As I understand it there is no cost to submit a machine for CRI certification. Please correct me if this is wrong.
To be honest, you guys don't appreciate how good you have it sometimes. In Australia we have this crappy standard called AS3733. It costs over $100 to buy this standard and some of the absolutely unfounded things it says just boggle the mind.
The BIGGEST issue I take with it is in regard to dry soil extraction. Like Ron this is my hot button. I WANT as much of that 80% as I can get. Now you guys have the CRI list of vacuums and a metric of performance measured against a consistent test.
We don't......
We get a self appointed and self declared document that states (and I paraphrase here) "A dual motor upright with a top fill HEPA bag" which tells me - nothing...... not a thing. Not how much soil by weight I should get over time like the CRI does. Instead we have something that (to me and perhaps only to me) reads like it is designed to sell Sebos. In Australia the - OVERWHELMING MAJORITY - of "dual motor uprights with top filling HEPA bags" are Sebos by name or by badge engineered supply through other vendors.
The document's purpose it seems to me is to establish a monopoly for a number of parties who themselves wrote the standard and have a vested financial interest in selling equipment the standard favours, like Sebo.
Others protest and say "Well you can exceed the standard", which is not actually obvious from reading it. And it is beyond a challenge to decide what constitutes exceeding such a standard. How does one exceed a "Dual motor upright with a top filing HEPA bag"? Three motors, one bigger motor, bagless with HEPA filter?
Now that Mikey has seen the Kirby for himself and made his own conclusions about it, I wonder how he would feel about taking the Kirby off his trucks and replacing it with a dual motor commercial Sebo? I - IN NO WAY - am attempting to put words in one of our bests mouth, but if his comments in the recent vacuum thread are anything to go by he'd refuse. Yet his Kirby, which is BETTER than the Sebo for dirt recovery has a single motor and strictly speaking is a domestic vacuum, even though it is a tank and just about indestructible.
You guys have WAY more transparency.
I apologise to my Australian counterparts who are actively using the AS3733 standard. My intention is not to call into question your work, your ethic or your opinion. My intention is merely to show that a standard that outlines a metric of performance is better and more up front and honest than one that doesn't.
Grant