A Great Vacuum, same as 4870DT

Author's Rating:

Pros: Strong suction. Brush turns off when handle is upright. True HEPA filtering.

Cons: Brush lever hard to move. Upholstery tool hard to snap into storing clips.

The Bottom Line: 
I recommend this vacuum highly because of its excellent cleaning and great price. The same vacuum can be bought as the 4870DT Omega for even less $.

Author's Review
The Eureka 4870 has proven to be an excellent choice. It does all its cleaning chores easily and effectively and costs half as much as some competing cleaners with similar features or capability. There are a few gripes, but they are minor.

The 4870 comes in a box with the handle disassembled. Assembly is an easy matter of attaching the handle onto the unit with screws. The included user’s manual is well illustrated with numbered step-by-step instructions. The hose, tools and wands store on the back of the vacuum. A bag and filters are already installed.

The long cord will allow you to clean one or more rooms without having to unplug. When you are done, you store the cord on the back of the cleaner. Though the instructions show the cord wound in a circle around the hooks on the back of the unit, I recommend winding it around the hooks in a figure 8 pattern to keep from twisting the cord. I did have a problem with the plug coming out of the wall outlet too easily. I solved this by using a small screwdriver to spread the flat sections of each plug prong to make them fatter.

I find the shape of the handle to be comfortable in my hand. I would have liked the power switch to be mounted up on the handle rather than on the unit to make it easier to reach while using the vacuum. I also would prefer having the cord hook higher on the handle to reduce the tendency of running over the cord when you pull the unit backwards. The handle curves back and down into a closed loop making it easy to pull the cleaner. This is good since this is not a self-propelled model. Though the spinning brush makes pushing the cleaner quite easy, it does take a bit more force to pull the cleaner back. The curved handle, as well as a built-in grip on the back of the unit, is helpful when you have to pick up and carry the 22-pound cleaner. Another grip on the front, just below the HEPA filter, can be used to lift the cleaner up stairs.

The first thing you notice when you use the 4870 is that it is relatively quiet. The motor and suction make a low rushing sound and the beater brush makes a moderate hum. You can carry on a conversation while vacuuming. Carpet cleaning is first-rate and, according to consumer magazine tests, as good as, or better than, any other vacuum cleaner. Pushing the vacuum over plush carpeting will leave some slight lines in the pile, while pulling it leaves a nice smooth finish. So, I end each stroke with pulling. From the base of the unit the dirt runs up through a clear plastic tube that can be easily removed to clear a clog.

To vacuum a hard floor, you flip a small lever to turn off the beater brush, then set the cleaning height to the hard floor setting. In a surprising departure from good design, the lever to turn off the brush takes about 10 pounds of force to move to the hard floor setting. I thought the unit was defective at first, but it just takes more force than you would expect to move the lever. Another lever that is hard to push is the footswitch that releases the handle from the upright position. If you aren’t wearing shoes, you will have to use your heel to push the lever.

The 15-inch wide cleaning width speeds up the vacuuming chore, but prevents you from getting between spaces that a narrower cleaner would fit. Though I didn’t find a specific reference to it in the instructions, continuing to press the handle release footswitch while lowering the handle will allow you to drop the unit to totally horizontal, which allows the cleaner to roll under areas as low as nine inches high. That really helps in floor cleaning under furniture.

In addition to floor cleaning, you can easily switch the suction to the onboard hose and use the tools to clean any surface. The suction from the hose is very strong. Unlike many other vacuum cleaners, when the 4870’s handle is placed in the upright position, the beater brush turns off. This feature allows you to use the hose while the unit stays in one place without worrying about a spinning brush abrading the floor under the unit. An onboard set of nested wands can be assembled and placed on the end of the hose, though the symbols to assist you in proper wand assembly are hard to see. I recommend buying the 15-ft extension hose from the Eureka web site. With it, you can place the cleaner in the center of a large room, or at the bottom of stairs, and reach a long distance.

Though the cord, hose, wands, crevice tool and dusting brush can all be easily removed from and replaced in their mountings, the upholstery tool cannot. In another departure from good design, the upholstery tool takes a lot of positioning and pressing to get it to click into place and it can pop off it not set exactly right. Eureka needs to redesign the clips.

What sets the 4870 apart from many other cleaners is the fact that it has a fully-sealed “True HEPA” vacuum system which means allergy causing dust particles are not recirculated back into the room. The replaceable HEPA filter that comes with the unit should be replaced every six bag changes. At $20 for the replaceable filter, it will quickly pay to buy the $30 washable HEPA filter from Eureka.

Filters, belts and bags are not readily found at local department stores, but you can order them from online vacuum retailers or directly from Eureka.