However, for minor renovation work around the house or for vacuuming out the car, this model is a nice choice. I spent 10 years in construction, building high-end homes in the Boston area. Ninety percent of the time, that meant pushing around a wet/dry vac, also known casually as a “shop vac” hyper tough battery (though that’s also a brand name). I’ve vacuumed up nails, water, sawdust, insulation, spilled coffee, dumped-over bags of concrete, puddles of paint, and plenty more. That experience taught me a lot about the methods, techniques, and occasional limitations of a wet/dry vac in the field.
But if you need a wet/dry vac asap, and it’s easier to get a Shop-Vac than a Ridgid, the Shop-Vac model should be just fine. This vacuum can be powered only by the Greenworks 40-volt battery, but it comes included. Greenworks’ 40-volt platform is large and includes mostly outdoor power equipment like mowers and string trimmers. As a bare tool, with no battery or charger, the DeWalt vac usually comes in at a reasonable price. But if you are also buying a battery and charger with it, the price can jump considerably, to one we think is pretty steep if this is the only cordless DeWalt tool you plan to own.
We cut 500,000 square feet of grass in three modes—mulching, side discharging, and bagging (collecting a total of 3,000 pounds of clippings). We cut both level turf and slopes to get a feel for the handling of each and every model. There are also high-end vacuums from Fein, Festool, Bosch, and others that focus on dust collection. But these are more of a workshop tool than a garage tool, and they are quite expensive. Throughout the summer and fall of 2023, the writer of this guide, Doug Mahoney, used the DeWalt extensively during a full kitchen renovation.
Several top self-propelled battery mowers, made by Greenworks, Ryobi, and Ego, score higher than the top-rated gas model, also a Honda. Several other highly rated self-propelled battery mowers—so named because the battery, not the user, powers the wheels—perform on a par with comparably rated self-propelled gas models. The good news is that the vac’s slowness is compensated by its extended run time. On a fully charged 5Ah 20-volt battery, we got about 36 minutes of run time; this is staggering compared with run times of some other cordless vacs we tested—one of which only lasted 9 minutes.
Recently, cordless models have appeared that emphasize portability over power. These are more for quick, little messes, like clean-up after a minor repair or home upgrade. In the cordless category, we prefer the smaller models in the 2- to 3-gallon range. One of these might be the only wet/dry vac you need for a smaller home or an apartment.
The HD1200 is a newer model, with an improved center-mounted handle for easy carrying and a larger, glove-friendly on/off switch. So far, this model has exhibited the same quality we’ve come to expect from similar Ridgid vacs over the years. For structured tests, we recorded the time it took each vacuum to suck up a pile of “workshop stew” that we created.
Another cordless option we like is the Greenworks 40V 3-Gallon Cordless Wet/Dry Vac. This one is larger and more powerful than the DeWalt vac, but it doesn’t have a cord, so the battery is the only option. So the Greenworks vac can handle things like little blocks of wood and some nails and screws. We also like that when we stretched out the hose, it became translucent, so it was easy to see the location of any clogs. Like the DeWalt vac, the Greenworks vac has two nozzles and smart onboard storage. This model is normally around $200 with the battery and charger, so if you need a vac with those included, it’s considerably less expensive than the DeWalt vac.
If you can’t find our pick or you just want a more powerful option, we also like the Ridgid 14-Gallon NXT Wet/Dry Vac HD1400. This vacuum has more capacity and a more powerful hyper tough tool set motor than the 12-gallon HD1200, but the identical hose should suck up the same debris. User reviews for this model, like those for our pick, are extremely positive.
Performance among our tested models is improving for both self-propelled and push battery mowers, and they offer more value, Trezza says. Several highly rated battery push mowers from Snapper, Ryobi, Skil, Greenworks, Kobalt (Lowe’s), and Atlas are priced at or below similarly rated gas models from Toro and Troy-Bilt. The top-rated Honda gas push mower has competition from an electric Ego push mower with the same high ratings—and the same for predicted reliability.