A central vacuum offers a number of advantages over canisters and uprights, including ease of use, greater power, and the sheer convenience of never needing to bring a vacuum to any room or floor to clean your home from top to bottom. But as you might have heard growing up, a chain is only as strong as a weakest link. In the context of a whole house vacuum, the only way to make the most of its advantages is to have a working unit on one end of your ducting and a quality vacuuming head on the other.
While you can make an air-powered head work for bare floors and low-pile carpets, if you want to clean the gamut from bare floors to high pile, plush, and soft carpets, you’re going to need an electric power head with multiple carpet height adjustments. We’ve recently reviewed several central vacuums, including the Prolux CV12000 and DuoVac Air 10. Today we’re going to review the Wessel Werk EBK 360 Power Nozzle with Integrated Wand and compare it to the 4 central vacuum kits optionally bundled with the 360: 30 and 35 foot direct connect and pigtail kits. To summarize our review in ten seconds, buy the EBK 360 by itself if you already have a working hose, and buy the 35 foot direct connect or pigtail kits if you don’t. Our full review is below, and you can buy the EBK 360 here.
Pros, cons, and key features of the Wessel Werk EBK 360 Power Nozzle
The Wessel Werk EBK 360 power nozzle is an electric power head brush with an integrated telescoping steel wand. Made in Germany, the EBK 360 features a 5-position manual adjustment for carpet height; level 1 is the lowest setting for bare floors, while level 5 is the highest for plush and soft carpets; levels 2, 3, and 4 are for low-, medium-, and high-pile carpets respectively. The settings are adjusted by a foot pedal on the head.
The EBK 360 includes a 360 degree swivel neck and a quick disconnect pedal to separate it from the cleaning wand. The powered brush can be turned on and off, allowing you to clean bare floors (where the beater bar is unnecessary) with less noise by only using air suction. The EBK 360 features LED headlights to help find dirt in dark places and a large internal intake for more efficient suction and clog prevention. Combined with the adjustable height settings, you can expect to clean virtually every carpet pile, density, or thickness on the market. The cleaning head has a cleaning path 14 inches wide.
A particularly interesting bit of information is that the EBK 360 is actually the same electric brush head found on a number of high-end Miele canisters, including the Complete 3 Cat & Dog, Complete C3 Kona, Complete C3 Soft Carpet, Classic C1 Cat & Dog, Classic C1 Titan, Classic C1 Delphi, and Compact C2 Electro+. There are minor cosmetic differences in color, lighting, and of course, the labeling, but it’s clear from external and internal examination that both sets of heads are made in the same German factory. This is a good thing! It essentially means that if you want the power you get from the EBK 360 in a portable vacuum, all you need to do is buy one of the Mieles above; it’s considerably cheaper than ducting a home for central vacuuming, buying the vacuuming unit, and buying the EBK 360 piecemeal.
What’s the difference between the EBK 360 and the Direct Connect and Pigtail Central Vacuum Kits?
If you’re considering the Wessel Werk EBK 360, you might have noticed it’s also available as part of a set of Central Vacuum Kits. Specifically, there’s a 30 foot direct connect kit, a 30 foot pigtail kit, a 35 foot direct connect kit, and a 35 foot pigtail kit. All four kits come with the EBK 360 and telescoping wand; the differences are in the lengths and types of hoses that complete the kit.
The direct connect kits include low voltage powered hoses that plug into your wall valves just above the hose outlet; the pigtail hoses have separate power cords that run through the hoses and must be plugged in to a separate wall outlet the way you’d connect any normal appliance. Once connected, both hoses function exactly the same way and deliver the same amount of power and suction to the EBK 360; it’s just a difference where they draw their power from. If you already have a hose and handle you like, there’s no need to buy the full kits unless you’d like additional hoses for additional rooms in your home.
How well does the EBK 360 clean bare floors and low-, medium-, and high-pile carpets?
In a word: very, very well. We realize those were three words, but frankly, the EBK 360 deserved them. It works as well with a central vacuum as it does when attached to a Miele canister–better, in fact, as a good central vacuum will deliver far more power than even the strongest portable vacuum. With the EBK 360, you’ll be able to clean just about any surface you can buy and install in a home.
All bare floors will be within your reach, including but not limited to hardwood, engineered wood, vinyl, laminate, ceramic tiles, brick, porcelain tiles, marble, bamboo, and concrete. You’ll also be able to handle residential and commercial carpets like Saxonies, berbers, cut and loops, and friezes with ease, as well as soft, plush, and high pile carpets that just will clog just about any non-central vacuum besides a Miele canister. And naturally, the reason you can clean these carpets with Mieles is because they ship with the same cleaning head.
Functionally, you can adjust the height of the cleaning head with a foot switch on the unit, as mentioned earlier, and you can also turn the beater bar off to clean purely through air suction; this is handy when cleaning bare floors, which don’t require nearly as much power as thicker carpet piles. The telescoping wand adjusts smoothly, and if you invest in the hose kits, we’re happy to report that they’re lightweight, move easily, and don’t kink. The handle at the end of the hoses is small but comfortable; it’s easy to hold for long periods of time.
Why buy the EBK 360?
To sum up our thoughts, if a central vacuum is one of the best cleaning investments you can make in a home, the EBK 360 is one of the best investments you can make for a home already equipped with a central vacuum. It’s powerful, reliable, well-designed, and affordable. Our only suggestions would be to consider whether you’d benefit from a direct connect or pigtail hose kit as well as the brush head if your current hose system is worn down, leaking, or not long enough to reach wherever you’d like to clean.
You can buy the Wessel Werk EBK 360 power nozzle and wand here on Amazon. You can also buy it with a 30-35 foot direct connect hose kit here or buy it with a 30-35 foot pigtail hose kit here.
Canadians can buy the Wessel Werk EBK 360 power nozzle and wand here. You can also buy it with a 35 foot direct connect hose and accessory tool kit here.
If you find our research on PMC helpful, you can follow our efforts to keep maniacally reviewing home cleaning tools by shopping through our links above. We promise to keep fighting the good fight against every horror children, animals, and grown, yet messy humans can inflict upon a clean home.