🌀 Suction Power (Air Watts) Calculator
Enter a vacuum's airflow and water lift to get its Air Watts — the combined suction figure manufacturers use to compare real cleaning power across models.
🧮 Calculate Air Watts
What is Suction Power (Air Watts)?
Air Watts is the industry-standard way to express a vacuum's real cleaning power by combining two numbers that matter on their own but tell an incomplete story alone: airflow (how much air moves through the machine, in cubic feet per minute) and water lift (how strongly it can pull air through a restriction, in inches of H2O).
Enter both figures — usually printed on the box, spec sheet, or an independent test report — and this calculator does the division for you, so you can compare vacuums on equal footing instead of guessing from motor wattage alone.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What are Air Watts and why do they matter?
Air Watts (AW) combine a vacuum's airflow (how much air it moves) and its water lift or suction (how strongly it pulls) into a single number. It's a far better measure of real cleaning power than the motor's input wattage, since a high-wattage motor that moves little air can still clean poorly.
How is Air Watts calculated?
The formula is Air Watts = (airflow in CFM × water lift in inches of H2O) ÷ 8.5. Both airflow and water lift are usually printed on a vacuum's spec sheet or test report — plug them in here to get the combined figure.
What's a good Air Watts rating for a vacuum?
Cordless stick vacuums typically range from 20–150 AW depending on the mode, uprights and canisters from roughly 100–250 AW, and shop vacs can go higher still. Compare within the same vacuum type — a cordless stick and a corded upright serve different jobs even at similar AW.
Does higher Air Watts always mean a better vacuum?
Not on its own. Air Watts measures raw suction potential, but real-world cleaning also depends on the brush roll design, nozzle seal, filter condition, and bag or bin fullness — a high-AW vacuum with a clogged filter can still underperform a lower-AW one that's well maintained.