While cordless handheld vacuums such as Makita’s new model and the ubiquitous dustbuster are suitable for light duty cleaning or small messes, there may be times when you may need something a bit more robust. For medium duty cleaning tasks, what you’ll want to whip out is a cordless wet/dry vac.
Although a traditional corded vacuum would typically be better suited for most cleaning tasks, there are times when portability and mobility are more important than power and capacity. Dewalt and Milwaukee both offer cordless wet/dry vacuums that are much more capable than ordinary handheld vacs and are based off their current battery systems.
Following is a brief overview of the three cordless wet/dry vacs available from these brands.
Dewalt DC500
- 2-gallon capacity
- accepts 12-18V batteries or AC cord
- five-foot rubber hose, crevice tool, wide nozzle
- 0.3 µm filter
- street price $100-120
- Check Price via Amazon
Dewalt DC515K
- 1/2-gallon capacity
- HEPA filter – 0.3µm
- includes charger and 18V XRP battery
- built-in 2-1/2 foot rubber hose
- street price $140-160
- Check Price via Amazon
Milwaukee 0880-20
- accepts Milwaukee 18V slide-on batteries
- HEPA rated filter
- 1-1/4″ vinyl nose wide nozzle, crevice tool
- street price $80-100
- Check Price via Amazon
The above cordless wet/dry vacs would definitely be of great utility at jobsites since they’re relatively compact and easily carried, but we can also see them being used in homes and small shops for when setting up and using a corded vacuum may be inpractical.
If anyone has used these cordless vacs, how would you rate their battery life?
I have a DC515K that I use at work. I’m a residential HVAC tech and this vac is great for picking up little messes I might make in someone’s home. I don’t really have it on long enough to say how the battery life is, but I run it about 5-15 minutes a day and I charge the battery about once a week. I have been using the same vacuum for about 5 years.