookshelves and eliminating dust I’d been denying for years.  The Dyson also worked on vents but not as effectively, due to the circular shape of the brush and a shorter wand extension

Floors:

Both vacs worked fine on bare floors. The Dyson rolled around and maneuvered a little more nimbly than the larger, heavier Kenmore.  The light on the Kenmore was useful for seeing dirt that might have gotten away.

Carpets:

When it came time to test vacuuming the carpet, the Dyson was fun. Who doesn’t want to see all the dirt and ick they have captured? The bagless container gives you instant satisfaction in this regard. By comparison the Kenmore gives you a red light/green light indicator that tells you when you’ve picked up all the dirt. Frankly I trust my eyes a little better, but it’s a nice novelty.

Novelty aside, the Kenmore was far easier to push on carpet and seemed to do the job more quickly and thoroughly than the Dyson. As effective and powerful as the turbine brush seemed, it took several passes to get all the stuff up.  Switching from carpet mode to floor mode was fairly simple with both vacs.

The true test – the stairs:

This was where the battle was won. While the Dyson seemed like it would be easier to use on carpeted stairs in terms of weight and agility, it was actually quite awkward to use. We could have switched to their brush or crevice tool and a shorter extension, but as the proud owners of black carpet and a white cat, we really needed the power of a rotating brush to beat out all the hair. We gave up on vacuuming the stairs with the Dyson after about three steps.

The Kenmore was another story. The rotating hand tool that came with the Kenmore is the best solution for stair vacuuming I’ve found to date. It is so much easier on a bad back because you can sit down and vacuum as you would with a hand vac, however with the power of a great quality canister. Sitting down you can really see the dirt. Lucky you. Although the canister itself is large, it was designed to rest securely on stairs and has a fairly long hose so you don’t have to do much schlepping. My teenager is now willing to vacuum the stairs. This is a major win.

The bags/bagless debate:

It’s a pain to buy bags. HEPA cloth bags are not cheap. But my son has asthma and dust is not his friend so I spent a little extra. The bags for the Kenmore Intuition are rather large and promise to last for a while. While the bagless container is a great savings of time and money on the Dyson, I would caution that you should probably open and empty it outdoors. A fair amount of dust escapes into the air when you do this, and may bother you if you or someone close to you has asthma.

The Winner:

No question, the Kenmore won. The Dyson is still a great machine, and if you live in a single story apartment with nothing but bare floors and want something compact, it may be for you. If you’re just modern and minimalistic, it may appeal. I sort of wish I was that person, to be honest. However, if you have stairs, carpet, high vents, upholstery, pets, kids and so on, I’d stick with the Kenmore. Yes it is a little heavy. And it’s not inexpensive. But for that weight you get a dependable, powerful, solid piece of equipment that performs in all sorts of situations for years to come. You get reliable clean. In our case you *finally* get clean as we’ve been struggling with the stairs and vents for years. I won’t even tell you what we’ve spent on multiple cheaper vacs that didn’t work.

The Peanut Gallery:

80 yr old mom “It’s heavy for me, but I’d still take the Kenmore. That Dyson is too hard to push. I just don’t like it as much.”

Cleaning Lady: “I like the blue one on the carpet. But I like the other on on the floor too.”

Teenager: “Fine, I will do the stairs. But I’m using that sit down thingy.”

Disclosure: Many thanks to Sears who provided both vacuums for testing and comparison.