Two filters needs attention when it comes to restoring that suction power of a Shark Cordless Vacuum. Over time, it will lose its ability to clean as well, but it’s easy enough to maintain, and all it calls for is some time to wait out drying periods.
If you fail to take care of these parts, they will definitely become less effective. Here’s how to maintain them:
Accessing and Removing Filters
The first step involve accessing the dustbin area. You detach canister from the main body of the vacuum, and this action exposes the internal filtration system hidden behind the clear housing.
To access the canister, you has to disconnect the dustbin from the rest of the vacuum. This shows the hidden inner filtration system housed inside the clear housing. In normal operation, this part fill up with debris rapidly. It’s also quite simple to overlook if not completely removed from the machine. After that, you turn the purple canister upside down over an empty cardboard box. You’ll see a lot of dusty gray lint come out on the bottom.
This is the DRY stuff which needs to be removed before doing anything else because otherwise you’d only clog it again later with all those loose pieces of lint/dirt. Clearing this up eliminates a large chunk of clogging problem right off the bat. Two different filter pieces are found within the canister housing. They are easily labeled in the on-screen guide as “2 Pieces of filters.” These are white round pads inside right next to the intakes. They catch smaller particles than what gets caught by main bin. Removing them is easy, but they must be handled carefuly or risk tearing.
You hold up the two stacked white filter pads for inspection, and they look heavily saturated with gray grime from previous cleaning session.
The two white filter pads are stacked up and you take a look at them… Man those things are loaded with gray crud after all this time since the last cleaning. On the bottom of the purple canister is some holes and ports that allow air to circulate throughout the system. Just like the filters, these need to remain unobstructed. These pads are cleaned by water, specifically, running water through the gray, oval-shaped part in the stainless-steel sink.
The subtitles also mention that they must be dried thoroughly afterwards: Wet filters will kill your vacuum motor. Air-drying is preferred; leave the filter near a window until it’s bone dry. One of the rounded-square white pads held up in front of some streaked glass; you can see how mucky they’ve gotten:
The clean areas stands out clearly from the dirty ones. Naturaly light helps me see any spots left behind when I rinse them. Water doesn’t drain fully clear right away, that’s surprising… But be patient: it’ll pay off. Here’s a filter inside the motor housing assembly, which also has a SHARK label on it so you know what to pull off to get at the other filter.
It’s basically just a white cylinder sitting there awaiting some TLC. This filter clean the air before it reaches the motor blades.
This cylindrical filter features a white mesh exterior with black end caps.
The filter is a white cylinder with black end caps. The caption explains that you can choose between water or dry cleaning and that if you do go for the brush option, use the orange one. Brushing away the outer layer of debris makes an instant difference as the image below shows. Here, I’m still holding the filter connected to the gray base. At this point, you brush around the center body of the cylinder and the right side. You can now read some of the printed words on the base structure a bit better.
Orange brush bristles move easily across the mesh, and since this isn’t necessarily the area to soak, it’s good to keep it relatively dry with this method. Upon closer inspection of the gray base, you see some tiny warning text that says “Peel.” You should of ignore any peeling label and instead focus on the cleaning action.
Using the orange brush, you carefully clean along the perimeter of the filter, while gently yet consistently pressing to remove imbedded dust. If you get too aggressive you’ll risk damaging the delicate mesh material, so maintain a light touch. And finally, here is the finished Shark handheld vacuum all put back together ready to go. It has been washed with water or dry brushed. You can see from the cardboard box that the dirt are gone.
Everything have been cleaned. It now has the same level of airflow it did when it was new, and you feel a lot more power in the next time you use it. But this makes a big differance.
