Europe to cut power of vacuum cleaners to save energy
The Telegraph -
The cleanliness of Britain’s homes is being threatened by European bureaucrats
who want to reduce the power of vacuum cleaners in a bid to cut energy use.
First it was traditional light bulbs, then it was plasma televisions. Now European bureaucrats are targeting the nation’s vacuum cleaners as part of plans to cut energy use in the home.
Officials at the European Commission are proposing to restrict the power of domestic vacuum cleaners in a move which experts fear could reduce their effectiveness in sucking up dust and dirt.
Manufacturers say it could also reduce cleaners’ ability to remove fine particles from the air they pump back into the atmosphere, potentially leading to nasty side-effects for allergy and asthma sufferers.
The EU experts propose restricting the power of vacuum cleaners to levels last seen in the 1960s.
Britain’s current best selling upright bagged vacuum cleaner, the Hoover Pure Power, has a power rating of 2.1 kilowatts (kW) – about the same as a typical kettle. A rival, the Vax Power 2 Pet has a power input of 2.2kW.
The EC, however, wants power inputs to be cut by the year 2014 to 500 Watts (0.5kW) for upright cleaners and 750 Watts for canister cleaners and upright cleaners with integral hose and tools. The cuts, it claims, would help save enough electricity to power 2.3 million homes.
Alex Martin, technical director at the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances, said manufacturers were concerned about the move.
“If you are affecting the amount of energy you have flowing through a product then of course it is a concern about how that will impact on cleaning performance,” he said.
“Filtration efficiency is something else that is being looked at. If you lower the amount of energy in a product then there are numerous other criteria that need to be considered such as to how able a product is able to filter dust.”
Read More: telegraph.co.uk
Again, the EU gets it wrong. They are implementing new rules when they have no technical knowledge to back up what they are proposing. There are 1KW vacuums that have the effective power of a 2KW unit, they do the job fine, its based on clever design, however this is still twice the power figure the EU have thought up out of the ether. Honestly, its time to get out of the EU, they need Ireland more than Ireland needs them.