10 Best

Vacuums For Tile Floors

of September 2023

You’ll notice that many stick vacuums and upright vacuums try to cover all the bases. They’ll include extension wands for vacuuming drapes or upper shelves. They’ll have a crevice tool or upholstery attachments for furniture. Maybe they’ll convert into a hand vacuum. And they’ll be able to adjust from carpet to hard floors. Or, if they’re just for hard floors, they can mop and vacuum as well.

We’ll have a look at some of the best vacuums for tile floors, and see the various options of how you switch from one surface to another. We’ll look at what experts say, whether it’s really that important to switch settings when transitioning from one surface to another. You’ll see how to vacuum up in the most efficient way possible!

How should I vacuum a tile floor?

Vacuums will have a soft brush attachment for vacuuming a tile floor. This will ensure not scratching the tiles with a When using this brush, vacuum in a back-and-forth motion, and make sure to get into the corners and edges.

Can I vacuum my carpet with the same setting as vacuuming tile?

Experts highly advise against using the same setting for tile floors when you start vacuuming your carpet. Not only will it not vacuum properly, but it will also suck up carpet fibers and reduce the carpet’s longevity.

Looking at the Best Reviews Guide list of the best vacuum cleaners for tile floors, you’ll see two main categories of vacuums:

• Vacuums only for sealed hard floors: There are wet/dry vacuum cleaners that use a tank of clean water to wash your floor and then another tank to contain the dirty water afterward. But these will be solely for hard floors: tile, stone, or linoleum. An example is the Tineco Floor One S3 Cordless Hardwood Floor Cleaner. It will adjust the suction according to the type of spill that you’re dealing with! But note that the vacuum cleaner’s roller brush has to be replaced every 6-8 months.

Tineco Floor One S3 Cordless Hardwood Floor Cleaner

• Vacuums for multiple surfaces: There are also vacuum cleaners that are good on carpets as well as hard floors. But then they’ll be equipped with a stiff brush for the carpet and a soft bristle brush for hard floors. But different models will have different mechanisms in changing from one brush to another:

  • Manually changing the brush rollers: The Orfeld Cordless Vacuum Cleaner has two brush rollers: a stiff brush for vacuuming carpets, and a soft brush for vacuuming floors. But you can’t switch between the two types of brushes by just pushing a button. You’ll have to vacuum your carpet with the stiff brush, and, when you’re finished, you turn off the vacuum and replace the stiff brush with the soft bristle brush.

Orfeld Cordless Vacuum Cleaner, with the two brush rolls

• Separate attachments: There are also vacuums with separate attachments for carpets or for hard floors. It’s somewhat more convenient than having to disassemble one brush and replace it with another. For example, the attachments in the Dyson Cyclone V10 just click on the handheld unit. That applies whether you’re using the crevice tool, combination tool, or the two different roller heads.

Dyson Cyclone V1

• Push-button: There are vacuums that are suitable for both carpets and tile floors, and toggling between the two is as simple as pressing a button. The Shark NV501 Rotator Professional Lift-Away Upright Vacuum allows you to switch from vacuuming carpets to tile floors by just pushing a button on the vacuum chassis. On Setting I, it’s ready for vacuuming hard floors. On Setting II, you can vacuum your carpet. If it puts up too much resistance, you can reduce the suction.

Shark NV501 Rotator Professional Lift-Away Upright Vacuum, with the push button control

• Automatic surface detection: The ultimate convenience is a vacuum that can recognize the transition from carpet to tile floor by itself. There are robot vacuums that are capable of that. For example, the iRobot Roomba 675 Robot Vacuum has an auto-adjust cleaning head to adapt its height to a carpet or floor.

iRobot Roomba 675 Robot Vacuum

Here are some of the impressions of customers regarding their choice of vacuum for tile floors:

• Maneuverability: Customers say that they prefer a vacuum that is more balanced, over a model that is top-heavy. The Hoover Linx Cordless Stick Vacuum Cleaner has this balanced design. It also weighs less than 9 pounds, which is very light, even for a stick vacuum.

• Advantage of corded vacuum: One customer who bought the Shark Apex Corded Stick Vacuum said that they knew that it’s a corded model, which means that you have to vacuum near an electrical outlet. On the other hand, if you have a big house, you can be sure that you’ll have enough power to vacuum up everything without running out of power.

Here are some tips and features of vacuums for tile floors that may help you make a decision when shopping:

• What happens if you don’t adjust for height differences: Experts say that if you leave your vacuum on the “bare floor” setting, you won’t get the optimal amount of dirt trapped when you go over your carpet. Not only that–you’ll also probably damage your carpet! This is because a vacuum’s suction is not really the entire story of a vacuum cleaner. Rather, the brush roll in the vacuum cleaner beats the carpet fibers and shakes the dirt out from them. The airflow and suction then drive the debris into the vacuum. If the vacuuming head is submerged too low in a plush carpet, it won’t beat the fibers properly. Instead of just picking up dirt, you’ll see that your vacuum is ripping up pieces of the carpet as well. So, both to vacuum properly and for the longevity of your carpet, it’s best to leave it on the low setting only when you vacuum a hard flat surface.

• HEPA filter: The best vacuums will employ several levels of filtration. The most effective is a HEPA (=high-efficiency particulate absorbing) filter, which will remove 99.97% of particulate matter that’s larger than 3 microns from the air. This ensures that the air exiting your vacuum cleaner is effectively dirt-free.

• Battery life: If you buy a cordless vacuum with a rechargeable battery Li-ion battery, experts give the following tips:

  • It’s okay to charge up the battery to 100%, but don’t leave it in the recharger for days after that, because it may cause the battery to lose its capacity to store charge.

  • Also, don’t let your vacuum’s battery dip below 20% of its total capacity. This can also ruin the battery’s lifetime.

  • If you notice that the battery gets very hot when you charge it up, or if you see that it doesn’t hold a charge for very long anymore, it’s best to have it replaced.

Final Verdict

We went over some of the options among vacuums for tile floors. If you have to transition a lot from carpet to tile floors, you can splurge on a robot vacuum cleaner that’s equipped to make the switch automatically. Or you can try cheaper vacuums that require you to press a button or disassemble the head and change the brush roll when you go from carpets to tile floors. And if you don’t have any carpets, you can get a model that vacuums and mops as well. The options are all out there!