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A Vacuum Losing Suction

July 22, 2010 | Vacuum Cleaner Repair, Help & Advice | No comments

A vacuum losing suction is an infuriating thing to happen when you’re in the middle of cleaning the living room. So why does it happen?

All vacuum cleaners have a motor equipped with a fan that sucks in air and dust; while the dust stays in the vacuum, the air is filtered out. On bagged vacuums, that dust accumulates in the bag; and the more dust there is in the bag, the less space the air has to circulate. As the bag gets fuller and fuller the vacuum gradually loses suction. This is remedied by stocking up on vacuum bags, and replacing whenever they become full.

Bagless vacuum cleaners though, employ an altogether more efficient technique. Cyclone technology, pioneered by one James Dyson, uses the air coming in to the vacuum to keep the dust moving, allowing air to circulate freely in the vacuum. This means that no matter how full the bin becomes, no suction is lost. Of course Dyson vacuums aren’t immune to loss of suction; like their bagged cousins though, this is a problem easily solved. In this video, Helen takes you through how to diagnose loss of suction on a Dyson DC25 as well as showing what Dyson spares are needed to fix the problem.

How To Replace a Dyson DC07 Motor – New Video

July 12, 2010 | Uncategorized | No comments

You may be of the opinion that once the motor goes on your Dyson, it’s time to shell out for a new one. However, in this video, Matt shows you that while the motor is one of the hardest Dyson spares to fit, it’s still achievable with a bit of patience, a torx head screwdriver and a complete strip down of your vacuum.

Pressure Washer Soap And Water

My Dyson DC25 Adventure

July 8, 2010 | eSpares Updates  |  General Appliance Care & Advice | No comments

Hubert is working with the eSpares marketing team for a couple of weeks on a work experience placement. Yesterday, he was tasked with being the video production assistant on the filming of some Dyson DC25 fix-it videos. We asked him to write a few words on his experience of the day:

I’ve always thought that instructional videos must take seconds to make; grab the product, grab the part, get an expert and voilà – “Thanks for watching!”. However, I got the chance to join the eSpares team for a video shoot as a part of my work experience.

As soon as the planning commenced, I realised that I’d obviously been quite wrong. It’s a much more complicated process, luckily sped up by great feedback from the eSpares community. It all starts long before the shoot with planning of what videos to make and which spares to feature, based on customer reviews and questions. The video team works with the customer service team to establish what kind of queries eSpares customers have been asking to establish what videos are likely to be needed most.

The main purpose, obviously, is to help the customers fix it themselves with appliance spare parts – but it is also to point out the easiest ways of doing that. Before the day of the shoot, all the customer reviews of the products to be featured are carefully examined for anything that eSpares customers have learnt and taken the time to share. Scrutinising the reviews of the Dyson DC25 spares was actually my job this week, so I hope I did a good job of it.

Once we got there, the first thing we had to do was to set up the working area and to perfect what we had to do. Before instructing customers, the eSpares video team like to do the actions they are showing a bunch of times just to make sure it’s been done right and perfectly – in this case it involved assembling and dissembling the Dyson DC25 over and over again.

After that’s been done, it’s time for shooting; as with any movie, it may either take one perfect take or absolutely loads of tries to get everything spot on. Throughout the day, in a flurry of good and bad attempts, coffee breaks and lunch, we managed to get some really good takes, thanks to the patience of Helen (the video star) and Gabe (the director).

You can see the videos on the website and YouTube in a few days; for now, I hope I have indeed helped a bunch of Dyson DC25 owners to service their machine.

All About Us Espares

The Power of Reviews

July 1, 2010 | eSpares Updates | No comments

It’s nearly 2 years since we opened up the eSpares website to ratings and reviews. All of our customers can share their opinions about the products they’ve bought. Since then we’ve had tens of thousands of reviews of the parts we sell.

The reviews are moderated before they go live on the site, just to make sure that there’s no swearing or anything offensive. But so long as the review relates to the product and your experience of fitting or using it, it goes up on the site; irrespective of whether it’s positive or negative.

Now, you might think that negative reviews are something that we’d not welcome. After all, everyone prefers praise to criticism (even if the disapproval is of the products and not us!). But it’s probably the negative reviews that have had more of an impact on our business than the positive ones. Here are some reasons why:

Credibility
If all the reviews of a product are glowingly positive then people can be a bit suspicious about their authenticity. A mix of positive and negative reviews shows that they can be trusted.

The More Information the Better
There may be important information in those negative reviews that will inform other customers about whether it’s the right product for them or whether they can fit it themselves. For instance, if a customer can see from other customers’ reviews that a part is particularly difficult to fit, they may choose to call a professional repair person rather than tackling it themselves. We’d much rather that than have a frustrated customer.

We Know What Videos to Shoot
The eSpares website is now packed with great videos that show you how to fit spare parts yourself. We read all the reviews and this informs us of where to focus our efforts in producing new videos. If we see that customers are frustrated with fitting a certain product, we’ll go and shoot a video to help show other customers how to do it.

Product Quality Issues
Although we check all of the spares we send out, it’s usually only with use that quality issues come to light. Customers don’t always return items that have manufacturing faults, but they do tell us through reviews.

If a product gets poor reviews then we’re able to see that very quickly and can work with the manufacturer to improve the quality. This happened recently with a batch of dishwasher cutlery baskets that had a manufacturing fault. We were able to identify the faulty batch and get them replaced quickly because of the prompt feedback from our customers.

So, I’d like to say a huge thank you to anyone who has taken the time to leave a review on the eSpares site. It helps us to make the site better every day. We really appreciate it.

You can, of course, leave a comment about this post. All reviews are welcome – positive and negative!

How To Open a Washing Machine Door That’s Stuck Closed – New Video

June 11, 2010 | Uncategorized | 4 comments

It’s definitely happened to me a few times, and you’re one of the lucky ones if it hasn’t happened to you.

So, the washing machine finishes it’s cycle and you’re just waiting for that satisfying ‘click’ which means you can open the door…only the click seems to be taking that bit longer to happen. A while longer and you realise it’s not going to. A few futile tugs on the door handle, then despair. Your lovely clean clothes you’ve been planning to wear at the weekend are stuck inside the washing machine. It’s now a race against time to get them out, somehow, before they start to get smelly.

Yanking the handle won’t help, in fact you’ll probably break it. Anger won’t solve this problem either. Thankfully there is a little trick that might just work, as Rory demonstrates in the video below:

This won’t work with all machines, but it could save you calling out an engineer and some tears. If you have ended up snapping the door handle off in a rage, or if the washing machine door interlock mechanism was the problem, we’ve all types of washing machine door fittings.

And trust me, if you pull this little bit of magic off, you’ll be more than impressed with yourself!

A New Day, A New Homepage

June 4, 2010 | eSpares Updates | No comments

If you’ve visited our homepage today you might have noticed that it’s been fully redesigned. We think there are loads of great additions, and there have also been a few tweaks and reshuffles too. Here’s just a few of the improvements we’ve made:

  • There’s now a rotating graphic with some rather dapper photos of spare parts and products we sell
  • Both the brand graphic section and the ‘Featured Spares’ section have been re-jigged
  • The Advice Centre now has a whole section on the page, all the better to Fix It Yourself with
  • There’s more of an emphasis on the social side of things. Latest posts from this very blog are now proudly displayed on the page, as well as nice big links to our Twitter, YouTube and Facebook profiles.

Now, if you want to get in touch, for any reason, there’s loads of easy ways to do it. We look forward to hearing from you soon, and do hope you like the new homepage.

Check it out!

How To Reverse a Fridge Door – New Video

May 24, 2010 | Uncategorized | 17 comments

Picture this, everything in your kitchen is perfect except your fridge door opens in a way that blocks the flow of your kitchen. If only your refrigerator door opened from the other side, so that it was immediately next to the wall when opened, your kitchen would be perfect. In this new video Rory will show you how to change the hinges on your fridge so that the door will open from the opposite side.

Washing Machine Drum

How To Replace a Wheel on a Henry or Hetty Vacuum – New Video

May 21, 2010 | Vacuum Cleaner Repair, Help & Advice | No comments

Henry and Hetty vacuum cleaners are part of the Numatic appliance range. We have one in our office and I got to use it when Mike accidentally broke a glass by his desk. True story. What impressed me about our Henry is that despite appearing to be a rather simplistic looking vacuum cleaner it’s got great cleaning power and is very sturdy. They are clearly made to last the long haul.

So if a bit on your Numatic vacuum breaks I would recommend trying to fix it, rather than buying a new cleaner. In this new advice video Rory will show you how to replace a back wheel on a Hetty vacuum cleaner.

If after watching this video you decide that you need some Henry vacuum spares please make sure to check out the eSpares website.