EU bans good vacuum cleaners — next big kettles, hot irons?

The Climate Police are coming.

In order to cool the global climate, the European Commission has decided, with infinite wisdom, that companies shall no longer be allowed to make or import vacuums with motors above 1600 watts — which is more than half of the vacuums on the market. These are climate-dangerous machines. They couldn’t just put a health warning with pics of drowning polar bears on the 2200W ones. They must be Verboten! The new rules start on September 1st. I’m sure if they could, they’d arrange a buy-back and amnesty program for high powered vacuums too.

In EUspeak, vacuums are about to get better! Apparently, they will use less energy, save money and pick up more dust too, all that was needed was regulation. (Why didn’t they think of it before?)

The Telegraph Consumers warned to “act quickly” before top-rated powerful vacuum cleaners sell out forever The European Commission claims that its new rules, which are intended to help tackle climate change by cutting Europe’s energy usage, will mean consumers “get better vacuum cleaners than ever before”.

The first vacuum was made in 1860. So after 150 years of fine tuning vacuum motors, at last the gifted bureaucrat has arrived to set the engineers and customers straight. EUspeak describes the marvel of how lower wattage equals the same power, and will cost less too:

In a blog last year, European Commission spokesman Marlene Holzner wrote: “Vacuum cleaners will use less energy for the same performance – how much dust they pick up. This will help consumers to save money and make Europe as a whole use less energy.”

(Just think: poor German engineers laboured under the delusion that power was measured in Watts. ) If less watts is good, then even less is even better. In 3 years vacuums will be cut down to 900W.

The average power of a vacuum on the market in Europe at the time was 1,800 watts. This will have to be halved within the next three years, as the limit of 1,600 watts will be reduced to just 900 watts from September 2017.

And I’m wondering if two 900W vacuums can be used in series? Can you buy modular vacuums, plug them together…?

But imagine that, it’s another free market failure. The dumb punters kept buying big inefficient vacuums that did not work well. Mere citizens, it seems, do not have the intellect to know when their carpets are sucked properly, or their money wasted. Now thanks to the Glorious Insight of Politicrats that vexacious problem will be gone. Though consumer groups like Witch? claimed that many of the banned models were the most popular and rated as “best buys”. (What would they know?) Mere moms and dads hoovering after the kids for decades are amateurs. The EU commissars know how to vacuum!

…Which? said that many of the models that its reviewers rate as the best on the market will fall foul of the rules. Of seven “best buy” ratings awarded by its vacuum cleaner reviewers since January 2013, five of them have motors of more than 1,600 watts, it said.

The limitation of wattage comes in a package of other regulations, some of which may or may not be sensible. But, as always, it gets packaged together in radiant auras — there is never any quid pro quo, no cost-benefits and nothing is compromised:

Ms Holzer said: “As a result of the new EU ecodesign and labelling regulations, consumers will also get better vacuum cleaners. In the past there was no legislation on vacuum cleaners and companies could sell poorly performing vacuum cleaners. “Now, vacuum cleaners that use a lot of energy, that pick up dust poorly, emit too much dust at the exhaust of the vacuum cleaner, are noisy or break down pre-maturely will not be allowed on the market anymore. This means a better cleaning experience and less time and money spent on vacuum cleaning.”

BBC news discusses the fallout:

Hoover – based in South Wales – said that most of its cleaners were in that [banned] category. It has been replacing its models since July with less powerful versions, but a few are still left on the shelves. Elements of the directive – known as 2009/125/EC – are being challenged by the Dyson group. So Europeans may have dustier carpets in the future, and large European appliance makers will presumably be opening factories in Asia (if they haven’t already done so). One of the few things we know for sure from this directive is that if the rest of the world wants big vacuums, they won’t be buying European made ones. More importantly I wonder, how did this happen so fast? Seventy years ago Europeans were fighting for freedom, now they’ve giving it away. It’s like the heady days of soviet shopping – get your State mandated light-bulb and permitted vacuum today! Do it for your country… Does no one have the energy to protest?

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