Roomba Cleaning Tips

One drawback to the Roomba is that you have to clean it much more than a regular vacuum. I usually have to a complete cleaning after doing the whole house. With practice, I can do this in less than 15 minutes (assuming I don't break anything). Here are some tips:

• The center wheel gets hair and other debris wrapped around its axle fairly easily. This makes the wheel harder to turn and greatly reduces battery life. I tried removing the wheel and seemed to have broken something inside wheel assembly so I don't recommend this approach (look for a repair entry soon). The best way I have found to clean it is with a good utility knife. Scrape the blade along the axle and up the wheel. This motion will get a lot of the debris out and you can use small needle-nose pliers to further extract it. With a few strokes, I can get the axle completely clean.


• The beater brush also gets hair wrapped around it. Simply remove the center screw and you can remove it for easy cleaning.


• iRobot offers a cleaning tool for $5.99. I bought it (along with some spare parts) but it doesn't really do much. The blade is good for cleaning the brush, but you can just use a letter opener or utility knife for that.