Over in the corner was a massive pile of Kenmore bagged canister vacuums, some in a rather outdated goldish-orange color. Canister vacuums seem like a dead product segment, and while I would honestly prefer one to my current standard vacuum for my small space, I wasn't tempted by these since replacement bags are surely difficult to come by with Sears all but dead! I bet these had been sitting around in a warehouse for quite some time.
An upright vacuum cleaner is certainly better for my house, but my parents did have a canister vacuum when I was young. In fact, it was a top-of-the-line Sears Kenmore model! Canister vacuums certainly have their benefits in some situations, and Sears' bagged canisters and uprights were always the top scoring vacuums, or close to it, in Consumer Reports' testing even through the mid-2010s at least.
ReplyDeletePanasonic made many of Sears Kenmore's vacuum cleaners for many years, and the ones shown here might well be Panasonic-made machines since Panasonic is still one of the companies still making canister vacuums. With that, I believe Panasonic bags will work in Panasonic-made Kenmore machines. Even otherwise, I think those Kenmore vacuums were popular enough that there will be 3rd party bags made for them for years to come.
Back in the 1990s and prior when bagged vacuums were common, if not the only option, supermarkets used to sell all kinds of vacuum bags, often from 3rd party brands. They usually worked fine, though we usually bought the authentic bags direct from Sears. I'm guessing those vacuum bags are long gone from most supermarkets, though I have not looked in a long, long time so maybe they still have some. While bagged vacuums did better in the tests than the bagless ones, I must admit to using a bagless upright now. The bagged uprights with tools I tested at Sears some years ago were all quite bulky. OTOH, there are some quite capable bagless uprights with tools which aren't too big and are less cumbersome to use. They may not be as good at outright cleaning and dust emissions control as a bagged vacuum, but I think it is a winning compromise for my application at least.