A vacuum cleaner is provided including a housing, a nozzle inlet, a suction generator carried on the housing and a dust box carried on the housing. Additionally, a partition is provided dividing the dust box into a coarse particle dirt collecting chamber and a fine particle filtering chamber. Further, a filter assembly including a support frame and a filter element is provided. The support frame holds the filter element in the filtering chamber.
A filter apparatus and a vacuum cleaner incorporating the filter apparatus are disclosed. The filter apparatus has a first, fine filter assembly and a second, coarse filter assembly. The fine filter assembly includes a body defining a central aperture in which a pleated fine filter element is arranged. The periphery of aperture is surrounded by a resilient rubber sealing member. Apertures are arranged around the body portion radially outwards of the aperture and sealing member for mounting the fine filter assembly to pins on housing of the vacuum cleaner. The body is also provided with radially inwardly facing slots for engaging corresponding projections on a coarse filter assembly for removably mounting the coarse filter assembly to the fine filter assembly. The removable coarse filter assembly gives the user a choice between two stage filtration (i.e. using the fine and course filter assemblies) or single stage filtration (i.e. using the fine filter assembly only).
