"Shop Vac" is a brand name for a competing product.

Just a nitpick: It's RiDgid, not Rigid.

Ridgid is the house brand for Home Depot, and from my experience seems to be a very high quality product line. I have a number of Ridgid tools including an 18v Lithium Ion cordless drill/driver/saw that performs incredibly well.

I have nothing but good things to say about this product line.

I just bought a new "old" house. That means there is lots of renovations to do. The tool has been great. Especially for drywall debris and the stuff that flakes off the foundation walls. You just have to remember to clean the filter at the end of a day of heavy use, otherwise you lose suction. I recommended getting a second filter so you can wash one off and then have the second one ready to go in case it doesn't dry overnight. Although, I suspect this advice would apply to any heavy duty vacuum.

While they are most readily available at Home Depot, they are not HD's "house brand". You can buy them from other retailers as well. They've also been around a lot longer than Home Depot.

That being said, we've got several of their tools at work and they are all well designed and well made. Our most recent purchase is Ridgid's Fiber-Cement saw, which is much better than the Makita version.

I love this vacuum. It is well designed; One feature is that debris is deflected in the canister from hitting the filter as it exits the hose. For dust that would clog plated filter, I wrap an old tee shirt around it. I believe foam filters are available for the same purpose.

The few Rigid floor-mount power tools I've looked at (a radial arm saw and a table saw) were made by Emerson Electric, who was Craftsman's supplier back in the good old days.

Had a Shopvac brand 8 years ago, burnt out 2 motors in less than 2 years of very light use. Will never buy a Shopvac again. I loved that it took an optional disposable dust bag, never lost suction and the bags were not expensive. If you were cheap you could silt the bag, empty it and tape it back up a few times. Way less messier than empting the barrel and cleaning the filter.

I have a 15 gallon RiDgid and it's short squat design encourages incoming dust to head straight to the filter. It needs to be emptied and cleaned frequently and that's a messy job. I wish it took a dust bag, then it would be perfect. I took it apart once and remember the motor brushes being like 2-3" long, seems to be designed to last.

One day I hope to retrofit the RiDgid to take a bag.

I've grown tired of having to don hearing protection every time we fire up one of our Craftsman wet-dry vacs at work, as well as paying $$$ to get replacement filters for our HEPA vac. I've been looking at some of the Fein vacuums, which all get rave reviews, but this looks like a reasonably-priced alternative. Also, the HEPA filters for the Ridgid are a LOT cheaper than those for the Fein.

I got a larger RiDgid several years ago for home and yard cleanup, but the !@#%^& plastic on/off switch broke clean off after a year of use. So now I have to start it by plugging it in.

How much did they save by using a plastic switch instead of metal? Probably a dime per unit... and some middle manager got a bonus for this great idea. How much aggravation have they caused me over the last six years? Priceless. I don't blame RiDgid especially for this. It's the curse of modern manufacturing's race to the bottom.

I have the model up from this one (WD1851) but they are essentially the same. I had the smaller/cheaper version but the upgrade to this model is worth the extra $50 for 2 reasons:

* This model has filer bags for drywall that work great in the shop for fine dust. It makes cleaning up the vacuum a snap. The bags don't fit the cheaper model. I was going to upgrade for this alone.

* This model also features an air exit port you can use as a blower. The port is the same as the inlet so all the hoses just snap on.

Home Depot makes a shop vac called the Bucket Head which fits on top of a sandard 5-gallon plastic bucket. The cost for the total unit (Bucket Head + Bucket) is less than $25. I bought two recently to clean up a washing machine overflow in my basement and they worked just fine. I recommend buying the Bucket Head and saving $125. Unless you're doing professional work, of course.

I'm a big Amazon user; usually their price is at or near the best deal and their service is the best. But this is one of those rare cases where you can really save significant $ at another retailer- HD sells this at their online store for $115. Even if you pay their $16.58 shipping (as opposed to picking it up at a local HD, in which case you pay NO shipping), the delivered price of $131.58 would be well below Amazon's $167.30 delivered price.

I head another model Ridgid that was stolen from my house (www.helpmeleavedetroit.com) I'm going to look into this as a replacement.

I picked up a simpler RiDgid version at HD for $20 during the Black Friday madness, and I couldn't be happier with its speed for picking up water after a basement flood.

I purchased a RIDGID wet/dry vac in 2007 for light duty use at work vacuuming out our vehicle fleet. I don't have the Model # since we threw it away after it fried a motor brush within a year (it was cracked/fractured). Brushes were not serviceable/available from anybody but RIDGID according to the half-dozen "small motor repair" places I called. Also no suitable replacement from McMaster-Carr or Grainger.

I then contacted RIDGID for service or warranty coverage and was informed that they would not sell me any electrical parts and that I needed to send the device in for warranty service. For warranty service I was to return the entire power head: "vac lid, filter cage, float intact" to Emerson Tool Co., St.Louis MO. The power head was so bulky & heavy, I didn't think it was worth a third to a half of the $75.00 purchase price to ship it for service.

I really couldn't be unhappier that this power tool was not easily serviceable at a local repair shop, and that RIDGID would not sell me a brush. I agree w/#10 John above, most of the "brands" have sunk to the bottom of the barrel. I now carefully consider any tool purchases; first perusing craigslist for old high quality tools or heading to a tool supply house (preferably locally owned) that caters to people who have to rely on their tools for a living.

Apparently this vac DOES accept a dust bag (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xqf/R-100390230/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053).

Who owns Ridge tools?

http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-5327.html

Ridgid plumbing tools were, at one time, the best mass-market brand.

Thank you for the review. This is excellent!

don't buy ridgid. Garbage product, poor warrenty they don't live up to. Weak easy to break products. Light use at best. Sad. They use to make pipe threaders that were indestructable. Guess you can't make money if you sell a product that never breaks. As of late, ridgid products I have bought were broken out of the box. Don't believe me, review the 18v saw with cast aluminum blade holder. Steel must be too exspensive. Mass produced poor quality crap. Hint: quality products come from companies that specialize in one or few items and build them well, not companies that make a hundred different half assed items.

I have a smaller rigid that I use to keep a coffee roaster clean. It does a great job with all the chaft and debris. It has been going strong for 2 years of fairly heavy use.

Bob the builder #20 comment is correct. I own probably every tool on the market in my profession and the ones I hate the most are Ridgid. I think setting the expectation that the item has lifetime warranty and that is why you are paying 4-5x the standard price is probably the reason for all the issues I am seeing with different users. Believe me the lifetime warranty is not such, and you are lucky to get something warrantied even if you have followed all the details that are required with Ridgid. When you see a good review on their warranty ask if they have actually had a claim. What a hassel. HD stopped taking back their Ridgid brand, probably because they did not want the hassel that they had to go through. I find the mid-grade tools (ie Chicago) from Harbor Freight are much cheaper and easier to get a new tool if it fails. I have a couple of Ridgid tools I will sell if anyone is sold on them (cheap). Ridgid hole hawg with variable clutch, and a mini 12v lithium ion drill with 2 batteries. The hole hawg variable clutch slips when it encounters any resistance, and the 12v drill has a bad charger. Both tools are less than 1.5 years old.

Phil

Handyman Express Idaho