How Often Should You Run Your Roomba: From Singles to Allergic Pet Owners With 5 Kids

Roomba owners often wonder how often they should let their trusty robot vacuum loose in their homes. The answer? Well, it varies! Your Roomba’s cleaning schedule depends on your unique needs and circumstances.

For those with furry friends shedding all year round, a daily cleaning routine might be your best friend. But if you’re in a less hairy situation, weekly runs could do the trick. Don’t fret; I’ve got you covered with a handy chart to make things crystal clear. It’ll help you decide just when to let your Roomba roam and keep your floors spick and span!

SituationsTimes Per Week
Single, live by yourself.1
Couple, no kids.1
Family with no pets3
Dusty areas3
Outside job or any dirty job3
If you don’t take shoes off in your home3
If you keep the windows open a lot3
Family with pets7
Anyone with allergies7

Run Time Per Room:

I feel modern robot vacuums have come a long way, and many now possess the impressive capability to map out rooms and efficiently determine when they’ve covered the entire space.

However, if your robot vacuum doesn’t feature this mapping technology, I’d recommend letting it run for a minimum of 10 minutes in each room to ensure a thorough cleaning. Let’s be real, no vacuum—whether robotic or traditional—is perfect. Even the most powerful ones won’t capture every speck of dirt in just one pass.

What matters is consistency.

Letting the robot vacuum run every week, day, or whatever your situation is what matters.

If the room is extra dirty, don’t be afraid to trap the Roomba in the room and let it run until it runs out of battery.

Empty Dust Bin After Every Cleaning

You should empty your robot vacuum dust bin after one cleaning or after the battery has been drained.

Don’t do multiple cleaning cycles on one dust bin; empty it every time.

Not emptying your robot vacuum cleaner after a cleaning cycle will keep it from working properly as the new dirt won’t have anywhere to go.

Overuse

Just like anything in life, robot vacuums do wear out.

But I’ve had robot vacuums run every day for 5 years and not slow down.

To make your robot vacuum last as long as possible, you need to maintain them properly. Check out my guide here to see what maintenance you need to do on your robot vacuum.

Best Time Of Day

Many people like running their robot vacuums when at work, so they don’t have to hear or trip over them.

I’m not too fond of the idea of a robot vacuum running when I’m not home.

The best time to run your robot vacuum is when you’re home or about to come home. So if you come home at 5 pm, I would have the robot vacuum start working around 4:45 pm and no earlier.

I say this from experience.

I’ve come home to the robot vacuum running over poop, and the aftermath was not good.

Not only that, but sometimes robot vacuums do stupid things and get stuck or break things they run into. Of course, over time, you learn the weak points of your house, but even then, things can happen.

So when you can, don’t have the robot vacuum running unless you’re around or about to be home soon. It’s essential you’re aware of your robot vacuum to avoid things like what happened in this video…

Robot Vacuums Don’t Use As Much Power As You Think

I’ve done the test to see how much power a robot vacuum uses if you use it every day, and it’s not as much as I thought it would be.

This doesn’t count the maintenance cost of replacement parts like brushes, but even then, it’s not that bad for the service the robot vacuum gives you.

Battery Lifespan Issues

Batteries don’t last forever, and the more you use them and charge them, the shorter it’s life will be.

You can expect about 400 charges out of your robot vacuum battery.

My goto answer is to replace your robot vacuum’s battery every 2 years.

I’ve seen people go over 3 years with the same battery, but they never notice the slow performance degradation. The robot vacuum may work, but its cleaning time gets shorter the more you use it, and replacing it every 2 years gets you the best cleaning.

If your robot vacuum is not charging, check these steps out.

Not A Vacuum Cleaner Replacement

A robot vacuum is not meant to replace your regular vacuum cleaner.

Having a robot vacuum helps with the in-between cleanings.

If you suffer from allergies or have a problem with pet hair all over your home, a robot vacuum is a must. Getting out the big vacuum is a chore where a robot vacuum can be put on a schedule and do a lot of the in-between cleanings.

Robot vacuums don’t have the suction power of the bigger vacuum cleaners, but as the image below shows, they do pick up quite a bit.

Author

LEE

Hello, I'm Lee from "ThemVacuums.com"! Launched in 2016, my site addresses the online information gap about "robot vacuums" and "vacuum cleaners," areas where I have hands-on experience. Got questions about a post or topic? Feel free to comment or contact me (contact)!

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