Although this is a review site is about the Dyson DC14, I thought it would be useful to have a little background on the company before making any decisions. The founder of Dyson, James Dyson, studied furniture and interior design at the royal college of art. Later on he made a move into engineering. He has had many wildly successful invention in the past such as the ballbarrow, trolleyball, wheelboat and sea truck.

His move into vacuum cleaners came about when he bought the best vacuum available at the time. He became very frustrated with the way it lost suction power so easily once some dust started filling the bag and blocking the free flow of air. He decided that there must be a better way. He borrowed some existing technology from his ballbarrow factory. This later became known as the ‘cyclonic suction technology’. So after a mere 5000 prototypes and 5 years, he went looking for distributors. No one was interested.

Unperturbed he decided to do it all himself and he started selling it through catalogues in Japan. At 2000 pounds sterling, a modern look, name and technology, it quickly became a status symbol among the rich. He named it the G-Force and it won the International Design Fair in Japan. He then filed for a patent in America, opened a manufacturing plant in the UK and started outselling other traditional vacuum cleaners.

He employed a brilliant TV advertising campaign. It focussed on the bagless aspect and the convenience rather than the suction power. This proved wildly successful with housewives everywhere. It became a top seller in the UK and US. This caused other manufacturers to take notice and they quickly introduced their own line of bagless vacuums. This led to a successful lawsuit against Hoover for infringing on their copyright.

Although today Dyson makes hand dryers, washing machines and even fans, they are still most well known for their vacuums. The name Dyson is quickly becoming synonymous with vacuum cleaners just like the Hoover brand did in previous decades.