Vacuuming up those pesky pine needles after the holiday season might seem like a good idea, but trust me, it’s a no-no for your regular vacuum cleaner. Pine needles can wreak havoc on it!
In this post, we’ll dive into why you should steer clear of vacuuming pine needles and what smart alternatives you can use instead. Let’s make sure your vacuum cleaner enjoys a pine-needle-free existence!
Can You Vacuum Pine Needles?
When it comes to pine needles, you should avoid vacuuming them up with your regular household vacuum cleaner.
Unlike typical household debris, pine needles present a unique set of challenges due to their shape, size, and flammability. Their sharp, rigid structure can easily clog the vacuum’s intake and hose, leading to reduced suction power and potential damage to the machine’s motor. Also, most regular vacuum cleaners are not sealed, and since pine needles are flammable, it creates a problem if a spark occurs.
Additionally, the sticky resin found in pine needles can adhere to the vacuum’s brushes and filters, further impeding its performance. Therefore, while a regular vacuum cleaner may be suitable for everyday cleaning tasks, it is ill-equipped to handle the demands of vacuuming pine needles effectively.
How To Pick It Up
The most effective solution for picking up pine needles is to use a shop vacuum. If you don’t already own one, it’s highly recommended that you invest in a shop vacuum, especially if you have kids and pets!
A shop vacuum is designed to handle a wide range of debris, making it an ideal choice for cleaning up after your children or dealing with bothersome pet hair. Let’s face it; during the holiday season, you’ll have plenty of other things to clean besides pine needles.
A properly working shop vacuum is more sealed up and more durable than a normal vacuum cleaner, as it needs to be to suck up water. This makes a shop vacuum the better option when it comes to cleaning up pine needles.
Best Shop Vacuum To Use
The best shop vacuum is the one you use, so it needs to be handy and quick to get out.
Overall, I consider a cordless shop vacuum cleaner to be the best shop vacuum, and have a detailed comparison guide as to why here.
You’ll find that you use the shop vacuum for a lot more than pine needles, and it may even become your go-to vacuum cleaner for most things around the home.
Other Ways
A shop vacuum isn’t the only way to pick up pine needles, here is a list of other ways to get pine needles off your floor.
- Broom: A simple but effective broom will help, and not just any broom. You want to use a rubber broom like this one here (Amazon Link Ad) to help with cleaning pine needles from your floor.
- Leaf blower: You can get a few leaf blowers that also have a suction feature with a bag. Much like a vacuum cleaner, you suck up the pine needles, but the leaf blower can handle the larger and stickier mess.
- Enlist the kids: You can make a game of it, whoever picks up the most pine needles wins!
- Carpet rake: If the pine needles are on the carpet, you’ll need to use a carpet rake (Amazon Link Ad) to get them all up. A carpet rake is like a giant comb for carpets and will fluff up the carpet, so you can further get the smaller pieces left behind.
- Sweeper: For pine needles, you can use a carpet sweeper. They’re often manually powered and don’t have tubes that can get clogged or no electricity to create a spark. It’s basically a step above sweeping.
Anyone one of these options can help, but overall, the shop vacuum is the best advice you’ll find and helps with other messes you’ll run into.
How To Remove Tree Sap From Carpets
If you have a Christmas tree in your home, the pine needles can be a problem, but so can the tree sap.
The video below does an amazing job showing you how to get tree sap out of your carpets.
Vacuuming Christmas Tree
Christmas tree needles are pine needles, and it’s best you don’t vacuum them with your normal vacuum cleaner.
The best way to get up pine needles is with a shop vacuum, as covered in this post. You can also use a broom, carpet sweeper and many more things as covered above in this post.
How To Keep A Christmas Tree From Losing Too Many Needles
The fewer pine needles on the floor, the less clean-up you’ll need to do, so what are the ways to keep them from falling in the first place?
The video below gives great tips to keep your Christmas tree from losing too many needles fast.
One trick that doesn’t get enough attention is “needle lock” that many of the tree farms use to keep the pine needles from coming off. It’s basically Elmer’s glue and water, mix it, then spray it on the tree. It’s far safer than using hair spray, which is bad, as the Mythbusters figured out, but works the best to keep pine needles from falling off your Christmas tree. You’re basically paper mache-ing the needles to the tree.
Robot Vacuums
A robot vacuum can pick up pine needles, as found here, but I don’t suggest it.
Yes, the robot vacuum will pick up pine needles, so can a regular vacuum cleaner, but it’s the damage or danger that is the real issue. The sap destroys the moving parts of the robot vacuum, and with pine needles being so flammable, it just not best to use a robot vacuum.
Outside Pick Up
If your yard is covered with pine trees, or you have a Christmas tree outside, you may be wondering how to get rid of the pine needles.
There are two good options:
- Leaf blower.
- Yard sweeper.
The leaf blower is the go-to for many, but if the pile of needles is large enough, most leaf blowers can’t handle it. Sure, you can get some power leaf blowers at a good price, but they are often gas powered or require an extension cord. You could even rent the walk-behind leaf blowers if you got a lot of area to cover.
The other option is a yard sweeper (Amazon Link Ad), which tends to be more quiet and more delicate.
You also have the shop vacuum for smaller areas, and when set up correctly, it can be used to clean wet messes.