Meet the family who are laser-focused on banishing dust

With two small children, a dog and a mixture of asthma and allergies to consider, cleaning is a serious business for designer Ali Lowndes and her wedding videographer husband, Paul Barker.

Lowndes is well known for her quirky and colourful range of jewellery and accessories, the inspiration for which comes from very close to home: “I design for me, basically,” she laughs.

The couple moved into their current home, in Dublin’s Walkinstown a year ago. The move took them from a two-up, two-down in the Liberties, where Barker grew up, to a three-bedroom house with a huge garden. It’s perfect for the couple’s two children, Lukas (6) and  Sonny (4), as well as Holly, their 12-year-old Labrador.

“It means they can have a trampoline instead of bouncing on the beds,” says Lowndes. The only downside to trading up? “There’s loads more rooms to clean,” she jokes.

Keeping on top of housework is hard in any home, and it is particularly challenging for a self-employed duo with two energy-filled children and dog determined to be part of everything. Yet it’s really important to this couple that they do keep on top of the housework. Not alone does Barker suffer from dust allergies, but their youngest child was recently diagnosed with asthma,  which dust can  trigger.

“If we disturb dust at all Paul will be sneezing for ages,” says Lowndes. Like his son, Barker suffered from asthma as a child, which they know can be associated with allergies. Keeping the house as dust-free as possible is important to them.

That was especially challenging in the early days of their house move. They had to redecorate the entire house from top to bottom, room by room. “It was full of 1990s carpets we had to pull up and wallpaper we had to strip,” she says. “They were horrible. But it meant we had constant dust, and we’re not fully finished yet.”

It’s one of the reasons they like the Dyson V12 Detect Slim vacuum cleaner, a compact, cordless machine that helps eliminate dust.

The Dyson has completely changed their approach to vacuuming, Lowndes says. “Before we got it we would have done the upstairs much less often, simply because we had to get our old machine out, lug it upstairs and plug it in from room to room” – a tedious task.

“Because the Dyson is just so light, it’s no bother at all. And because it’s cordless, you don’t have to keep plugging and unplugging it. It’s brilliant for the stairs, too, not just because it’s so light, but because there’s no wire to keep tripping over either,” she adds.

“The result is that we’re vacuuming much, much more, simply because it’s so easy.”

Their flooring is a mix of laminate wood and rugs. The Dyson V12 Detect Slim’s suction works beautifully on both, providing a deep clean throughout.

Top technology

Because not all dust is visible to the human eye, the Dyson has a unique Laser Slim Fluffy Cleanerhead designed to pick out and illuminate hidden dust on hard floors, so the couple can be assured of a really deep clean.

“It shows all the dust you can’t see with your eye,” Lowndes says. “You might think you’ve done under the sofa, for example, but it shows you all the dust that’s still there.”

A piezo sensor in the V12 Detect slim measures microscopic dust particles. It monitors particles 15,000 times a second, counting and sizing the sucked-up dust and debris and automatically increasing suction power when needed. The LCD screen shows what has been vacuumed up, counting dust particles into the millions, including pollen, dust mites and skin flakes.

You know the dust is gone when the bar stops growing, giving the family piece of mind and scientific proof of a deep clean.

That’s a huge help, given that the family dog is what might be termed a super spreader. “Her hairs are everywhere. Right now she’s losing her winter coat and you only have to walk past her to see her hairs fly off,” Lowndes says.

Dyson’s hair screw tool picks up pet hair fast throughout the house and is a great way to keep Holly’s bed super clean. The anti-tangle conical brush bar spirals hair off and into the bin to prevent hair wrapping around the brush bar.

The machine can switch to handheld for awkward spaces, and has a variety of attachments suited to all sorts of jobs.

Floors are just the start. “I’d use it for everything from cleaning crumbs off the counter tops to getting crumbs out of the toaster,” Lowndes says. “I use it for cleaning the tops of picture frames, for light shades and even the leaves of indoor plants. You’d be amazed how much dust they pick up. I use it to clean out the toy box and take the dust off the kids’ toys. In fact, I don’t do any dusting at all now, I just get the Dyson out.”

Mostly she uses the “eco” or “medium” setting, switching to “boost” for trickier spots such as  under kitchen presses, a magnet for bits and pieces, “or the gap under the fridge”.

Switching to the Dyson V12 Detect Slim has changed the couple’s entire approach to cleaning, Lowndes says. “We used to do a big vacuum a couple of times a week because it was such an ordeal to get the machine out. Now we vacuum as we go. If we see a few crumbs on the floor after prepping dinner, we just use the Dyson.

“It has made the place so much cleaner because it’s just so much handier to use.”

Discover the Dyson V12 Detect Slim at dyson.ie