Originally Posted by
joel cervera
My trusty and dependable Ridgid shop vac just just burnt out after 10 or 12 years. I did some research but in the end decided to buy another Ridgid. It has more suck than any of the other high end vacs. In my 2 car garage the shop, that is usually with the door open, I figured a clean stream hepa filter and a dust deputy would work great. Well at the very last minute, I found out that home depot sells a new Duststopper separator for $40 bucks. I researched on line and it seems to perform nearly identically to the dust deputy. Whatever minuscule performance differences are totally offset by the low profile of the duststopper (YMMV).
I bought a new 14 gallon 6 hp Ridgid vac for $99. Duststopper $40. clean stream hepa filter $30. and and some small HF polyurethane casters $12. Strapped it all together with a pair of old bungee cords and it works great! Wheels around super smoothly. Easy and fast to clean or separate for odd jobs not requiring the dust stopper. Kept the original filter for yard jobs not requiring hepa filtration. And the new Vac is much quieter the my old one.
All in all, in my situation I could not be happier for $200 bucks.