Finally, a Shop

By Wilder Davies

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When a glass baking dish full of juicy braised chicken thighs jumps out of your hands and ends up shattered and splattered on the kitchen floor, you basically have two options. Option one: you kneel down and pick out the large pieces of glass and food, lay down several layers of paper towels to absorb the hot chicken liquid, shovel the wet rags and glass into a dust pan, and rush it over to the trash can, repeating the whole process before a final once over with the vacuum or mop vac. Or, option two: you can bust out the Shop-Vac and it’ll take care of the whole mess for you. For truly formidable kitchen messes, an industrial vacuum like a Shop-Vac is a godsend.

The only problem is, Shop-Vacs are huge. In my house growing up, a shattered baking dish warranted summoning the Shop-Vac from the garage to sub in for the Dyson. But in my Tiny New York Apartment, there’s no free corner for a swarthy 9-gallon vacuum to nest when it’s not in use. But recently, I learned that Shop-Vac makes a petit model (1-gallon capacity)—and I was filled with hope that the grueling multistep process of manual cleanup for catastrophic kitchen messes was behind me once and for all.

In their native habitat, you can identify Shop-Vacs by their squat, barrel-shaped bodies and orange and gray coloring. These industrial-strength vacuums thrive in auto shops, wood shops, suburban family garages—places where they can suck up debris of all sorts that domesticated indoor vacuums are generally too sensitive to handle. A true omnivore of the vacuum kingdom, the Shop-Vac’s daily diet consists of materials like, water, spilled oil, saw dust, hair, and glass. As a testament to its indiscriminate appetite, my eccentric aunt vacuums her front lawn each fall with her Shop-Vac, claiming “it’s better than a rake!” for gathering dead leaves.

Just like the full-size version, the mini Shop-Vac comes with a hose attachment and a few different nozzles. For exclusively dry messes, you can use an interior vacuum bag, but for wet applications you should remove the bag and rely on the machine’s liquid filter. Thanks to its small size and the accompanying mounting hardware, this Shop-Vac rests comfortably on a wall inside my closet for easy and compact storage. It’s also small enough to tuck away under my sink.

Be aware that there are some limitations to the one gallon Shop-Vac’s capabilities if you’re accustomed to the larger version. It doesn’t have wheels, and the cord is not super long. For these reasons, if you choose to adopt a miniature Shop-Vac, you should know that it wont replace your existing vacuum. The small capacity also means it can handle only so much liquid (just shy of a gallon). Neglect to empty it after use and you’ll discover—as some unfortunate users online have found out—that the vacuum will begin ejecting liquid out of the back. If you’re truly dealing with a major mess, play it safe and empty it throughout the cleaning process.

I don’t mind this vacuum’s limited capacity at all: I’ve found that it’s the perfect size for the types of small-scale yet serious, messes that happen frequently in my kitchen—those messes my conventional indoor vacuum won’t tolerate. Spills like wet coffee grounds, damp potting soil, and shards of broken glass floating in puddles of juice are absolutely miserable to clean up manually, but are virtually painless with a little apartment-friendly Shop-Vac. In many ways, I think of my Shop-Vac as a fire extinguisher. I seldom use it, but when the overturned vat of chili situation occurs, I’m glad my Shop-Vac is there.