Dyson Domestic Appliances

James Dyson the founder of the company was born to a middle classed family in Suffolk, England in 1947. 

James Dyson's first product, the Sea Truck, was launched in 1970 while he was studying at the Royal College of Art. A few years later came the award-winning Ballbarrow that can go where no wheelbarrow has ever been before. Then there was the Wheelboat and the Trolleyball.

In 1978, James Dyson noticed how the air filter in the Ballbarrow spray-finishing room was constantly clogging with powder particles (just like a vacuum cleaner bag clogs with dust). So he designed and built an industrial cyclone tower, which removed the powder particles by exerting centrifugal forces greater than 100,000 times those of gravity. Could the same principle work in a vacuum cleaner? James Dyson set to work then 5 years later, the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner from Dyson arrived.

James Dyson's bagless vacuum cleaner was first sold in Japan. Known as the 'G Force', it won the 1991 International Design Fair prize in Japan. The Japanese were so impressed by its performance that the G Force was selling for $2,000 .

Dyson decided to manufacture a new model under his own name in Britain. In June 1993 he opened his research centre and factory in Wiltshire, not far from his home, and developed a machine that collected even finer particles of dust. The product was the iconic DCO1.

The Dual Cyclone system is claimed to be the first breakthrough in technology since the invention of the vacuum cleaner in 1901 by Dyson although there has been criticism of this claim with some saying that the patents for the same, or a similar, system were filed many, many years ago.

The traditional bag has been replaced by two cyclone chambers which cannot clog with dust however in the field we have seen that this relies on the filter/s being maintained in accordance with the instructions. If they are not then loss of suction and possible damage may follow.

The Dyson vacuum became the fastest selling vacuum cleaner ever to be made in the UK.

In 2000, the Dyson Contrarotator washing machine was created - the world's first washing machine with two drums. Production ceased around 2004 or 2005 due to poor sales.

The Contrarotator Washing Machine in action, sounds noisy

In 1999, Hoover tried to imitate a Dyson and James Dyson was forced back to court to protect his invention. After 18 months Dyson finally won a victory against Hoover for patent infringement. James Dyson has taken many other parties to court to the point now where one trade quote sums it up very well with, "James Dyson loves his day in court",

The latest technology to be added to the Dyson upright cleaners is The Ball which allows the upright to be manoeuvred easily with a turn of the wrist.

Rumours persist, mostly from James Dyson himself that Dyson will return to the washing machine market at some point despite the failure of the previous machine.

Most actual production of Dyson profducts is now undertaken in the Far East with all research and development carried out at Dyson's UK headquarters.

Within the industry opinion on James Dyson and the Dyson products is totally polarised into "love it" or "hate it" with a few in the middle saying that the love what Dyson has done but don't like the way he's done it or some of his tactics, so there's no consensus of opinion on the whole.

Retail Prices

It depends on which product that you look at but generally Dyson vacuum cleaners are in the upper echelons when it comes to price. That said, recently a five year warranty has been added to the products without any pricing increase which, in anyone's book is tantamount to a price cut without actually cutting the retail pricing.

The Dyson washing machine started as a high cost appliance, firmly in Miele territory for price but reports that we have from customers seem to indicate that the quality was suspect and that there had been many revisions. We only have this from reports as all Dyson service is in-house, see below.

Dyson Spares

Spares pricing seems to be not too bad on the whole for Dyson and there are third-party spares available for the cleaners, much to James Dyson's annoyance as he has taken spares suppliers to court for supplying non-genuine Dyson spares, see the news archive for more on this.

There are many cheap compatible Dyson parts now on the market some good, some bad and some just truly terrible. We carry the most commonly used Dyson spares in our online store including many accessories such as Zorb and so on.

Dyson Service & Repairs

In much the same way technical information appears to be restricted to Dyson employees and engineers, so many independent dealers will not touch the Dyson washing machine as they have no information on it. Whether Mr Dyson continues this practise with any further major appliances remains to be seen, however we hope that he doesn't.

At present, Dyson are offering a 5 year guarantee on all their vacuum cleaners.

All service is by Dyson's own employed engineering staff.