Whether it’s sawdust in your basement or a spill in your kitchen, wet/dry vacs are built to handle the toughest household messes. Some models shoulder those tasks with finesse. But others we tested could add to your dirty work.

Dust bags that surround the filters inside are one way some of these heavy-duty vacuums lighten your cleaning load. The bags, $3 to $8, keep the insides cleaner for quicker conversion from dry to wet cleanup. They also help the $10 to $20 cartridge filters maintain suction and should help them last longer by keeping them freer from dust. Several top performers include the bags or offer them as an option.

Major brands are also pushing stackable vacs, cordless models, and other new designs as they try to get wet/dry vacuums out of the basement and into the kitchen and living room. Our dusty, watery tests of the latest models show that some are pricey for their performance, and one could leave a bigger mess than you started with. The details:

An off-the-wall design. Traditional wet/dry vacs roll around and take up space on the floor. Three new models--the $100 Craftsman Clean N Carry 17925, and the $100 Ridgid Stor-N-Go WD5500 and Pro Pack WD4550--are among the first designed to slide onto a shelf or clip onto a wall bracket. While they’re big on convenience, bigger vacs hold far more for the same price.

Go clean--again. Emerson’s $50 goClean claims to pick up a gallon of water in less than 4 seconds. It did just that. But a faulty design allowed its bin, when full, to come loose and splash dirty water onto the floor; we judged the goClean Not Recommended as a result. Odd-sized filters that are hard to find beyond Emerson’s Web site are another potential surprise for buyers

A pumped-up price. Adding a pump that connects the vac to a garden hose eliminates having to lug a water-filled unit upstairs. The $160 Shop-Vac Ultra Pump 960-16-00 comes with one. Or you can add a $40 aftermarket pump to the top-scoring $110 Craftsman 17762, pay $10 less overall, and get even better vacuuming performance.

Battery overcharge. The DeWalt DC500 offers you the usual power cord and optional 12V or 18V battery power. But its performance was unimpressive in all three modes. And at up to $250 for the vacuum, 18V battery, and charger, this minisized machine costs nearly twice as much as the best large models.

As the Ratings reveal, larger-capacity wet/dry vacuums also cleaned best and were best-equipped overall. But you might prefer a small or even a minisized model if your home is shy on storage or has multiple levels. Here’s what else to consider at the store:

Pick the right stuff. Along with a bag, look for pleated cartridge filters--now found on most models--which are easier to change and less prone to dust leaks than two-piece paper-and-foam filters. Also look for a hose that’s 2 1/2 inches in diameter, which helped speed wet pickup and prevent dry clogging on our top-performing vacs compared with 1 1/4-inch hoses on some other models.

Don’t spend big on bags. Manufacturers typically offer extra-cost, high-performance replacement bags. But our tests showed that the bags included held 14 pounds of bolts, nails, screws, and other debris with only tiny ruptures while still allowing plenty of suction.

Don’t buy capacity claims. Most of the manufacturers in this test overstated fluid capacity for these vacs, some by as much as 8 gallons. While those claims may correlate to the size of the vac’s collection area, our usable-capacity measurements are based on actual vacuuming until each vac’s internal float rose high enough to block further suction.

Do buy hearing protection. All of these wet/dry vacs were loud. Two models, the Stinger WD2025 and the Emerson goClean, reached 85 decibels, the level at which we recommend wearing earplugs to prevent hearing damage.