I bought this primarily to handle the constant tumbleweeds of dog air and tracked in sand on tile and wooden floors. I have a central vac and a standard floor model, both too heavy to be convenient. The Bissell Featherweight really is very lightweight. It does a great job on the bare floors and is good on the short pile rugs where we were told not to use a beater type vacuum. I am hopeless mechanically, but this is easy to take apart and put together,,easy to go from floor model to hand model and works in both forms. We had a problem with delivery, but the Customer Service rep was very helpful and the problem was taken care of expeditiously. This may be used as a sweepstakes entry...