<p>Can anybody recommend a good sized shop vac type vacuum?</p>
<p>I don’t want anything too large, but nothing too small either. Nothing horribly expensive. I found a 5 gallon one at walmart for only 30 dollars but i’m wondering if that is too small for shop vac type usage? In the pictures it looks like it goes up to the knees of the person using it.</p>
<p>That one would probably be fine if you only use it for light duty. If something heavier is needed you might want to buy a “brand name” at lowes or home depot.</p>
<p>I mainly just plan on using it to clean up the basement and garage. wanted somthing small enough that i would have no problem carrying up the stairs of the basement (they are not the most wide). I currently have been lugging my regular vacuum up and down.</p>
<p>I have a 9 gallon Sears Craftsman that works fine. It really isn’t that large physically and isn’t too heavy to pick up and move around when needed (at least not for me). It comes with a number of different ends for vacuuming different surfaces. It came in very handy when I did a kitchen/bath renovation and works great for the car as well.</p>
<p>Many of the Home Depot Ridgid shop vacs look identical so I think the same manufacturer must supply both brands.</p>
<p>Please look at the horsepower! It should be prominently displayed somewhere on the box. H bought one at Home Depot that was only 2.5 hp. I couldn’t believe how weak it was but we needed it right away and couldn’t return it. Ended up abandoning it in D’s basement. </p>
<p>It was probably cheap so that may be why, not because of the gallon capacity.</p>
<p>Good point about the horsepower since the gallons is just a physical capacity. Mine’s a 3.5 HP one and it seems to be plenty of power. I would expect the weight to increase as the HP increases generally.</p>
<p>If you intend to use this shopvac for weekly cleaning of the garage floors (not for cleanup of water spills), consider getting a backpack style vacuum - many janitors use them because they are so much easier to handle.</p>
<p>Yes mostly for cleaning floors as opposed to water issues. (I sure hope my house doesn’t develop water issues!). it would either be for normal cleaning of floors or for cleaning up after sanding and sawing and whatnot. I do know what you mean by the backpack type. Our cleaning people at work have purple ones.</p>
<p>I highly recommend the one I’m using… a Vacmaster 5 gallon, 5 horsepower machine. I paid about $100 for it online.</p>
<p>thank you for the suggestion, i will look into it.</p>
<p>Does it make more sense to get one of those leaf blowers that also has the bag on it for you to suction things up with? Seems like that too is kind of a vacuum.</p>
<p>For what you said you’d use it for I’d get a shop vac - not a leaf blower. For one thing, you don’t want to suck up the sawdust only to have it blow out through the bag.</p>
<p>My shop vac has a narrow hose. It constantly gets clogged if I try to vacuum up anything large at all.</p>
<p>So I’d recommend you get one with at least a 2" hose.</p>
<p>The Vacmaster comes with a 2" diameter flex hose by 4’, plus a 12’ extension 2" flex hose, plus 4’ of solid extension. The hose and attachments are great quality. The main attachment is very ergonomic. There is also a programmable on/off switch at the handle so you won’t have to return to the tank to operate the on/off switch. There is also a mounting bracket if you want to mount it to the wall and get it off your floor and out of the way. A 5 gallon tank is a nice compact size yet is plenty big enough to hold lots of debris from your garage floor and automobiles. I empty the tank VERY infrequently-- I usually wait until it gets about 20% full and that is a LOT of debris.</p>