Henry: Portrait of a Serial Cleaner

May 30, 2022 5:52 AM

20,000 Henry's were sold each week in 2016 (Daily Telegraph), over 10 million since launch yet the company never advertises and retains no PR agency (The Guardian). Henry is not alone - also in the range is Hetty, George, Charles, Harry, James and many others since discontinued (Wikipedia). His history is well documented at myhenry.com.
"One of the major challenges that Numatic faces is also its greatest strength: Henrys rarely break."
posted by I shot a fox in Skyrim and it made me sad (33 comments total)

Henry’s are great, though really also just a tribute to putting eyes on a shop vac. Still, super good and essentially the anti-Dyson. (Dyson being the pound-shop Musk) As everything in the UK, it’s a class signifier of some form. The names alone are a giveaway
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 6:04 AM on May 30, 2022 [5 favorites]

I wonder if Henry is irked that "hoovering" became the verb instead of "henrying."

[the tidbit that every new Numatic Henry can be fixed if needed with one of the 75 parts of #1 is an excellent nod to simple engineering and the right to repair, not to mention the likely reason they never break.]
posted by chavenet at 6:20 AM on May 30, 2022 [8 favorites]

Henrys rarely break

That's because they're designed right. Strong, simple cylindrical body, commodity motor and impeller, big dustbag, hose, done. Final filter upstream of the motor to keep dust out of the bearings and commutator. No fancy fragile artsy fartsy space age "design language". Henry will never date.

I have a similarly engineered Chinese-made "Pullman" branded vac that I paid very little for new and expect to see a long service life from on the same basis. So much less fiddling about required to keep it operating than our other vac (a second-hand Dyson DC04 upright whose main function appears to be the rapid clogging of annoying-to-clean filters) and the Pullman also doesn't shriek the way the Dyson does.

Soundtrack for the thread
posted by flabdablet at 6:37 AM on May 30, 2022 [8 favorites]

I wonder if Henry is irked that "hoovering" became the verb instead of "henrying."

he thinks it sucks
posted by emmling at 6:43 AM on May 30, 2022 [19 favorites]

Re: the post title...

[Leo in Wolf of Wall Street emphatically clapping gif]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:45 AM on May 30, 2022 [9 favorites]

For those of you in the UK or with a VPN, you can see Greg Wallace getting childishly happy about making a Henry.
posted by YoungStencil at 7:30 AM on May 30, 2022

Dyson being the pound-shop Musk

Musk if he were the Wetherspoon's guy
posted by acb at 7:34 AM on May 30, 2022 [6 favorites]

We've had ours for ten years. No problems or signs of age so far. Rare for a machine that breaks Clarke's commandment "No machine may contain any moving parts".
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:04 AM on May 30, 2022

It took about a decade, but post titles have finally been redeemed, kudos.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:37 AM on May 30, 2022

We had one for a decade and it worked flawlessly until my wife vacuumed up hot fireplace embers with it and it caught fire :(
posted by dowcrag at 9:56 AM on May 30, 2022 [8 favorites]

In 2008, one fan was sacked from his job as a builder after being caught in flagrante with a Henry in a works canteen. He claimed that he had been vacuuming his underpants.

Poor Henry, right up the nose.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:11 AM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh man, if you only read one link in this post, read the Guardian link. And if you've already read the one link you were planning to read in this post, read the Guardian link anyway.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:35 AM on May 30, 2022 [5 favorites]

I bought a Henry about a year ago, heavily discounted. He would have been worth every penny of paying full price. It just works, nothing fancy, has a job to do and does it well. I have had a Dyson and that was good too but was quite a bit more expensive and in the price to performance comparison Henry has the edge. I find myself talking to mine while I am vacuuming and telling him he's a good boy.
posted by kumonoi at 11:45 AM on May 30, 2022 [2 favorites]

Also my ex boss had an anecdote about riding a Henry down the pedestrianized main street in my hometown, I don't think that would be possible with a Dyson
posted by kumonoi at 11:50 AM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

The best Henry hoover is the all metal commercial edition, which they do still make. It costs twice as much but is so tough you can drop it down a flight of stairs without any damage, well I guess you might damage the stair.
posted by Lanark at 12:11 PM on May 30, 2022 [3 favorites]

Alternative viewpoint, Henrys are massively overhyped - we've got one, alongside a Bosch cordless S6 and a Miele CX1 bagless (don't ask, multiple houses) - and the Henry with its kit is pretty cheaply made, attachments are very basically designed and it's not a better vaccum than the Miele. It's an ok vaccum, but it's very rudimentary.

That said, it's really fricking easy to repair and maintain, like an older car.
posted by bookbook at 12:22 PM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Lanark, our Henry (actually a Hetty) has fallen down the stairs and is fine.
posted by Hogshead at 12:32 PM on May 30, 2022

friends: Oh Henry, no!
henry: OH HENRY YESSS!
posted by bartleby at 1:54 PM on May 30, 2022 [3 favorites]

I looked into Henry vacuums a few years ago, but the internet consensus was that they weren't really designed for carpets. Hoovers, with a motorized brush roll and upright design, were more popular in the US because wall-to-wall carpeting was more common and it was a better tool for the job.
posted by meowzilla at 2:00 PM on May 30, 2022

Flamethrower Henry
Instead of sucking in all that negativity, now Henry's ready to set the world on fire!
posted by Foosnark at 2:38 PM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

My mom still uses HER mom’s 70 year old Electrolux which I expect to inherit myself someday, a properly built appliance can last a very long time
posted by cali at 2:46 PM on May 30, 2022

I have never seen a Henry in person, and yet. At first, my slightly dehydrated brain read 'Serial Cleaner' as 'Serial Killer' and was thoroughly confused by what I thought was a bizarre description of an article about serial killer exposés. When I read the offending word again, I saw Henry's face. Just like that.
posted by BiggerJ at 7:51 PM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's something charmingly improbable about the Standard British Canister Vacuum having big googly eyes and a silly grin. And yet, there it is.

I don't own a Henry, despite a soft spot for them, because I just can't quite imagine regularly using a big canister vacuum after having a cordless stick. I hate that, because I want stuff to be like the Henry: well-made, repairable, uncomplicated, approachable. I do not like the Dyson: plasticky, disposable, future garbage, with its proprietary wall dock and toxic batteries and everything else.

But the Dyson is, like, five pounds, you can pull it out of a coat closet in under ten seconds, vacuum whatever needs vacuuming, shove it back on its charger, and be about your day. And that happens a lot more than I get out a big canister vacuum. (And the floors are cleaner for it.)

I think I'd feel actually bad for Henry, who would probably not get to come out of the closet very often. Goddamnit, now I'm sad for a vacuum cleaner I don't even own.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:06 PM on May 30, 2022 [3 favorites]

Maybe a Henry is too cute to be put into the closet. It’s just always looking up at you wondering when you vacuum.
posted by clew at 8:43 PM on May 30, 2022 [2 favorites]

My parents (in the US) got an upright canister as a wedding present in 1944 and it was their only vacuum cleaner for over 50 years. I don't recall the brand, however.
posted by neuron at 9:40 PM on May 30, 2022

Tangentially, I had never before been
prodded to realize that "shop vac" is a brand name that I've genericized to hell and gone.

wet/dry that's all that matters in life
posted by away for regrooving at 12:07 AM on May 31, 2022

I do like the story where a student decided to take his Henry for a picnic, posted on facebook to see if others wanted to do the same, and 37000 people wanted to join him.
posted by BigCalm at 2:25 AM on May 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

There's something charmingly improbable about the Standard British Canister Vacuum having big googly eyes and a silly grin.

The idea that we could ever achieve human-comparable strong AI without this kind of innovation being an essential part of the way we get there is ludicrous on its face.
posted by flabdablet at 4:22 AM on May 31, 2022

At first, my slightly dehydrated brain read 'Serial Cleaner' as 'Serial Killer' and was thoroughly confused by what I thought was a bizarre description of an article about serial killer exposés.

I mean, you're not off the mark there.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2022

I want one, but I wonder if the voltage difference matters here if I wanted one in the US - in the way that we have electric kettles but they are slower and less popular. Would the motor that would need to be fitted to convert it to 120v make it less effective or obnoxiously loud?

I have a lower end Miele for the house, I bought it because it's quiet more than anything else I could get. We don't have great expanses of carpet (or anything really) so it's worked great for years.

I bought a Fein for the shop since it's also one of the quietest in that category. I prefer vacuuming to sweeping and don't like all the extra noise because of that preference. Festool is nice but I haven't bought into the system.
posted by jellywerker at 1:30 PM on May 31, 2022

Nothing sucks like an Electrolux

I love British marketing
posted by caddis at 7:05 AM on June 1, 2022

Toddlers love Henry vacuums; hence there's a charming genre of Henry Vacuum Birthday Cakes. I found the best one to save you the trouble.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 12:00 PM on June 1, 2022

Oh man, if you only read one link in this post, read the Guardian link. And if you've already read the one link you were planning to read in this post, read the Guardian link anyway.

Having now read it, I cannot second this enough.
posted by Mchelly at 7:40 PM on June 1, 2022