SEWING MACHINES HAVE ARRIVED

BYERS VACUUM now has a brand new sewing machine, not made in China, for $199.95. This is a pretty smooth sewer for a modern plastic machine, has a dozen popular stitches and a built in buttonholer. And of course we have unpacked it and sewn it in to make sure everything works perfectly. Reconditioned cast iron zig zag sewing machines come and go. Right now(may 18 2013) the only used machine is a SINGER FEATHERWEIGHT for $399.95. The featherweight is in the original case, includes the tray, and the original owner's manual, and oil, bobbins, needles, screwdrivers, and a lint brush.

BIG SAVINGS ON RICCAR .X MODELS

We sometimes are able to obtain a limited number of Riccar vacuums marked down even further than our everyday low price. These are what Riccar calls .x models and come with full factory warrantees.They are machines that Riccar has taken to an exhibit, or taken back from a dealer, or for whatever reason. They look & run like new, although occasionally there is a scuff in the finish. I have obtained a number of these through the years and they have all been clean inside, so if they've been run it hasn't been very much. We of course match the factory warranty, and you can save 10-20% off of our regular low price.

John Byers appears on WCIA channel 3 ciLiving TV show

On Friday September 21, 2012, I was blessed to be a guest on the WCIA TV channel 3 ciLiving.tv show, which runs from 4pm to 5pm. They interviewed me for just under 5 minutes about vacuum cleaners. Here is a link to a video of the interview on their website. Byers Vacuum

Where is Byers Vacuum?

BYERS VACUUM CLEANER & SEWING MACHINE SALES & SERVICE, is located on the SW corner of 1st & University in Champaign Il. The Champaign Police station is on the NW corner, the Cattle Bank museum is on the NE, and Dallas & Co costume shop is on the SE corner. 1st street is the first stop light east of the IC railroad viaduct. There are metered spaces on 1st street plus we have FREE PARKING in the rear in a lot we share with Manzella's Italian Patio Restaurant, which is behind us on 1st & Chester. Byers Vacuum primarily serves Champaign County communities such as Champaign, Urbana,  Mahomet, St Joseph, Savoy, Rantoul, Tolono, Philo, Sidney, Thomasboro, Ogden, Homer, Dewey, Fisher, etc. However, we have a number of customers coming from Vermillion County, Piatt County, Ford County, etc. towns like Danville, Oakwood, Catlin, Fithian, Tuscola, Monticello, White Heath, Villa Grove, Charleston, Paxton, Gibson City, Roberts, Farmer City, Mansfield, Deland, and others..

WHY BUY FROM BYERS VACUUM?

• Machines purchased from Byers Vacuum get priority service. Should you need a repair, as long as you own your machine, it will be done ahead of machines not purchased from us. Sometimes we are doing repairs in 1 or 2 business days, and sometimes we are running a week or more behind. But even if we are way behind, a machine you bought from us will go ahead of others, so unless we have to order a part for it, it will usually be done in 1 business day.
• You receive a discount on any non-warranty parts and labor for as long as you own your machine.
• We sell machines(especially the new ones) that we expect to be able to get parts for for years to come. Many of the importers of inexpensive imports sold at the chain stores assume you will not bother to repair their product and don't offer many parts or accessories.
• Our new vacuum prices are competitive. Some of our vacuums are cheaper here than what they are sold on the internet for.
• We throw in Free bags and belts with many models. Ask about a certificate good for a FREE Host carpet cleaning machine rental with vacuum purchase.

VIDEOS & ARTICLES

I am creating a series of articles and videos on how to do belt changes and other maintenance on vacuums. The first article, how to change a belt on a Kirby, is available to read at http://ezinearticles.com/?Kirby-Vacuum-Belt-and-Nozzle-Changing&id=7315568. 

Another article on what vacuum is the best vacuum can be read at http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-the-Best-Vacuum-Cleaner-for-Your-Individual-Needs?&id=73 59319

NEW USED & REBUILT VACUUMS

We warranty what we sell, New, Used, or Rebuilt. Our quality rebuilt vacuums let you afford the Kirby, Electrolux, or other premium vacuum you've always wanted but just wasn't in your budget. Our new Miele canisters have the best filtration available, a host of features, and German craftsmanship. Oreck is the leader in light weight yet durable uprights. Sanitaire by Electrolux gives you the highest airflow and 6 height adjustments for superior cleaning on a wide range of carpets. Riccar has a large selection of American made uprights with On Board Tools, many of them under $400. The Riccar Vibrance line has one of the longest hoses on an OBT upright. The Riccar 2 motor Tandem Air uprights give superior air-flow for an OBT upright, and the ability to turn the brush off with the flick of your thumb. Lindhaus has some interesting products from Italy. Metropolitan builds a traditional metal tank type vacuum in the USA. Perfect imports a replica of the traditional metal Electrolux. Eureka, Fuller Brush, Carpet Pro, and Cirrus offer some lower priced units. Whatever your needs, Byers Vacuum probably has a vacuum for you, and that's what we specialize in, finding out what your needs are, and finding the vacuum to best do the job for you. Even cleaning the new FRIEZE and SHAG carpets.

Bags Belts FiltersParts & service

We carry the largest selection of Bags, Belts, Filters, and Parts in town. Over 260 different SKUs of bags, over 60 belts, hundreds of filters, and thousands of other parts. 

     Our BAG selection includes genuine ORECK, KIRBY, HOOVER, EUREKA, RICCAR, MIELE, EMER, LINDHAUS, CIRRUS, FULLER BRUSH, SANITAIRE, FILTER QUEEN cones, ROYAL, DIRT DEVIL, and others. We also carry top quality DVC replacement bags for Kenmore, Electrolux, Sharp, and others. Some of the bags we carry are high filtration Micro-Lined bags which release less fine dust back into the air. We also have some synthetic HEPA type allergen bags, which, while more expensive, release almost no microscopic dust particles back into the air. This really helps if someone in your home has dust allergies or breathing problems.

     We carry hundreds of filters for vacuums, although there are thousands of different filters. Many that we don't carry, we can order, depending on the brand. See the section below about brands we don't have parts for.

     We have dozens of different belts, and unlike most stores, we will sell just one. Many of them have a discount for more than one.

     We carry a large selection of attachments for 1.25" filtall, 35mm European (Miele, Lindhaus, etc.), old style Hoover, and others. This includes, dusting brushes, upholstery/fabric tools, crevice tools, bare floor brushes, rug brushes, wands, micro tool kits, ceiling fan tools, blind tools, angle adaptors, and others.

     We carry thousands of new parts, although with the myriad of new Chinese models, there are thousands we don't have. We can also scrap used parts off of the hundreds of trade-in we have stored. We even have some parts that the manufacturer no longer offers, such as Sharp or for Hoover's built before 2007(when the Chinese bought Hoover in 2007 and closed the American factory, they decided not to support machines they no longer made except with bags and belts. When they ran out of a part, say a brush roll, they weren't making any more, unless the machine was still in production, such as the Windtunnel upright, Convertible upright[still in the commercial line], or Conquest Commercial.

Free Estimates on repairs

     We offer FREE ESTIMATES on repairs, although our minimum on machines not bought from us is $10-15 labor if we fix it. So, if it isn't worth it to you to spend $10-$15 in labor and say $1.84 for a belt, don't bring it in, because if it's just something minor like that, that's what we charge. If it's more serious, we will not charge you if you don't want it fixed. Usually repairs are done in a few business days, but sometimes we are backed up a week or two. It varies. Machines bought from us will be repaired first, then ones purchased elsewhere.

Why We Don't Work On Some Products

     The vacuums in the list above we don't work on are mostly because we do not have parts available. Some, like Shark, the importer knows is an inexpensive product that is usually not economically repairable. The commercial brands, like Advance, Castex, etc. usually only sell parts to their dealers, which are usually janitor supply businesses who specialize in maintenance equipment and supplies for hotels and other large commercial users(customers who buy floor wax in 5-55 gallon quantities).

     Dyson is a somewhat unique situation. The product is expensive enough(in spite of being made in Asia) that parts should be available. Dyson wanted independent warranty centers to do their warranty work at low cost, so they wouldn't have to pay American wages. Since most independents saw no reason to work for Dyson at a deep discount from what regular customers pay for a repair, Dyson had difficulty obtaining warranty centers. So they decided not to sell parts to anyone except authorized warranty centers. Since most people who work on vacuums and are knowledgeable about them don't like bagless and would say negative things about them ( I have the Reuters News report of the court case in England where his "no filters, no clogging, no loss of suction" ad was banned as being false [I've never seen a Dyson that didn't have at least 3 filters, and they DO clog]), they also decided an authorized Dyson service center has to buy 12 Dysons a year. That was to make it hard for a service center to say negative things about a Dyson since they have to sell them. That is why we cannot get parts for Dysons, because we chose NOT to become an authorized Dyson service center. We will put a service plug on the end of the cord, that is the ONLY repair we will currently attempt. There are some aftermarket (imitation) Dyson parts available, but I have heard that some of them are not well made. The situation could change in the future, if quality parts (genuine or otherwise) become available.

Carpet Extractors

     We also do not work on any brand of carpet extractor, such as the Bissell ProHeat, Hoover Steamvac, etc. Years ago we had a man from Vermilion County pick them up and work on them. We just acted as a drop-off center as a customer convenience. Too many customers got mad at us because the products are cheaply constructed and fail easily, so we stopped accepting them. The man that picked them up no longer lives in Illinois, so I know of no one who will work on them.

     A few years ago I commented to a customer in the carpet cleaning business, "I bet you have over $20,000 in equipment in your van, not counting the price of the van." His response was "double that". What this means is a professional has $40,000 worth of equipment, compared to a $100-$300 home unit. Of course the home unit isn't as good. The plastic is quite thin and fragile, the seals are poor, the pumps are poor, the hoses crack quite easily. IF you consider it costs $20 or more to rent a unit, and you pay $200 for a unit, and it lasts more than 10 uses, you've come out ahead, especially if you don't live near a store that rents them. Just don't look at it as an appliance, look at it like a disposable razor. I personally have trouble looking at things that way. I was brought up it's wasteful. AND we're running out of landfill to fill with disposable products. (I wash plastic spoons and reuse them, so that shows where I'm coming from).

SEWING MACHINES

  While vacuum cleaners are our main business, we do service a few hundred sewing machines and sergers every year, and sell a small quantity of new & used sewing machines. If we can't fix your machine, we don't charge, and of course our repairs are guaranteed for 90 days, so if we repair your machine and you take it home and have trouble, bring it back. We don't have the huge stock of sewing machines parts we have for vacuums, but we have many common parts and can do basic adjustments on most household machines.

   We have some modestly priced new machines, and sometimes have old cast metal used machines. We occasionally even have an antique Singer Featherweight for sale. All our sewing machines, new or used, are sewn in and guaranteed.

This website is a work in progress. More material will be added as time permits. While I would love to be working on my website all day I'm too busy helping customers

Why Would Anyone Buy a Used Vacuum?

Why would anyone buy a used or rebuilt vacuum from me when they could buy a cheap Chinese vacuum at the big box store? Several reasons. We guarantee what we sell, and after the warranty is up we give discounts on parts and labor on machines we sold. Plus, machines we sold go to the head of the line to be repaired. Most of our rebuilt vacuums were much higher quality and much more expensive when they were new. If you like to think GREEN and RECYCLE, what better way to keep stuff out of the landfill than to use it instead of contributing to the balance of trade deficit by buying a cheap Chinese vacuum.

Why Would Anyone Repair a Vacuum?

     Why would anyone repair a vacuum cleaner? Why not? It's the GREEN thing to do, not putting old vacuums in the landfill. It might also be more economical than buying a comparable vacuum. We give FREE ESTIMATES on repairs, so it's your decision. While the big box stores sell lots of Chinese vacuums for under $100, better vacuums cost a lot more. Some (Kirby, Aerus, Filter Queen, Rainbow, TriStar) sell new for well over $1000(most of what we sell new is a lot less, but more than $100. Our average new vacuum sale for the 1st 10 months of 2011 was around $330.) Our average repair for the 1st ten months of 2011 was under $36. I'm not saying we can fix yours for $36, but we fixed a lot for that or less. Let us give you a FREE ESTIMATE.
      If you have a $59 vacuum that needs major repair, it probably isn't worth bringing in, unless it has sentimental value. To give you an idea what repairs cost, on machines not purchased from us(machines purchased from us get a big discount on labor and 10% off on parts), the minimum labor for a minor repair (like changing a belt, unclogging a hose, etc.) is $10, but there is NO charge if we don't repair it. replacing cords or switches runs around $30 labor and 5-$20 in parts on most machines. So if you have a vacuum that you know needs a cord and say also has a worn out brush($15-$30 on most) and say a $15 filter you know is shot and you don't think the machine is worth the $70-$90 that would be, then it isn't worth the gas to bring it in. A phone call (359-4VAC) explaining what model it is and what the problem is will get you a closer estimate, but I can't tell everything a machine needs without seeing it. But as I said, if you KNOW it needs these things, that gives you an idea. If you had a $250 vacuum that ran fine but you knew it needed those things, it would probably be worth doing. On a machine that doesn't run, I want to have approval to fix it if it's the cord or switch, with the understanding that if it's the motor or there are other things wrong we will call you and if you don't want it fixed, we'll give it back no charge. Many years ago I took a dozen or more screws out of a vacuum, found it was a bad switch, and called the customer with an estimate. She said "that old vacuum isn't worth $5". While $5 went a lot further 35 years ago than it does now, the principle is the same. If  a dead machine isn't worth $30-$45(broken wire, or bad cord, or bad switch) we won't take it apart. We like to give the estimates at the time it comes in, because we have so many repairs to do that if we took everything apart and called, and couldn't reach half the people, or they said "let me ask my spouse", we'd have machines apart all over and might get parts mixed up. So we don't want to open it up unless we can hopefully finish it and close it up again. Most dead machines are not the motor, but a cord, switch, or broken wire.

Donations to Recycle

     We take our cardboard & metal to recycling. We will gladly accept donations of metal vacuums or sewing machines, or quality plastic vacuums or sewing machines (to scrap parts from to keep another one out of the landfill). We do not need cheap plastic vacuums as there is almost nothing to recycle and no one will spend the money having one fixed so we don't need parts from them. Nor do we want Hoover Steam Vacs, Bissell Pro Heats, or other carpet extractors, as we do NOT work on them at all. If you have any questions, please call us, 359-4822. Please do not just abandon plastic vacuums in the parking lot, as they take up a lot of space in the dumpster, and we may have no use for them.

     If you know of a local recycler who will take ABS plastic(what most vacuums are made of) or styrofoam (which some are packed in), we would be interested to know this, as we could keep a lot of stuff out of the landfill.

     I'm glad you found my website. I have an unshakable faith in God and our Lord Jesus Christ. I know that God is with us at all times, even when it's not apparent. I know that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and yours. No sin is too terrible that the blood of Jesus doesn't wash us clean. All you have to do is repent of your sins and ask Jesus to be your Lord & Savior.

Antique Vacuums