There are two different types of vacuum sealer machines on the market. These are usually referred to as ‘vacuum chamber machines’, where the whole bag and contents fit inside the machine, and ‘external bag machines’, where only the end of the bag fits into the vacuum sealer machine and the rest of the bag and the contents remain outside of the machine. These two different types of vacuum sealer machine are very different when it comes to; purchase price and operating costs that it is usually a fairly simple choice between the two.

External Bag Vacuum Sealer Machines
These are the cheaper of the two types and prices range from about £60 to £1000. Whilst the very cheap vacuum sealer machines (less than £150) may look tempting, they don’t actually work very well. The fact is that all vacuum machines need a high quality air pump and heat sealing mechanism and it is simply not possible to put quality components into a machine at this price. A significant number of our customers are people who have bought one of these cheap machines from ‘Lakeland’ or ‘The Home Shopping Channel’, discovered that the machine they have bought is virtually useless and are upgrading to a usable machine having wasted £60 to £100.

All external bag machines work by clamping the open end of the vacuum bag (sometimes called a vacuum pouch) whilst the air is being removed. Because the end of the bag is clamped shut, this type of machine needs to use a special type of bag with a finely ribbed or textured back surface so that the air can be removed easily. It is possible on Lava machines to use non-ribbed bags but this is slower and requires a certain ‘knack’ – see Using Non-Ribbed Bags in Lava Vacuum Packing Machines.

This means that whilst the purchase price of external bag machines is significantly lower than vacuum chamber machines (Realistically, £200-£1000 as opposed to £1500-£4000), there is a difference in the price of the consumable vacuum packing bags. The number of packing operations that you expect to do is the single biggest consideration when deciding which type of vacuum packer to buy. This is quantified in ‘Packing Volumes and Costs for Vacuum Chamber and External Bag Machines’ but the external bag machine is usually the best choice for the home user or the smaller restaurant.

Some external bag machines (including Lava) also have an external vacuum port which allows you to use acrylic vacuum containers or stainless steel bowls with removable lids. These have the advantage of being reusable and are ideal for vacuum packing salads, soft fruit or anything which would be crushed if packed in a vacuum pouch.

Vacuum Chamber Vacuum Sealing Machines
These machines resemble a stainless steel box into which the vacuum pouch and contents are placed and the lid closed over them. The entire chamber is then vacuumed and the pouch is heat sealed. This type of machine does not need ribbed bags and consequently the vacuum pouches are cheaper than those which work best in the external bag machine. This type of machine costs from £1500 upwards depending on the physical size and speed of operation.

Because the vacuum bag and contents need to fit inside the machine, vacuum chamber machines are limited in the size of items that can be packed. They are ideal where large volumes of similar sized items are being vacuum packed and are widely used by in the food packaging industry. We don’t sell vacuum chamber machines.