Looking to prolong the life of your vacuum cleaner? Here's a guide of what NOT to do!

• Before you use your Vacuum Cleaner to clean our the car, make sure that the surfaces that you intend to vacuum are not damp or waterlogged. If your dry vacuum cleaner sucks up water, it'll get into the motor and either cause a costly repair or death to your vacuum cleaner!
• Buy a cheap second hand vacuum cleaner if you intend to do renovation around the home. Garage Sales and eBay are good places to find some. Why should you have a second cleaner? If you use your good domestic vacuum cleaner to vacuum up Gyprock dust or Concrete dust, you'll more than likely kill the motor. If your vacuum cleaner has bags, the fine powder will clog up the pores, making your vacuum motor work harder. The powder will more than likely get sucked though into your motor.
• Don't use the "shake and bake" powder on your carpet. Sure, it'll make your house smell nice and fresh, but the fine powde will have the same effect as concrete or gyprock dust. This also goes for Talcum Powder spilt in your bathroom.

If you DO have to vacuum up fine powder, throw the bag away immediately afterwards.

• Bottle tops are not intended to be sucked up by a Vacuum Cleaner. Nor are rocks, guitar picks, satay sticks, coins, lego pieces.... you can see where I'm going with this. You'll either block the hose of your vacuum, or a belt if it's an upright model.

The most important thing to remember, in this day or recycling and conservation, is that new isn't neccessarily best. If your Vacuum Cleaner breaks down, many repair shops will offer a Free Quote on repairs. You may need something as simple as the repair of a plug or a lead!