Anyone with a cat or dog knows just how hard it can be to clean up pet hair around the home. Floor coverings such as carpet and rugs, furniture and curtains, even the car and your clothes can seem to be covered in hair no matter how often you clean.

When viewed at close range, it's obvious why pet hair is so good at sticking to things, take a look at this close-up of a dog hair:  The textured surface coupled with a static charge can make these hairs permanently stick to just about anything.

Fortunately, the powerful suction of a ducted vacuum coupled with the right choice in cleaning attachments is a great way to 'win the war' against pet hair in your home - read on for the best products and our top tips to keep your house and family free from pet hair. All of these attachments are universal 32mm size to suit all ducted vacuums and most portables.

Vacuum Pet Hair from Carpet and Rugs

The best performing vacuum attachment for removing pet hair from carpet is a Turbo Head, and our top pick in this category is the TurboCat (despite the name, it works equally well with cat and dog hair!) The TurboCat's high speed roller brush gently beats the carpet fibres as you vacuum to help release pet hair and other embedded material. The simple design of a turbo head uses the suction from your vacuum motor to spin the roller brush, there is no electrical motor or batteries to worry about.

Certain types of carpet do not benefit from the roller brush in a turbo vacuum head, such as some commercial style carpets, carpet tiles and any carpet with a very low pile height. In these instances, we have found good results can be obtained using a regular 'combination' vacuum head with the hard floor bristle lowered - to brush the carpet as you vacuum.

This method can be very effective, but you may find pet hair accumulating on the bristles as you are vacuuming. You can simply vacuum off the build up as you go so the bristle will continue picking up hair.

One more tip for vacuuming pet hair from carpets:
Don't use deodorising powder. This is often suggested as a good way to improve vacuum performance and remove smells, however, the powder will quickly block up filters and vacuum bags in all ducted and portable vacuum cleaners. Small amounts of powder won't cause any problems, but they won't help much with hair pick up or deodorising either.

Vacuum Pet Hair from Hard Floor Surfaces

With many modern homes having large areas of hard floors,and this being the designated living area for many pets - it's no wonder that vacuuming cat and dog hair from hard floors is something we are asked about every day. The answer is Microfibre. More specifically, Microfibre with the added power of a ducted vacuum.

Pet hair is good at sticking to things - but microfibre is unbeatable at sticking to any dirt, dust or hairs in it's path. Microfibre vacuum heads glide over all smooth hard surfaces and lock on to pet hairs for a thorough clean. Excess hair can be vacuumed off the microfibre pad as you go and the pads are removable so you can throw them in the washing machine, and keep them cleaning like new.

A regular hard floor brush is also an option for any type of hard floor, and the best choice for slate, or any other textured surface (where microfibre may snag and catch). To be effective, a hard floor brush needs to have a cutaway bristle, like the one pictured below, if there is no cutaway most of the hair will just be pushed along, not vacuumed up and off the floor.

Vacuum Pet Hair from Furniture and Soft Furnishings

Just like carpet, tiles and timber - pet hair clings to furniture of all types. Fabric and leather couches, curtains, coffee tables and otttomans. In some cases, the products featured above may do the job on these smaller, varied objects, but usually they are simply to large to clean effectively. The hand-held RugRat turbo head is essentially a miniature TurboCat which cleans with an air driven roller brush for amazing results on fabric couches, sofas and armchairs.

The RugRat is also great at removing pet hair and for general vacuuming in your car. It's small enough to clean in and around the seats and floor mats, as well as vacuuming the carpet in the boot.

Our upholstery vacuum brush is another small but effective attachment which uses a bristle strip to pull hair off fabric sofas and chairs. The combination of a stiff brush in the bristle strip and notches in the base for constant air-flow ensure hairs are trapped in the upholstery brush and sucked away for good.

A crevice tool is another essential vacuum attachment to get around the thick cushions and back rests on many sofas and couches. We particularly like this extra-long crevice tool, which at 300 millimetres in length, is capable of reaching down the deepest cushions where pet hair loves to hide. The notches on the side of this crevice tool ensure the air keeps flowing even when stuck down the back of your couch for continuous suction.

Pet Grooming Vacuum Attachment

Forget about trying to clean up all the pet hair the cat or dog leaves around your home - why not try to catch it at the source... This Pet Grooming Vacuum Attachment has rubber tips to loosen and comb out stray hairs from your cat or dog whilst giving them a relaxing massage. Best of all, when used with a ducted vacuum system, your pet won't be scared by the noisy motor of a portable vacuum cleaner.

The pin-comb is a removable plate which you can pop out to clean any build up of fluff and other debris. The head rotates 360 degrees on the handle for convenient cleaning, and happy 'hair-lite' pets in your home.

All of this vacuumed hair has to end up somewhere if you follow some of our tips in this article... in your vacuum cleaner! That's great news since it's no longer in your home. but it can still be a nuisance if left for too long. The exhaust air of pretty much all vacuum cleaners will inevitably carry some odours from the contents within. Although this is not much of a problem for ducted vacuums ( unlike portables, which exhaust back into your home) it's still a good idea to change the bag or empty the bucket regularly.

Pet hair, along with dead skin / dander and any other nasties you have sucked up can also reduce the performance of your vacuum motor, as the fine particles gradually break down clog up the filtration system. If you are vacuuming up pet hair frequently, we recommend changing the bag or emptying the bucket around every 3 months for a ducted system instead of the usual 6 month cycle.

As mentioned at the start of this guide, all of our attachments are a universal 32mm diameter to suit all ducted vacuums and most portable vacuums including

Ducted Vacuums - Aussie Vac, Auskay, Astro Vac, Beam, Central Vac, Cyclic, Cyclo-Vac, DAS, Electrolux, Electron, EVS, Filtex, Hoover, Hills, iCentral, Lux, Premier Clean, Smart, Silent-Master, Vacumaid, Valet, Volta, Vactron,
Portable Vacuums - Electrolux, Hoover, Kambrook, Nilfisk, LG, Panasonic, Sanyo, Samsung, Volta, Vax, Wertheim
Backpacks - Pullman, Origin, Numatic, Nilfisk, Pacvac, Superpro, Hako

If you need any more information on these products, or anything else to do with ducted vacuums, please feel free to give us a call on 03 9763 6777 or contact us through our website. We've got a team of dedicated staff that can help with any of your ducted vacuum questions.