Hoover UH72630: A Versatile Cleaning Solution For Modern Homes

Overview 

Hoover - An American household icon that has been developing innovative floor care products since 1907 

Invented in Ohio, Hoover is a 100 plus-year-old brand that has been trusted by customers because of their reliable and innovative cleaning solutions. Hoover has a comprehensive line of products at both premium and medium price points, including bagged and bagless uprights, canisters, polishers, sticks, handhelds, shampooers, and hard floor cleaners. 

There are many different machines under Hoover's name, and their costs tend to be about average compared to other big brands. All of their vacuums are made with powerful cyclonic filtration, packed with easy-to-use tools and extended warranty programs.  

Even though Hoover was first established in the US, it has a strong foothold in the UK, where Hoover's name is associated with vacuum cleaners. These days, Hoover has been facing fierce competition in the US. However, when it comes to picking affordable yet reliable floor-care devices, Hoover is still one of the top brands that customers will find. 

The Hoover WindTunnel family of vacuums 

Hoover has a series of models under its WindTunnel family. The WindTunnel Air Steerable Upright vacuum has excellent maneuverability thanks to its steering swivel, the WindTunnel Air Steerable Pet Upright Vacuum that picks up pet hair effectively, or the WindTunnel Max Capacity that works perfectly on multiple floors. 

WindTunnel technology is a patented feature of Hoover that provides powerful suction channels that lift and remove surface debris and ground-in dirt. In this Hoover WindTunnel 3 review, we focus on the key features and performance of the WindTunnel 3 only. 

The number “3” in Hoover vacuum WindTunnel 3 stands for 3 channels of suction, while the number “2” in its predecessor Hoover WindTunnel 2, means the machine only has two channels of suction. Those WindTunnel models with no prefix number create only a single channel of suction.

In terms of product brand names, if you come across phrases like Hoover UH72630 or bagless upright Hoover UH72630, or red Hoover vacuum, then don’t get confused as they are just different names of the same product, the product that we’re reviewing today. In this article, we will use these names interchangeably. 

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Hoover WindTunnel 3 - Pros and cons 

Now that you’ve learned about the Hoover brand and its WindTunnel technology. You’re probably thinking: all products, even those with the highest ranking, have their strengths and weaknesses. So does this Hoover machine! 

Pros

• 3 channels of suction

• Seven height adjustment settings

• Use multi-cyclonic technology 

• Has extension wand and flexible hose 

• Has on/off control for the brush roll

• Has an extra long cord

• Has a headlight

• Has HEPA filter 

• Comes with useful accessories 

• Has a five years warranty program

Cons

• A bit heavy

• Can be hard to push for the elderly 

• The power cord is not retractable

• A bit noisy when vacuuming area rugs 

Hoover WindTunnel 3 review 
 

Dimension, weight, and power cord

This Hoover WindTunnel 3 high-performance pet upright vacuum’s dimension is 16.5 x 12.5 x 34 inches, and it weighs 18.1 pounds. So this upright vacuum from Hoover is undoubtedly not a small unit, and it’s not light, either. 

It might feel slightly heavy to carry around the house, especially for the elderly. However, its weight is just a slight drawback considering that it has a sturdy and robust built compared to other uprights of the same price range.

Even though corded vacuums are not the go-to choice of many shoppers these days, these electrical-powered machines still have their supporters because of their stable electricity supply. These users might already know that keeping the vacuum from coming to a sudden stop is one of the essential tips to prolong its durability.

Hoover WindTunnel 3 Via: Amazon

Hoover UH72630 comes with a 30-foot long power cord, which gives you maximum mobility to vacuum a large space. The machine offers homeowners with pets the extra reach to clean every corner in the house without thinking of where to plug it in.

Even though the cord is long, it’s not retractable, which is a minus point of this Hoover pet vacuum. However, we don’t think this is a big problem, as manual cord wrapping right after each use is not a tiresome task, given the fact that the machine suction power is relatively reasonable for its price range.  

Suction and cleaning power 

The pet vacuum WindTunnel 3 from Hoover has exceptional cleaning power thanks to the presence of several unique technologies, which we’ll analyze one by one right below:

• WindTunnel technology 

As the name suggests, the Hoover vacuum WindTunnel 3 is equipped with WindTunnel 3 technology that instantly removes embedded dirt and debris. The machine operates at 12 Amps, which is 1440 watts, giving WindTunnel 3 the efficient performance of a high-end vacuum. With this feature, dust, dirt, and pet fur do not stand a chance.

But what is WindTunnel technology? And what does it do to this Hoover’s vacuum suction strength? Here is a simple explanation: this technology has been widely used in engineering technology. Wind tunnels are the large tubes with air blowing through them to test the aerodynamics of automobiles, aircraft, and spacecraft.

In the vacuuming industry, these tunnels are used to create strong airflow for full-sized vacuum cleaners. In this red hoover vacuum and its other WindTunnel siblings, the tunnels are situated in the units' brush head, and they provide  the machines’ suction. These 3 channels of suction spread the suction more evenly across the nozzle via multiple suction channels, giving the device exceptional suction and better cleaning results.

3 channels of suction Via: Amazon

• Quick Pass Cleaning 

Vacuuming is usually done by moving the brush head over an area of the floor or off-the-floor surfaces several times to get the expected cleaning results. However, with the Quick Pass Cleaning technology of Hoover vacuum WindTunnel 3, users can minimize their moves.

This technique refers to the specially-designed brush head that sets you free from passing too many times on one spot as you would with an ordinary vacuum. This unique feature, together with the powerful suction, gives WindTunnel 3 an unsurpassed cleaning capability. 

• Multi-cyclonic technology 

Bagless vacuums are getting more and more common these days since they’re convenient to use. However, one of their drawbacks is the loss of suction over multiple uses. Once the dust cups are full, the airflow will be reduced, leading to decreased suction strength.

Multi-cyclonic technology is a solution to this problem, and it does so by spinning the dust and debris at high speeds. As a result, the dirt settles at the bottom of the dust cup, leaving sufficient airflow at the top to maintain stable suction power for your vacuum.

• Cleaning path 

The width of this bagless upright Hoover UH72630’s nozzle is 15 inches, giving you a reasonably cleaning path with on every stroke. Also, the unit’s wheels are well-made. They’re sturdy but soft enough to ensure they do not mar the floors. Plus, they come with a soft bumper to protect the things they come in contact with. So you do not have to worry that your vacuum might leave scrapes or scuffs on furniture and walls.

Design and ease of use 

• Well-rounded design 

This Hoover WindTunnel pet vacuum comes in red & black with a modern and futuristic look. As it’s an upright model, it has the height that all users need for daily cleaning tasks. So you do not have to bend over and in doing so eliminate the chances of back pain after each cleaning session. 

• Safety features

Hoover has equipped its UH72630 model with a System Check Indicator, which is an alarm that notifies you whenever the filter is full, or when the unit has  a blockage. With the same mechanism, its Motor Thermal Protection System also alerts you if the machine overheats. During emergencies, the motor shuts off automatically to prevent possible damage to yourself or your floors.

• Height adjustment setting  

Unlike older generations of vacuums that can clean only one type of floor, modern vacuum cleaners are capable of cleaning multiple floor types effectively, from carpets to laminated floors, from hardwood to marble. The Hoover UH72630 is such a machine. But what kind of feature allows this device to tackle dirt and debris on multiple surfaces?  

It has the height control setting that lets you adjust the brush head's height accordingly, depending on the type of floor you’re vacuuming. This feature will affect how your vacuum cleans each specific kind of floor. The UH72630’s height control knob is situated right at the head of the unit for convenient use. 

Since the knob is labeled, you won’t have any problems identifying which setting is ideal for your vacuuming floor type. It’s also easy to use, as you only need to turn the knob on the brush head. Let’s say you need to clean delicate surfaces like laminated floors, which are prone to scratches, so turn off the brush roll. If you need to vacuum carpeted areas, turn it on.

• Illuminating headlight 

To add to the machine’s usability, the model also features illuminating headlight so that users can spot hard-to-see debris and dust in dimly lit areas for better cleaning results. This feature might sound redundant to many users since we can always turn the room's lights or the areas we want to vacuum on. However, if you’ve vacuumed places with no lights or corners that the lights of your rooms can’t reach, you would love this built-in headlight.  

I still remember vacuuming my mom’s bedroom, which had no lights on a cloudy day, so I had to use my phone’s headlight. I know I looked a bit awkward with the vacuum on the one hand and the phone on the other hand. However, this experience makes me appreciate the vacuum’s headlights.

• Versatility 

The machine’s versatility is what makes it stand out from others on the market. With the handy brush roll on/off switch, you can hit the foot pedal, located on the unit's nozzle to switch it on when vacuuming carpeted surfaces and switch it off to clean hard floors.

• The bottom release dust canister

Hoover vacuum WindTunnel 3 comes with a spacious 0.38 gallons (~1.42 liners) dirt cup, allowing you to clean without interruptions. 

Filters 

The best rated vacuum cleaner should pick up dust and allergens. More importantly, it should also trap the smallest particles within the canister to ensure your house's air is fresh and clean. The bagless upright Hoover UH72630 is such a machine as it has a HEPA filter, which can trap up to 99.97% of particles as small as 0.3 microns.

So if you or your family members suffer from allergens or other respiratory-related diseases such as asthma, emphysema, pneumonia, pleural effusion, or chronic bronchitis, equipping yourself a vacuum with a HEPA filter is highly recommended.

The Hoover UH72630 has three filters: a pre-motor that is washable, a post-motor filter, which is also a HEPA filter that we explained above, and a carbon filter that can’t be washed. The first filter is a standard one, and since it’s washable, you can wash it periodically and reuse it during the warranty period of this vacuum, which is five years.

The HEPA filter is not washable, so if it’s dirty, take it out and gently tap it over a dustbin to remove dirt and debris. Similar to the pre-motor filter, this HEPA filter should last for the length of the warranty period.

The carbon filter is not washable, and it is situated underneath the HEPA filter, and it provides odor absorption. This premium feature is particularly useful for homeowners with pets as pet owners know too well that our four-legged friends can sometimes produce an irritating odor.

Accessories 

Hoover WindTunnel 3 high-performance pet upright vacuum comes with three accessories. We’ll go through their functions right below, one by one. 

• • Pivoting dusting tool: used to vacuum dust and dirt from high areas or hard-to-reach spots like tops of the shelves, ceiling fans, countertops, and the likes. Since this tool can bend and pivot, it’s highly flexible, allowing you to clean awkward corners with ease. 

• • Pet turbo tool: pulls accumulated pet fur from upholstered furniture, mattresses, automobile interiors, carpeted stairs, draperies. Using this tool is relatively straightforward, as you only need to unplug the vacuum before attaching it to the handle.

• • Crevice tool: can be quickly attached to the end of the extension wand to reach tight places that you couldn’t before like edges of skirting boards, kitchen boards, window and door frames, bookshelves, between couch cousins, under and between car seats. 

These three tools can be stored on-board, which is a plus point of this Hoover pet vacuum, as it ensures that accessories are always neatly stored and close to hand. What’s better than having the right tools to use your vacuum whenever you carry it around? Also, this on-board storage space can prevent the accesories from being lost or mislaid.

Maintenance 

Hoover recommends that its users wash the air filters every two weeks with tap water. However, this recommendation is for reference only, as each homeowner has different vacuuming habits. Also, if you have a few pets in the house, you might want to wash them more often. After rinsing the filters, users should let it dry before re-installing them back in. You should  let it dry completely for at least 24 hours.

Warranty

Hoover WindTunnel 3 comes with a five-year warranty, which means that you can contact the local dealers for their services whenever you need maintenance. In case you need to replace the filters, brush roll, or buy additional tools, there are official online services and physical stores of the company that you can contact. Hoover replacement tools are also available on Amazon at reasonable prices.

However, this Hoover vacuum is highly durable and requires minimal maintenance. Therefore, chances are you’ll seldom need to call your local repair services. 

Performance 

We tested the performance of this Hoover WindTunnel 3 together with three other Hoover models. They are Hoover Powerdash Upright Deep Cleaner, Hoover WindTunnel 2, and Hoover WindTunnel XL Pet. 

How did we test them? First, we spread fine dust, lentils, and larger crumbs on hard floors, carpets, and area rugs. To see how each machine performed, we pulled and pushed each of them back and forth five times to see how they sucked up the dust and debris.

For pet hair, we chose our living room, the sofa, and our kitchen room to use as the testing lab. Since we have two Golden Retrievers that usually play hide and seek around our living room and kitchen area, these places become ideal for our test. Now we’ll go into the evaluation of WindTunnel 3’s performance on different floor types and its capabilities in picking up pet hair. 

• Hard surfaces  

Hoover vacuum WindTunnel 3 picked up even the tiniest of dust particles on our laminated and tiled floors. Its QuickPass BrushRoll let us clean our hard floors quickly without having to pass over the same areas many times. 

We love our laminated floors and always take good care of them as we do not leave any scratches on them. Therefore, we’re keen on choosing a machine with strong suction power to clean our carpeted floor and gentle enough to vacuum our timber floors. Since we equip ourselves with this WindTunnel 3 from Hoover, we’re glad that we’ve found the right floor care assistant. 

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• Carpeted surfaces

Since our floor is primarily laminated, we only have about 30% of our floor covered in carpet so our test on the carpeted areas was quite fast. Hoover vacuum WindTunnel 3 performed excellently on carpets thanks to the WindTunnel 3 technology. If we didn't use this machine, we wouldn’t know that there’s so much embedded dirt and debris on our carpets. 

However, the machine struggled with our 8x10 feet area rug. It’s 3/8 inch thick, which is quite an uphill task for most upright vacuums, we suppose. But we did not find this a big problem as we only had to push the device several more times to get the cleaning results we wanted. 

• Off-the-floor surfaces 

Our test used the crevice tool and pivoting dusting tool to pick up dust and dirt on the ceiling, countertops, shelves, kitchen boards, and in-between sofa cushions. We love these tools, and we have to say that they significantly add to this machine's usability. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to pick up the most stubborn debris that our little toddler left between the couches and the spider webs on the bookshelves and ceiling.  

We used to think that the illuminating headlight would only be useful for rooms without lights. However, after this test, we realized that this little light could help pick up tiny particles in tight spots or hard-to-reach areas. It allowed us to see where the debris is to remove them quickly.

The crevice tool was very useful in cleaning our carpeted stairs. We vacuum our house twice a week, but we only vacuum the stairs once a week because we think that they’re not dirty. After this test, what we thought turned out to be wrong since this Hoover upright vacuum showed us exactly how filthy our stairs were.

• Pet fur  

We love our two Golden Retrievers, and we know you love your furry friends too. But we only wish we do not have to deal with hair all over our floors and furniture, not to mention our beds! Like most pet owners, we’re keen on looking for a powerful vacuum to tackle pet hair on multiple floor types and surfaces. 

Since we used the Hoover vacuum WindTunnel 3, our vacuuming tasks have become much more manageable. The machine has top-notch suction power to effectively tackle pet fur on our laminated floors, carpets, and area rugs. The pet turbo tool helps pull out pet fur from the hidden areas of our house.

If you also have dog breeds that shed a lot of hair like German Shepherd, Siberian Husky or Saint Bernards, then you’ll probably need high-performing pet vacuums like WindTunnel 3 from Hoover. 

Alternatives

1. Black+Decker Air Swivel Upright BDASV102 

If you’re interested in the powerful suction of Hoover WindTunnel 3, but its weight leaves you cold, then this Black Decker Air Swivel BDASV102 will be a great alternative. It weighs 8.8 pounds, which means you do not have lug around a big machine to vacuum your floors.  

As the name suggests, this Black & Decker has the 170 degrees swivel, allowing you to maneuver across multiple floor types with ease. Besides, this device has a large dust cup of 0.52 gallons (~2 liters), so you can vacuum all the space you need without having to empty the cup even once. 

The BDASV102 has a 30-feet power cord and a 10-feet hose, giving you extra cleaning reach for time-efficient cleaning results. Homeowners with pets would also find this upright an ideal choice as they can have three tools that come in a package: a crevice tool, a small brush, and an upholstery tool.  

Black & Decker BDASV102 Via: Amazon

2. BISSELL Pet Hair Eraser Upright Vacuum Cleaner, 24613

So you’ve used several pet vacuums before, but none of them has solved the hair wrapping around the brushroll issue. While the Hoover WindTunnel sounds like a right upright for pet owners, you’re not sure if it can tackle the wrapped hair.

If all of this sounds like your current situation, BISSELL Pet Hair Eraser 24613 is the right choice for your needs! It has a tangle-free brush roll that will set you free from the frustrating hair wrap problem. Also, this Bissell’s cyclonic pet hair spooling system lets you empty the dust bin with just one touch of the release button. 

Aside from its easy-to-use filter, the machine’s other parts like brush roll and belt are also simple to maintain. Once you lay the unit down on the floor, you can unscrew it to remove the cover. Then you can pull the roller out and slide the belt of the motor if needed. Now you can inspect the roll by spinning it. If it doesn’t spin freely, then it’s time for a replacement. 

Bissell 24613 Via: Amazon

3. Hoover Powerdash Upright Deep Cleaner FH50700

Suppose you’re living in a small apartment, and the majority of your floor is carpeted, and you’re looking for an inexpensive carpet shampooer to tackle both pet fur and pet messes. In that case, the Hoover Powerdash Upright is worth your consideration. This lightweight machine has a power-spin pet brush roll that delivers powerful carpet cleaning.  

This machine's assembly is simple, as users do not need to do much set up after unboxing it. With just a 10-inch cleaning path, it effectively picks up pet hair. Hoover Powerdash’s users have noticed the significant color difference between the carpet they have shampooed versus the area that hasn’t been cleaned. The carpet will be dry just half an hour after cleaning.  

Even though there are many powerful carpet cleaners on the market, Hoover Powerdash Upright Deep Cleaner perfectly suits small spaces with limited storage area as it’s compact and budget-friendly. 

Hoover Powerdash FH50700 Via: Amazon

Conclusion 

The pros of the pet Hoover vacuum outweigh its cons. It has excellent suction strength and comes with three useful tools to tackle dust, debris and pet hair in a short time. What’s a better way to practice green living style than using an energy-efficient home appliance?

The only drawback is its weight. However, it’s not a big issue considering lots of strengths of the unit. In short, it’s an ideal choice for homes with pets or busy parents with children. It is undoubtedly one of the best rated Hoover vacuum cleaners that you can find on the market.