I cannot believe how amazing this shop-vac is! I did a bit of comparison-shopping before settling on the Ryobi, and that's because it seemed to be the most powerful battery-powered shop-vac out there; At least without getting into specialized-industry kind of stuff outside of the scope of consumer-tools (I'm sure some company out there makes something crazy powerful and expensive for convention centers and the like).
I picked this up for a workplace that has multiple work-areas (guitar-manufacturing room, a guitar setup/fretwork room, and a large warehouse). All areas are large areas where even a 50 ft cord would require several unpluggings-and-repluggings to vacuum around the room, and some areas that are literally inaccessible to a corded vac without something akin to a 250 ft extension cord (and then you have concerns about forklifts running over and damaging the cord). It is AWESOME. The suction is incredibly respectable, about on-par with a standard shop-vac in that if you run it and toss the hose 4-6" or so away from a relatively light bit of debris it will be quickly be slurped up; This isn't one of those cordless shop vacs where you'll put the hose directly over a light bit of debris and it struggles, but don't expect to pick up a bowling ball with it.
With the 4aH battery, I find we generally get about 15-20 minutes of continuous run-time before we start to notice a decrease in suction; I plan to pick up the larger-capacity 9aH battery should should increase that rather close to 45 minutes. Even with the 4aH battery, employees are thrilled with the vacuum; "This makes cleaning fun! Why didn't we get this sooner?!?" is a rather standard testimonial from them. The vacuum is really maneuverable; I was expecting it to need a bit of focused guidance, but the wheel design is tops. It follows you around like a really obedient, really fat dog (sometimes it gets hung up on corners or in narrow spaces!) when you lead it by the hose, and the handle on the housing makes it easy to pick up if you'd like to do things manually. It's rather light, and pretty easy to empty.
The biggest drawbacks are twofold: (1) Battery life is GREAT considering the suction, but I'd recommend the 9aH battery so you have enough juice for cleaning jobs that may be larger than expected; 15 minutes of continuous runtime is more than you might think, insofar as how much cleaning you can do, but if you're cleaning areas with thousands of square feet at a time you'll definitely need to stop and recharge at least a couple times. Though you save a lot of time from avoiding plugging and unplugging as you move about. (2) There is no HEPA filter. I do not see dust spewing out of the thing, but I am positive that ultra-fine particles might still find their way out. This isn't exactly unusual on a shop-vac, which is generally intended for maintaining premises for safety with regards to trips and falls, cleaning areas with easy and frequent exposure to the outdoors, and isn't usually intended to create pristine and clean air; If you are big on issues of that sort you undoubtedly already have air filters installed in your garage/shop so it's kind of a null concern. But be aware that if you think you see a way where you might want to use this in your household itself, in rooms where people live and eat and breathe with abandon, you might not be so happy with the results.
Those two detractions aren't enough for me to knock off a star; It's cordless, so of course it has a battery life, and with power of this sort I would expect it to need a burly battery to have any real continuous running time. And HEPA filters in shop vacs are kind of like heated seats in cars; Sure it might be nice to have in certain circumstances, but pretty much anyone who thinks they NEED it is wrong, and that's an objective statement. These are used in garages and shops, and almost everyone leaves their garage door or shop bay doors open for periods, nullifying any possible conceivable benefit one might derive from HEPA filtration.
Again, I love it. I love it so much I'm buying new batteries for it, even though they aren't compatible with any other tools we use. Other departments love it so much that our company might buy another one.
08/15/19 Update:
I picked up the 9.0ah battery shortly after leaving the above review and it made the vacuum even better, as I suspected it would. Due to its ease of use, this vacuum is now my "ride or die" cleaning buddy and the first cleaning instrument I generally reach for; If I see a mess, I grab this and it gets the job done with no fussing around with cords or searching for outlets 95% of the time. From cleaning up wood bits and dust from cutting/routing jobs, general wooden shards and dirt the get shedded from pallets, cobwebs that crop up in corners/windows, and slurping up the odd dead cockroach you find here and there while moving pallets around, this thing is real nice to have handy and has saved me a substantial amount of time. Now the only real times I ever break out the real-powerful corded shop vac is if I'm vacuuming out air scrubber pre-filters or if I'm cleaning up hefty items like sizable bits of metal or larger radial arm-saw cutoffs.
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Hope this helps others with similar issue like mine
Bought this vaccum from homedepot but as time went by the foam around the filter started to not apply enough pressure so a switch the vaccum had isn't pressed enough so I would have to apply downwards pressure and while doing that turn it on with my other hand but this took me a long time to find a solution and just a few days ago I just thought that what if I cut a semi trucks glad hands air lines gasket thin enough that I could put under the filter to lift it slightly enough to trigger the vaccum enough to where I don't have to be Appling that downwards pressure and it worked I was so close to selling this vaccum
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