Vacmaster Blue Line 12-Gallon* 5 Peak HP† Wet/Dry Vacuum with Detachable Blower VBV1210

Hi Friends, The short version: I recommend this vac, easy assembly, great suckage, nice big visible power button. The long version: I recently purchased a cabin/weekender to escape to once in a while. So, I recently ordered a bunch of stuff to 'stock' the place, and had added a canister vac to my initial list. When I placed the order - that vac was no longer available, Bummer. I noticed this Vacmaster VBV1210 on the 'customers also viewed' list and on a sheer whim added it to my order with little if any research - and bonus (as you will soon find out) it is a wet-dry vac. The order arrived, and last weekend my mom's cousin and I made a trek to the cabin to kick the tires, turn on the water/well since the freeze season was over. By chance I decided to put the boxed Vacmaster into the car, heck it had to go up anyway why wait for the movers at the end of May? Several hours later we arrived, moved stuff from the car inside, and eventually ventured into the dark and eery crawl space to turn on the well/pump, water heater, and so on. We met Hammy, my non-rent paying chipmunk who was rather shocked to see us in his chip-cave. We turned everything on, and all seemed to be ok. As we helped each other hoist our middle-age bodies out of Hammy's domain, we heard a somewhat unsettling rush of water. "Hmm," I said, "sounds like the shower was left on when they drained the pipes." Close, but no banana. We entered the lovely vintage 1983 blue-everything-including-the-toilet bathroom to realize that there is a pipe in the wall that was disconnected as part of the drain process, which the sellers had not felt the compunction to mention. It was a mini-Niagra with a gusher emanating from the blue formica closet - not unlike old faithful. Water water everywhere and not a mop in sight. I dove back to the crawlspace, again causing Hammy not insignificant terror. He was like, WTF!? I shut the pump off, and went back up to find several inches of water in the blue-beauty bath - which was now flowing with verve out the door. Like the wondertwins, my cousin and I activated and both immediately said "THE VAC!" Mind you, there were no towels, no mops, nothing at all in the all-but-empty cabin. Luckily, the wet-dry vac was mere feet away. We ripped open the box and began assembly, literally tossing the instructions to the side. There is no time to do things properly when in panic mode! Fortunately, assembly was easy-peasy, the hardest part being locating the attachments and hose (they are stored in the central canister for easy shipping). Still, we had the thing together and plugged in within 60 seconds. Without our glasses. I turned it on, and within moments sucked up the gallons of water that had baptized my fabulous formica and pooled on the floor. The vac has great suction and made short work of the mini-flood. I later used in to suck up some debris from a bit of wall-demo, which the vacmaster also sucked up with ease. So, I sure am glad that quite by chance, I ended up with this unit and it ended up in the car on our first trip. It sort of got us out of a pickle. Mind you, this review is based only on a few uses one afternoon - it is not a long term review. And, I ended up saving about $45 vs. the one I had originally planned on getting. Pros: simple simple assembly, it has great suction, and has a blower detachable (I have not yet tried). Cons: the only slight thing that could be improved is the cord length, seemed a bit short 4-6 more feet would be great (when I used it later in the day, it kept coming unplugged as I tugged the unit around because the cord is maybe only 4-5 feet long - just a guess). Anyway, I would recommend this unit at least based on my initial use. I promise on my next visit up there to read the assembly instructions :)

I'm leaving this vacuum a five star review. I've used it on my carpeted stairs as well as outside for leaves. The vacuum did better than expected in both scenarios. I read a ton of amazon reviews on this product and it seems to get some negative feedback in terms of its reliability out of the box. People also complain a lot about the wheels falling off. I'm hoping to clear some of those reviews up. Lets get the easy one out of the way first. The casters slide onto the bottom of the chassis. Vacmaster provides screws to secure the casters on. People who are complaining about them falling off, simply did not use the screws to secure the casters into place. As for the reliability out of the box. When I first plugged in the vacuum and started it up, it worked great. After about 5 minutes it shut off. My first thought was that I got a dud unit like some of the other reviews I read. After some trouble shooting I realized the vacuum tripped a breaker. I found this odd until I realized I had plugged it into an outlet that was running off a #15 breaker. I'm assuming this was the case for most of the one star reviews the product received. I would suggest plugging this vacuum into a kitchen outlet. Most kitchen outlets are running off a #20 or higher breaker because they are meant to run appliances. Once I plugged into a kitchen outlet (#20 breaker) the thing worked like a dream. It has plenty of suction in vacuum mode and did very well in my smallish back yard as a leaf blower. That being said, you will definitely need an extension cord. Especially for me because most of the breakers in my house are #15's. I have only used the unit three times and can't attest to it's reliability over an extended time, but with a two year warranty I'm not too worried. I love all of the on-board storage for the accessories. The hose also has a locking mechanism and stays connected to the chassis with no worries. This comes in handy when you're pulling the unit around by the hose in vacuum mode. Overall, it was a good purchase in my mind and exceeds my needs. Thanks for reading and happy shopping!

I bought a dinky little hand held car vacuum to get pet hair out of my car, and it was absolutely pathetic. I bit the bullet and purchased this bad boy and I sure wish I had just spent the extra money and bought this from the start! I has paid for itself a million times over since I bought it! Just so you know, I am a professional dog hiker - meaning I take a different group of 6-8 dogs hiking off leash on mountain trails in the area every morning, M-F, rain, snow or shine! As you can imagine, my minivan (aka the dog van) gets absolutely disgusting between the hair, burrs, mud and dirt and everything else that dogs track or bring in with them after our hikes! I clean it out once a week and the biggest part of that is using this to vacuum the hair and dirt out of every single nook and cranny. With the attachments provided and I can seriously reach every one of them! It is very light weight and was easy to assemble with the included instructions. It's simple to pull and maneuver around and best of all, the suction power is incredible!!! I've been using it for 6 months now and it still works just as well as the first day I bought it. I love that it has both wet and dry capability and the capacity is huge! The blower option is a nice feature too! Truly, this thing is worth every penny. My only minor complaint is that I wish the cord was longer and I wish it had a better system for managing the cord when not in use, but that is a small thing to me compared with how it actually works. I definitely recommend! And yes, I paid full price for this.

really great value. I recommend using disposable vac bags for ease of cleanup. plenty powerful. great deal for price. blower option works very well too, yet it does bet electric source.

Update: 14 Jan 17: I have been renovating the heck out of my home the last 8 or so months. I purchased this because of the price alone. Figured, if I was going to be abusing it to the level that I have, I wouldn't be out a massive amount of money if I ruined it. Well, this thing is incredible. It is easy to empty, easy to use, quieter than any shop vac I have ever used, easy to roll around, and the filter blows out easy too. One of the best decisions I have ever made for renovating this house. Let me tell you how badly I have abused this machine. My home is covered in popcorn ceilings. I hate popcorn ceilings, and hate scraping it off and making a massive mess. So, I taped a drywall mud knife to the underside of the floor attachment, sprayed the ceilings with water (pump sprayer) and then proceeded to scrape and suck up all the popcorn with this vacuum. After every room, I set the filter outside to dry. Once dried, I bang it out in the trash can (wear a mask FYI) and then use the vacuums blower function to blow it out. Slap that puppy back in, and do the next room. This thing just keeps on going. The hoses do get a little clogged up, but take a garden house and spray them out, it does fine. Man, I will never buy another brand of vacuum as long as these people are around. Buy it, if you don't like it, you're insane. I have had this about a week now. Easy set up. Was up and running within five minutes. Great suction and has enough attachments to get just about any job done. Also there is something it comes with I didn't see listed, it has a muffler attachment. This machine runs quieter (with this on, you do lose a tiny bit of suction, not much) than my normal upright vacuum. Seriously, my wife and I were talking while I was running it. The blower is great as well. Does everything advertised and more.

We formerly got our shop vacs at Home Depot and always just got the brand that is black and orange - maybe it's their house brand. NO complaints but this time when the old one died (*an honoralble death after surviving over ten years with many many uses) I didn't want to go to the store for it so we ordered on here. This one had a great price and it had really good reviews. Everyone knows you can trust the reviews on Amazon so we went for it. All I can say is that it is the strongest shop vac we have ever owned. The blower top is especially delightful for the hubs because it's considerably stronger than the electrical one I purchased separately! One thing I am going to say is it's big - which I saw people sort of complaining about in the reviews (?) but tbh it's extremely manuverable, not too heavy, and all the accessories sit "on board" which is really nice as well. It sucks up pretty much everything. I learned this on the first use by accidentally sucking an entire black garbage bag out of a can (it had paper garbage in it about 1/4 full which got sucked up also) and then sucking the curtain rod in half and dropping the curtains to the floor when I only wanted to get a cobweb. It sucks up cat turds, rocks, change, socks, an entire lipstick, dog toys, fireplace dust, cat/dog food, cat toys, most anything paper, hay, shavings, oh yea and dirt/dust too. For reference, our old shop vac would suck up the hay and cat turds and the hose would clog because it was more narrow. This one has a decently wide hose so I can suck up even more disgusting things for my husband to contend with when he dumps it out! (Thanks for the vacuum honey)

I've had this vac about 2 weeks now, and I've used it to suck up twigs, leaves, dirt, and unfortunately 1/2" crushed gravel. But that's ok about the gravel. The suction is stronger than any vac I've owned to date. The hose has a convenient locking device to secure the hose to the vacuum body while in use, and it's an easy, one-hand, quick disconnect. Longer power cord is really convenient. Some reviews say the noise is quieted by the muffler device when attached, but it reduces suction a bit. I didn't notice much sound reduction using the device, so I don't use it. But overall, I think this vac is quieter than previous vacs I've owned. The locks that hold the lid in place are of a simple design that work very well. The way the locks are designed, it doesn't look like they'll loose their effectiveness over time like other vacs I've had in the past. The built-in blower is nested in the lid and detaches from the lid very easily with just one hand as you grip it, and the blower works very well. It was a creative idea to add the blower to the vac. The accessories are well-considered. There seems to be more accessories (meaning hose end attachments) than I've had on previous vacs as well. I especially like the one with the reduced opening reduced to about a 1". That increases the suction at the attachment and keeps larger objects, like bigger stones, getting sucked up. Like I said, this thing has great suction. It's maneuverability is what can be expected. it's large, but light when it's mostly empty. The rollers are no bigger than any other vacs, which can make it a little difficult to move on rougher surfaces. But that's the way it is with all vacs. It would be nice to see bigger rollers on the vacs. All considered, it's the best vac I've owned to date. Now, if it just keeps working, then I'll be the happiest of campers. So far, so good.

I had a different shop vac that I tried for the alpaca “beans.” It had a smaller hose and less powerful. I called customer service to get some ideas about lining this with a plastic garbage bag which I did, making sure that I put a rubber band at the hose inlet. The video was taken by me while vacuuming with one hand, so wasn’t the greatest. The beans are sucked right up and I just keep it there in the paddock plugged in and ready to use! For the most part, all seems pretty good. I will be purchasing a washable filter when the company gets that part in stock, but the bunking up is only on one area of the filter, so it does not seem to affect the suction power. There is a bit of accumulation of poop right at the intake orifice, which I easily just “disempact!!” LOL!! I just hated raking these beans as it was bad on my back. I have a little chair that I sit in while vacuuming and the hose is just long enough to pretty much allow me to “reach” the “perimeter” of their Poop Potty. Alpacas poop in a designated area which makes the care of them so much easier!! I love the fact that this converts to a blower. The blower will be used to blow off dust that the alpacas love to roll in!!! Luckily, the alpacas do not seem bothered by the engine noise, probably because we got them from a farm that utilizes loud farm equipment. So, I have been collecting the alpaca beans without even checking how full it is. Today, the motor started to sound a little different. Sure enough, the 12 gallon reservoir was full. The full vac is too heavy to lift for me, so I dump to to the side into a very large garden bag. I take this first part and transfer it to smaller white kitchen bags, getting two bags per full vacuum.

Larger than I wanted, but that is not the vacuum’s fault. It works very well. It can handle some tough jobs. I was particularly impressed by how easily it sucked up broken tile that had fallen into the floor ducting. I didn’t think I would use the detachable blower feature. Boy, was I wrong! It is so easy to detach and reattach. I use it to blow out my carport all the time. I watched the price before I ordered the vacuum, as I noticed it fluctuated regularly. I was patient and got a good deal. I’m happy with my purchase!

Other than to much plastic, quite pleased with the 5hp motor. The suction and blower are both very powerful. If you want a vacuum that really performs, this is it ! More than happy with this purchase. Highly recommend for big jobs.

This thing sucks hard, in a good way! great power on the thing, love the detachable blower function. Overall a 10/10 shop vac! Well worth the money!

I finally justified replacing my old "hand-me-down" shopvac, when I needed something solid and strong to use for replacing pool filter sand. As its first job, it performed exceptionally well and I managed to extract approx 130-140lbs of wet filter sand in about 1-2hrs. The 12 gallon capacity and 5HP motor combined with a sturdy hose and attachment made the job easy. The detachable blower, is great to clean up afterwards and is very useful and the reason I took this one over other options as it added to the "bang for buck" in my opinion. It is not very noisy as well. CONS: 1. the wet filter "sponge" is very thin and a part of it tore off when I installed it and took it off. 2. would have been nice to have some sort of hose storage, to compliment the accessory storage on the unit. Longevity will be the true test to earn 5 stars

I just received this today and have used it for an hour. First impressions. The suction is great. The tool storage is done well and the reviewer who said his wheels fell off must have missed the step about screwing them on. I’m using it for general cleaning and on a band saw and 4” belt sander. I will be back if it fails on me but so far it’s excellent value for me.