Keeping RV and camper floors clean is essential to aesthetics, comfort, and preventing premature wear. Both hard surface floors and carpet are damaged when grit is allowed to accumulate and get ground in. It cuts through wax, scratches and dulls hard surfaces, and even severs carpet fibers. Walking on dirty floors can be uncomfortable and even painful and unhealthy. Hard surfaces can be cleaned pretty well by just sweeping them with a broom or dust mop and occasional wet mopping, but carpets need a good vacuuming with an aggressive roller brush to really get the dirt out of the fibers along with annual or as needed deep shampooing. Hard surfaces will usually benefit from an occasional deep cleaning to remove wax build up and accumulated grime. Once cleaned they should be again protected with a quality wax.
Interior boat floors can vary widely. In many open boats, the "floor"is usually just the inside of the wooden, metal, or fiberglass hull. Even in boats with small cabins that might be the case but some closed boats have floors raised above the bilge that may have any kind of flooring, including vinyl, tile, and carpet. Caring for any of these floors would be pretty much the same as caring for them in your RV or your home. Some have teak floors that may require special care using cleaners designed for the purpose.
Some luxury RVs (and even some large yachts!) have central vacuum cleaners. If you are fortunate enough to have one of these you don't have to worry about choosing a vacuum cleaner. You only need to allocate storage for what is usually a very long hose and be prepared to drag it out whenever you need to clean up. Central vacuum systems often have more than one place to attach the hose and once you are done sweeping you can empty the bag and tuck the hose away. Most central vacuum systems rely entirely on air movement for cleaning. so you may still want to drag out your upright vacuum at home and give you RV carpet thorough cleaning periodically. Central vacuums can be quite convenient for clean ups while you are traveling. Central vacs are usually vented so that they don't recirculate dust inside the unit as can happen with stand alone systems. Most of the better vacuum cleaners on the market have a HEPA filter to reduce releasing dust back into the air.
Upright vacuum cleaners typically to the best job of cleaning carpets. They have powered roller brushes in the vacuum head to loosen ground in dirt and brush it up so the air flow can carry it through the hose to the bag. Uprights can be used on hard surface floors but the brushes don't reach all the way to the edge so you might still have to clean next to cabinets and baseboards with a broom or dust mop. Most uprights have an adjustable roller brush height to accommodate long and short carpets and even hard floors. However, large uprights are kind of heavy and bulky to carry in most RVs and boats.
Cordless uprights can be a viable solution for an RV, especially the smaller ones designed for quick cleanups. They are light weight and take up a smaller storage footprint. Not having to run the generator or drag a cord around is also a nice feature. The only downside to them are they are usually less powerful than a standard upright but they can be really good for a quick cleanup. You should still plan on giving your carpets a thorough cleaning with a full powered upright vacuum when you can.
Canister vacuums have the advantage of easy storage. They can often be tucked away in the space under a dinette seat or bed. They are fairly easy to move around and the attachments allow you to easily clean under the dashboard and around the food pedals of a motorhome and inside closets, cupboards, and cabinets. They can also be used to clean upholstered seating and remove accumulated skin cells and dust mites from mattresses. Most canister vacuums rely entirely on the movement of air to clean floors. They work pretty well on hard floors but don't beat the dirt out of carpets as well as an upright. I have an older Kenmore "Blue Magic" canister vacuum I've used in several motorhomes. In addition to being easy to store, this particular model includes a powered vacuum head that contains a powered roller brush so it cleans almost as well as an upright, but without the storage hassles. I found mine on ebay,com. So far I've been able to continue to purchase new bags for it but some day I might have to find a way to adapt bags from a newer unit. Note: some canisters with roller brushes rely on the movement of air to power the roller. An electrically powered roller will work harder and do a better job.
An economical solution for many people is to use a light weight canister vacuum while on the road and give the unit a good, deep cleaning with an upright when you get home. When using a standard canister vac, be fairly aggressive moving the head rapidly over the carpet so it loosens the trapped soil. Some folks go slowly, expecting the suction to work better, but in my experience (and confirmed by a vacuum cleaner salesman), rapid movement actually does the better job at separating carpet fibers, loosening trapped dirt, and flinging it up into the vacuum head to be carried away by the fast moving air.
Almost any vacuum cleaner has one or more filters to prevent the dirt is sucks up being blown back out as dust. Check your filters regularly and replace them as needed to maintain performance and function. A clogged filter will reduce suction and may allow dirt to escape into the air. Some units have a separate HEPA filter, others may have HEPA rated bags. HEPA stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air and HEPA filters will trap 99.97 percent of particles that are 0.3 microns. Smaller particles can still get through. Use HEPA filters or HEPA rated bags whenever you can.
Not really a vacuum but a simple way to clean carpets is a carpet sweeper. The are compact and light weight so take up little of your valuable storage space. The wheels drive a roller brush that sweeps debris out of carpets into a storage area inside the unit. They are handy for quick cleanups in a motorhome or trailer but lack the power and air flow for deep cleaning. They are great for quick cleanups of light debris like pop corn or potato chips. They work fairly well on surface dirt but you will still need a good upright vacuum for deep cleaning. Getting the sand or dirt up before it gets ground into the carpet can help prevent premature carpet wear.
Keeping the floors (and decks) on a boat clean is just as important. Available space to carry large pieces of cleaning equipment is even more restricted on boats than on typical RVs. Exterior decks can usually be rinsed off with buckets of water. Interior floors need to be swept frequently during an outing and given a good deep cleaning when you return to the dock. A small, 12-volt car vacuum might be handy for quick cleanups on your boat. Boat decks can usually be easily hosed down to clean them.
On a side note, in my primary career as a computer programmer I heard it said that '''If Microsoft every built a product that DIDN'T suck, it would be a vacuum cleaner!'' Won't be buying any vacuum cleaners from Microsoft.
Vacuuming sucks! (and for once that's actually a good thing!)
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