The Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum is a handheld vacuum cleaner designed for quick liquid and debris cleanups around the home and car. Retailing at $39.99, it's affordable and compact, but can it tackle our at-home tests?
With an impressive 14,000Pa suction power and a small range of accessories, this cordless vacuum aims to tackle wet and dry spills anywhere in your home. Designed for use on kitchen surfaces, hard floors and carpeting, it provides around 10 minutes of continuous use. It comes with a charging base that can be freestanding or wall-mounted.
Our expert review checks out how well the Black+Decker Dustbuster Cordless Wet & Dry vacuum coped with sludgy spills, liquid messes, grainy debris and fine dust. Find out how we got on and discover whether it’s the perfect handheld wet/dry vacuum for your home.
If the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum isn’t right for you, check out our best handheld vacuums for every budget, all tried and tested.
Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum: Key specifications
Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum: Price & availability
The Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum retails at $39.99 on the Black+Decker website and Amazon. It's a little more expensive than handheld units from rivals, such as Daewoo, Zamufo and Beldray, which generally retail at around $10 cheaper.
Whereas most handheld units like this are designed with cars in mind, the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum can be used practically anywhere, from the kitchen to the bathroom. It makes quick work of dry, liquid and combination spillages. While it won't replace your regular vacuum, it's a handy tool to have around the home.
It would have been nice to have an extra filter and a couple of foam inserts included, but these can be bought for a few dollars on various spare parts site (we couldn't find them on Black+Decker's site).
Overall, it's pretty economical and affordable in terms of price. Plus, we think you'll use this a lot in your home and car, so you should get great value from it.
Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum: First impressions
The Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum comes in a slim cardboard box with just one plastic bag to dispose of. It's super quick to put together, too; all you have to do is fit the plastic wet/dry deflector and foam insert together and pop them into one end of the dustbin. Simply click the dustbin to the handheld part, and you're good to go in around a minute. The plastic wet/dry deflector and foam insert stop crumbs and liquid from entering the electrical part of the unit, so don't forget to insert these.
The unit comes with some charge, so you can try it out straight away. It also comes with a squeegee for wet spills, and a crevice tool and brush tool for dry debris, which you slide into the mouth of the vacuum depending on the task at hand. There's nowhere to store these on the unit itself, so you'll have to keep them elsewhere when not in use.
The Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum also has a charging base to mount on a wall. Screws and rawlplugs are provided, although they're a little feeble looking, so you may prefer to source your own more sturdy ones.
If you don't mount it, it's not the smoothest docking experience, but it works fine. I imagine it works a lot better when sliding the unit into a fixed wall mount.
Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum: Design
Overall, the design of the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum is no-nonsense and very practical. It's made of plastic so it's light and easy to handle, and it comes in a black and blue colorway, with the power button and the dustbin release button picked out in gray.
It has a good-sized bevelled handle to improve grip, and the trigger power button is easily reached with your thumb. You'll need to continuously press this for power so it's important to be fairly comfortable.
The 2 oz. dustbin is made of transparent blue plastic so you can see the dirt and debris you're vacuuming and know when it's time to empty.
The tool accessories come in light gray, and each one is easy to insert and remove from the mouth of the unit. Everything feels sturdy despite being made of plastic, so I don't anticipate any cracks or breaks from usage. It's a simple design that's intuitive and easy to set up and use, which is pretty well suited to the price tag. The convenient size and length also mean that you can store it in a cupboard, under a couch, in a deep drawer or in the trunk of your car quite easily, and it won't take up loads of space.
My only gripe is that there isn't even one replacement foam insert. The one that came with the vacuum got pretty grimy during testing, so it feels remiss not to bung a few extra in the box, although you can pick these up cheaply elsewhere.
Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum: Performance
The Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum comes with some charge so you can get to work mopping up messes straightaway.
During testing, I looked at how well the wet/dry vacuum dealt with different types of liquid and debris, using a mix of sauces, milk, spilt cereal, oats and flour on various surfaces, as well as using it as a general spot cleaning vacuum on a daily basis. I also used it in my car on the seats and the floor.
For liquids, you'll need to insert the squeegee head. First, I used it to mop up pools of water around my kitchen basin, which seem to collect every time I wash something or run the faucet. It sucked all the water away quickly and easily.
Next, I tested how well it dealt with thicker, sludgier messes. It coped well with spilt cereal and milk on the floor, although a few tiny traces of milk were left, which needed to be wiped away in case of unpleasant odors. But I was pretty impressed. Without the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum, cleaning up this mess would have taken quite a few rounds of kitchen paper.
Next up, a blob of ketchup and one of honey. The vacuum didn't like these so much. Rather than sucking these messes up, it tended to smear them around a bit, and a lot of the ketchup and honey collected within the squeegee head, rather than being sucked into the dustbin. So, while it's quite good at vacuuming up thin liquids, it's not quite as effective when it comes to more viscous sauces.
Onto dry debris next. I checked how well the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum could power through oats and flour on a hardwood floor and carpet. Again, I was impressed at how quickly and cleanly it lifted away debris. The suction is powerful enough to get everything off a firm surface or out of carpet fibers, making it a convenient and easy tool for quick spot cleaning instead of lugging your regular vacuum out.
With a cat and a golden retriever in the house, we have a lot of pet hair to contend with. While it's not specifically designed for pet hair, I wondered if the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum might be able to replace my regular cordless vacuum when it came to cleaning my sofa. It's not ideal, to be honest — there's no roller brush or detangling attachment, and the brush head isn't wide enough to make it an easy job. However, it's great at pulling up all those little crumbs that gather underneath sofa cushions, and it does tackle clumps of pet hair quite well.
I also used the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum in my car. While it's no match for the best shop vacuums, it did a pretty good job cleaning up the floor mats, as you can see from the left-hand side of the image above. Swapping out the brush tool for the crevice tool, I could also remove embedded crumbs from the back seat (an inevitable side effect of having an 11-year-old).
I used this cordless wet dry vacuum most on my kitchen surfaces. It is unexpectedly brilliant for toast crumbs, little bits of scrappy veg peelings, bits of broccoli that are left behind after chopping up a floret. Think of all those tiny fragments that are too small to scoop up and compost. Instead of wiping them up with a cloth and risking blocking my drain, I was able to swiftly vacuum them up and empty them into the trash or compost.
Cleaning out the dustbin is relatively easy, although debris tends to get stuck around the mouth of the vacuum, so you'll need to give it a good rinse in the sink. The sponge insert can also get pretty grimy very quickly. If you're not keen on getting your hands dirty, you may prefer something that's easier to clean.
The battery life is ten minutes and I found it took around four hours to fully charge after running down the battery. That feels like a lot but I imagine I would keep the appliance mounted on the charger if I were to have this in my home permanently.
A note to users who want a quiet home vacuum: the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum is pretty loud — clocking in at 75 decibels (dB) which is equivalent to the noise of a dishwasher. Don't expect to have a normal conversation while you're using it and the volume may be too loud for sensitive users.
However, overall I was really pleased with the Black+Decker Dustbuster Cordless Wet & Dry vacuum and I can see myself using it a loot around the house, but most of all in the kitchen.
Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum: Care and maintenance
You will need to regularly empty and clean out the 2oz. dustbin on the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum, as it's so small and can only hold a limited amount of debris or liquid.
To prevent any unpleasant odors it's also a good idea to wash out the dustbin, plastic wet/dry deflector and foam insert regularly too.
Black+Decker recommends replacing the filter every six to nine months and whenever worn or damaged. Rather confusingly, in the manual that comes with the appliance, and the manual online, instructions on how to do this are not included, despite being referred to in the manual as 'Remove the old filters as described in Cleaning the Filters' and 'Fit the new filters as described in Cleaning the Filters'.
It's not clear whether the sponge insert or the plastic wet/dry deflector is the filter that the manual refers to. Having taken the handheld part of the vacuum part with a screwdriver, I can confirm there's nothing that looks like a filter in there either. So all of this is rather confusing.
Should you buy the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum?
Buy it if...
Don't buy it if...
How does the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum compare?
If you're not interested in picking up liquid spills, one of our best handheld vacuums for 2024 might fit the bill better, including the Black + Decker Dustbuster CHV1410L.
You could try the Eufy HomeVac H11 handheld vacuum for a stylish and compact handheld vacuum. It works well for pet hair and dust and has a slightly longer battery life of 13 minutes. It's also much quieter, coming in at just 35 decibels, but it's not suited to liquid spills.
If you'd rather have a hands-free experience, the Eufy X10 Pro Omni will do everything for you, including vacuuming, mopping and self-emptying. But you'd better have a much bigger budget as it retails for hundreds of dollars more!
How I tested the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum
I used the Black+Decker Dustbuster QuickClean Cordless Wet/Dry Handheld Vacuum for two weeks, using it around my home and car to clean up liquid and dry spills in the kitchen and seeing how well it coped with mud and sand in the car. I also tested it with controlled experiments, using oats, flour, liquids, cereal, honey and sauces. I cleaned laminate floors and carpets with the Black+Decker Dustbuster Cordless Wet & Dry vacuum and used a decibel meter to record volume output.
