Do you want to know how to use vacuum cleaner step by step to successfully and effectively maintaining the high level of cleanliness in your home? The vacuum cleaners are one of our top home products and we cannot imagine our everyday life without them.

To use a vacuum cleaner you don’t need to know rocket science, they are very simple to use. But anyway, for more effective cleaning results, you need to follow the steps that we explaining in this post and they are really simple easy and useful.

Watch the Video – How to Use a Vacuum Cleaner: Proper Vacuuming Techniques & Tips

These Are Simple Steps and Tips for Successfully and Efficiency Using a Vacuum Cleaner

Prepare the Area for Cleaning

Go all over the area of the room, where you want to do a vacuum cleaning and remove all small object, items, and toys from the floor.

Check the Dust Bag

Depends on what types of vacuum cleaner you own check if the dust bag or the dust canister is full.

If the dust canister is full then empty it right away or change the dust bag. This is the step that you must do always before every vacuuming.

Otherwise, if the dust bag or dust canister is not empty, the cleaning performances of your vacuum cleaner will be decreased.

Cleaning Carpets

Check if your vacuum cleaner has an adjustable indicator for various lengths of carpets and adjust the appropriate vacuum’s height regarding the type of the carpet on the floor if you want to get the best cleaning results.

Now when you are ready for cleaning, you can turn on the vacuum cleaner and start cleaning by pushing slowly the vacuum cleaner forward and backward over your carpet and you can do even strokes.

Don’t do fast movements with the vacuum cleaner because it cannot clean everything at once from the carpet.

First clean one section then move on the next by slightly overlapping the section you’ve just cleaned. In this way, the rolling brush cannot miss any dirt and debris on the floor.

Related: Best Steps on How to Reduce Dust in a House.

Cleaning the Hardwood Floors

It is not recommended to use a vacuum cleaner designed for carpeting only on the hardwood floors. Because most of the vacuum cleaners especially the one designed for carpets have a rotating brush on the bottom.

The main purpose of the rotating brush is to dig deep into the carpet to successfully remove all kind of dirt, debris, and hair so the vacuum cleaner can easily suck up everything inside.

But when you use a vacuum cleaner with a rotating brush on the hardwood floor the chances are extremely high to do damage on that floor.

Some of the vacuum cleaners have an option to turn off the rotating of the brush or most of the vacuum cleaners have motorized brush head attachment with an option to turn off the rotating of the brush.

The second option for you is you must use a vacuum cleaner specially designed for hardwood floors.

Cleaning the Stairs

For cleaning the stairs in your home sometimes is not an easy job if you own a large vacuum cleaner.

It would be much easier if you have a lightweight canister or other types like a handheld, portable or cordless vacuum cleaner.

For cleaning the edges and corners on the stairs, use the attachment crevice tool.

Cleaning the Window Blinds

For cleaning the window blinds it is recommended to use the dust brush attachment.

First, you need to close the blind slats to lie flat for easy cleaning and you need to do it on both sides of the window blinds.

Cleaning the Upholstery Surfaces

For this purpose, you can use the upholstery tool attachment and for the tight corners and seams, you can use the crevice tool. If you have leather furniture it is recommended to use the dust brush.

Cleaning the Mattresses in Your Home

Using the vacuum cleaner to remove the dust, dust mites, and a hair from the surfaces of your mattresses is the best solution.

You can use the upholstery tool to clean the surfaces of the mattresses and for the crevices use the crevices tool.

Cleaning the Furnaces and Air Conditioners

The vents in the furnaces and air conditioners are the places where the dust can be accumulated in large amounts.

The best tool to use on your vacuum cleaner to clean places like that is the dust brush attachment.

Cleaning the Baseboards

For cleaning the horizontal surfaces of the baseboards use the dust brush and for the spaces between the baseboard and floor use the crevice tool. Cleaning the baseboards once a month is a perfect way.

Cleaning the Walls and Ceilings

So when you want to clean the walls and ceilings in your home, the proper way is first to start with the cleaning of the ceilings and for this purpose, you need to use the circular dust brush attachment.

In some cases when you cannot reach some of the high surfaces, you will need to use an extension to your attachment tool. In case if you don’t have an extension for your circular dust brush attachment, you can use a small stool or would be useful if you have a small ladder.

When you are finished with the ceilings continue with the walls from the top to bottom.

Some Unexpected Ways to Use a Vacuum Cleaner

You Clean Your Crumby Keyboard

The keyboards like parts of our laptops and desktop computers are places where can be accumulated a lot of dust, dirt and bread crumbs over time.

One of the ways to clean successfully your keyboard is to use your vacuum cleaner.

First, take your keyboard and turn it upside down and slowly start to shake the keyboard to dislodge any loose crumbs. Now place the keyboard on the table.

Now take the vacuum’s crevice tool and attach it on your vacuum cleaner. Start to vacuum normally over your keyboard to remove any of the remaining crumbs.

Next step is to take a cotton swab and dip it into alcohol and start with brushing the keys and areas that surround the keys.

If there are places hard to clean dirty spots, you can use a toothpick. In the end, you can use a dry lint-free cloth to remove the dust, polish and disinfect the keyboard.

As I said you can use any vacuum cleaner with a crevice tool for this purpose or would be nice if you have a handheld vacuum cleaner.

You Can Clean the Lint Filter from Your Washing Machine

Also, you can use your vacuum cleaner to clean the lint filter of the washing machine. For this purpose, you can use the attachments like dust brush and crevice tool.

First, you need to clean the filter lint with the dust brush attachment and then attach the crevice tool for more thoroughly and effectively removing the remaining dirt and lint from the lint filter.

Clean the Appliances in Your Kitchen

The vacuum cleaner with crevice tool attachment can be a great tool for cleaning some of your appliances in your kitchen. For example:

With your vacuum cleaner (if you have handheld vacuum cleaner is better), you can remove the bread crumbs that are hard to reach under the grates of your toaster. Also, you can do this in your stove, microwave or oven.

You can clean the door shelves of your refrigerator and inside the refrigerator and also you can clean the dust and lint that are built-up on the condenser coils on the backside. This place is really hard to reach so you will need to pull the refrigerator a few feet from the wall for more efficient cleaning of its coils. If you don’t clean the coils for a long time, it may be the reason for overheating and shut down the refrigerator.

But, the first thing you must do before you start with cleaning any of your appliances in the kitchen – turn them off, it is for your own safety.

Remove the Allergens and Improve the Quality of the Air in the Room

This is important for those who own a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter. Vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters besides cleaning the dust, dirt, hair and other things in our homes, they can also effectively remove the allergens and dust from the air and also you can make your home to smell fresh beautiful.

Here are two simple and practical tips for you to increase the quality in your home with a HEPA vacuum cleaner.

Tip Number One: for those who have a vacuum cleaner with HEPA filter, if you want to freshen up the air in your home you can do this: remove the hose, turn on the vacuum cleaner and leave it to work for a few minutes in the room.

In this way, the air in your room will be much cleaner.

Tip Number Two: take a cotton ball and drop a few drops from your favorite essential oil or you can spray your favorite perfume on it.

Then place the cotton ball into the bag of the vacuum cleaner. So, while you are cleaning with the vacuum cleaner, the scent will slowly release into the air.

EXTRA TIP: if you really want to improve the air in your home and extremely to eliminate all airborne particles, you will need to invest in one of the best air purifiers for your home.

The Vacuum Cleaner Can Kill Fleas

The vacuum cleaners besides cleaning the dirt and debris, purifying of the air, and making our homes to smell amazing, can also be used as a tool for successfully exterminating the fleas.

With the vacuum cleaners, you can kill 100% of flea larvae and pupae and 96% of the adult fleas can be successfully killed. You can read more about how to kill fleas with a vacuum cleaner here.

These Are the Common Attachments of One Vacuum Cleaner

Dust Brush

Usually, the shape of the dust brush is a plastic circular brush head with soft bristles.

A dust brush is a useful attachment tool when it comes to clean the dust from some parts of the furniture, wooden surfaces, and shelves and especially when you need to clean the dust from the doors, door moldings, window sills, framed pictures on the walls and the window blinds.

Crevice Tool

The crevice tool has a narrow nozzle with an angled tip in front.

The shape of this attachment helps you to clean the tight spots like corners, between sofa cushions, the lint filter in your washing machine, vents, computer’s keyboard, for vacuuming in your car and many other places that are hard to reach with the regular hose of the vacuum cleaner.

Extension Wand

This attachment will help you if you want to clean places that are hard to reach like high ceilings, corners, light fixtures or places behind appliances and furniture in your home.

Upholstery Tool

This is a small and flat attachment with stiff bristles and in most cases can be used for cleaning sofas, cushions, mattresses or you can successfully clean lint and fur for the upholstered surfaces in your home.

Additional Attachments for Some Types of Vacuum Cleaners

Bare Floor Brush

This is a wide narrow tool with short and stiff bristles that will allow you to clean the fine dust and grit from the bare floors in your home.

Motorized Brush Head

This is a large attachment with a rotating brush and can be used for cleaning carpeted stairs and rugs.

Some of these attachments have an option to turn off the rotation of the rolling brush and you can use it for cleaning bare floors like hardwood floors or tile floors.

Related: Tips on How to Clean a Vacuum Brush Roller

Pet Grooming Attachments

With these attachments, you can do grooming on your pets and also you clean pet’s blankets and clothes. Do you want to know more about pet grooming, you can read here.

Special Attachments for Cleaning Mattresses

These are specially designed attachments for more thoroughly cleaning the dust and allergens from the mattresses in your bedroom.

Turbo Brush Attachment

These attachments are similar to motorized brush heads from the canister vacuum cleaners.

They are smaller in a compact size with rotating bristles and they can be perfectly used for cleaning the interior of a car, upholstery, stairs covered with carpet, and for deep cleaning of your mattresses.

Our Final Thoughts

As you can see the vacuum cleaners are not only for vacuuming the floors in our homes. You can use them in many ways; they are really one of the most important appliances in our homes. That’s why, when you want to buy a vacuum cleaner is better to invest in a really quality vacuum cleaner, regarding your needs.

We hope that this post really will help you to understand how to use vacuum cleaner step by step more efficient.