Why are Man Tools Always Better Than Girl Tools?

I’m sitting here today, wondering if I’m stupid.

Something like 18 years ago, I bought a Ridgid shop vac. It looks like it has leprosy. The surface of the plastic case is badly faded. I don’t know what caused this. Apparently, this particular plastic fades with time, and the texture roughens.

This is the only thing wrong with it.

I have used it on machining chips, all sorts of metal debris, sawdust, wood chips, leaves, dirt, bugs, and wet spills. I have used it as a spot cleaner on furniture, wetting the fabric with window cleaner and then sucking it out. I have failed to clean the filter for years on end. Nothing bothers it.

It is reasonable to expect this vacuum to continue working for at least another 30 years without repairs.

You can buy a similar Ridgid for under $130.

Move forward to September of 2022.

I thought I should man up, spend serious money, and get a real house vacuum cleaner. I already had an Electrolux, and it was okay, but the cord rewind mechanism was broken, somehow the main floor attachment had gotten lost, and it was a canister vacuum I had to drag around. I wanted an upright.

The Electrolux had its good points. It was very quiet. It was light. It seemed to do an okay job. But I had to drag it, and Electrolux is extremely feeble when it comes to parts. I had to buy a Chinese floor attachment. Electrolux discontinued the cord retractor, which is a part that fails frequently.

I bought a Shark upright for the low, low sale price of $429.

How can a vacuum cleaner cost $429? That’s a great question. A motor and a cheap body, all made in Asia. You can get a canister vacuum from another respected manufacturer for around $120, so what’s up with Shark?

It’s supposed to have unusually powerful suction. I’ll give it that. It does. Other than that, it’s just bells and whistles, like the motor that speeds up when the vacuum sees more dirt in front of it. Personally, I want my vacuum to run fast all the time. I am offended by products that charge me extra to save energy, unless they save me serious money.

Do you hate it when your TV turns itself off when you leave the room? Me, too.

Like just about everything these days, the Shark came with a proprietary part which has to be replaced regularly. It’s a fragrance cartridge. You put it in the base, and until it runs out of irritating chemicals, it makes your house smell like the perfume counter at Target. Shark charges $13 each, and you have to buy two at a time. Market price for knockoffs: two dollars and change.

The only reason I keep the original cartridge in my machine is to block the hole it fits in. I’m afraid leaving it open will kill the suction. I don’t care about running out of perfume.

I also have a Shark cordless upright, which I will defend. It works very well for what it is, and it’s convenient. It’s no match for a powerful vacuum, but it handles most types of dirt with acceptable success.

The Sharks work pretty well. The corded job sucks like crazy, and the cordless one is probably stronger than my Electrolux. They both choke on anything bigger than 3/4″, though, and wet spills will ruin them.

When a Shark chokes, you have to take the filthy floor part apart. Lovely experience.

Move forward to 2025.

Louis Rossmann is one of my favorite Youtubers. He runs a big electronics repair business in Texas. He used to operate in New York City, but he left because he couldn’t take it any more. New York treats business owners like criminals.

Now that I think about it, it treats criminals like business owners.

Rossmann is big in the right-to-repair movement. He got his start while servicing Apple products.

Apple is one of the most ruthless, immoral, greedy, dishonest companies on Earth. Apple will not give repairmen schematics and OEM parts, and it cheats customers who need repairs.

Apple has a history of cheating us silly, not just with inflated initial costs, but with dishonest repair bills. If you take your Apple product to an Apple repair center with a problem that can be fixed with a cheap part or a cleaning, there is a good chance they will lie to you and tell you to buy a new product.

Forcing people to buy new products is not a small wrong. It’s a big deal when a repair that should cost $35 turns into a $1500 purchase. We’re not all as rich as Tim Cook.

Rossmann saw the replacement swindle more than once, and he was frustrated because he had to find technical documents through back channels. He also had to buy real Apple parts this way, and he had to use questionable aftermarket parts in some repairs.

Now he puts out video after video about RTR, and he goes after companies other than Apple. One of his big beefs right now concerns unwanted ads. Example: Samsung just started forcing refrigerator owners to put up with ads on their fridge doors. They bought the fridges with no ads, Samsung updated the software without consulting them, and now they get annoying commercials while trying to get bologna for sandwiches.

He’s mad at Shark right now because a customer needed new wheels for a 6-month-old machine, and Shark construed its own warranty, which they try to tell us is generous, to exclude just about everything except the motor.

In a recent video, Rossman told the world about his home vacuum: a Ridgid shop vac.

It’s cheap. It’s powerful. You can get attachments to make it work indoors like a home vacuum. It can suck up just about anything, wet or dry. It has a huge capacity.

Need a part? Ridgid will sell it to you. They have a big selection of parts on their site, and Home Depot stocks a lot of parts.

I ruled out shop vacs for indoor use a long time ago, assuming they had to be unsuitable. I guess I was wrong.

Watching Rossman, I tried to rationalize my spending. I thought, “Well, it won’t work on floors. The primitive floor things on my two shop vacs are made for things like garages.” No; you can buy a floor attachment which will actually work. It’s simple and cheap, and it won’t give you a pretty LED light show, but it does work.

I kept trying to defend my expenditures. I said, “It won’t filter the air nearly as well as a Shark. It has no HEPA filter.”

There are problems with that notion.

1. Houses and buildings used to get very clean without HEPA filters. I think the initialism “HEPA” is just a tool to make you feel bad about not spending more money, unless you have some kind of freak allergy. You probably shouldn’t breathe dust while sanding drywall, but the stuff that collects on your exercise bike will not send you to the ER.

2. Ridgid sells HEPA filters for their vacuums.

The video made me think about wet spills.

I have a baby. He poops. He throws up. He spills stuff. My $429 Shark will not help me with any of that.

I have two Rug Doctor shampoo machines. I have the big one for floors and the little one for furniture and stairs. I got them years ago when I was looking after my dad. He spilled stuff. I guess I have $350 invested in these machines.

If I wanted to, I could spray cleaning solution on big carpet spills, suck it out with a Ridgid, and get things just as clean as the Rug Doctors would. I could do this for furniture and stairs, too.

Using a Rug Doctor is unpleasant. You have to fill a clean-fluid tank and then remove and clean out a dirty-fluid tank. Your hands get involved with the filth way too much. With a shop vac, you just carry it outside, pull the lid, dump the water, and put the lid back on.

Here is the thought rolling around in my head: while the big Rug Doctor is superior for shampooing wall-to-wall carpet, a shop vac is better for every other kind of spill.

If I cared enough, I could use a pump sprayer to apply fluid to rugs and then suck it out with a shop vac. Something to consider.

You can’t clean a dirty carpet with a Rug Doctor until you vacuum it. I know this, because I had to take a Rug Doctor apart to remove dog hair after a friend abused it. A shop vac loves dog hair. And nails. And rocks.

The big Rug Doctor is designed to break down. It uses a water pump to shoot cleaning solution onto rugs. The pump is not designed to resist corrosion well. Every so often, the pumps quit, and they have to be replaced. This is a nightmare job. I did it recently.

The little Rug Doctor probably has the same problem. I am waiting for it. If it happens, I’ll probably take it to the dump.

It appears to be a machine with no legimitate reason to exist.

I don’t think a Ridgid cordless can replace a Shark cordless. I have a really good Ridgid cordless I got for sucking goo out of air conditioners. You have to carry it like a suitcase. The suction doesn’t seem all that impressive. Maybe I’m wrong, though.

Shop vacs are incredibly loud, so that’s a problem, but it’s nothing earmuffs can’t fix.

It looks like I spent hundreds of dollars buying myself unnecessary problems. Something to think about for the future.

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I checked, and it appears the Ridgid WD0319 cordless shop vac sucks considerably harder than a cordless Shark Stratos and runs a lot longer on one charge. It lacks motorized rollers and so on, however, and the Shark may seal to rugs better.

I doubt the business about the Shark sealing better, since you can get a rug attachment for a Ridgid.