Chamber Vacuum Sealer Reviews: The Best Deals on Amazon

If you've got the budget and the space, a chamber vacuum sealer is a great kitchen investment. You'll waste less food, it will last longer than most edge sealers, and (maybe best of all) you can vacuum seal liquids.

Here, we'll tell you what to look for in a chamber sealer, the pros and cons of chamber sealers, and take a look at some of the best deals on Amazon (that are still good quality). 

If you're not sure about a chamber sealer, check out our Vacuum Sealer page for more information.

Chamber Vacuum Sealers: Best Deals on Amazon at a Glance

Here's a quick comparison of the cheapest chamber sealers on Amazon (and anywhere else you'll look, except for maybe a site like Ali Baba). The first table is chamber sealers under the $500 mark. The second table is chamber sealers under $800 (and most are right around $400).  

Less than 2 years ago, the only options for inexpensive (under $800) chamber sealers were no-name Chinese imports in plain steel housings and barely decipherable instruction manuals. Today, that's all changed, with some of the best chamber seals on the market, in looks and performance, well under $500.

In fact, our favorite chamber sealers are now in the under $500 category. We were going to get rid of the $800 table altogether, but we decided to leave these in so you can compare and decide for yourself (it never hurts to have more information and options). However, we did remove the detailed reviews of these sealers.

The Under $800 sealers we list here all have major flaws--too-small chambers, quality issues, or too many bad reviews on Amazon--for us to enthusiastically recommend them. 

Avid Armor makes several chamber vacuum sealers now, so if you don't like the USV20, see our Avid Armor review for more options.

Why Spend More on a Chamber Vacuum Sealer?

• To save money on your food budget
• They don't need a cool-down period between seals
• They're more durable than most edge sealers
• They pull more vacuum than most edge sealers (so food lasts longer)
• They're not a "throwaway" product--and they're east to repair if necessary
• The bags are cheaper than edge sealer bags (a lot cheaper).

To Save Money On Your Food Budget

Just like edge sealers, chamber vacuum sealers will help you save a lot of money on your food budget. And though the initial investment is bigger, a chamber sealer will help you save more than an edge sealer for a couple of reasons. First, it pulls a stronger vacuum, removing more air, so food lasts longer Second, you're able to seal any type of food, including liquids, so you'll be able to seal and freeze soups, stews, stocks, and other liquid foods with ease.

You can buy more items on sale and freeze them for months with no worry about freezer burn. For meat especially, this is a true game changer. 

You'll also throw out less food: leftovers, lunch meats, dairy, and produce all last longer when vacuum-sealed. 

Dry goods last longer, too: flour, sugar, rice, beans, pasta, baking items--they all last longer and stay fresher in air-tight bags. 

In fact, the average American family can save up to $2500 a year with a vacuum sealer.
(Note: This figure is from the FoodSaver website.)

So even if you save only half that figure, or even a quarter of that figure, any of the vacuum sealers reviewed here will pay for themselves in less than half a year. 

Yes, all of these points also apply to edge sealers, too--but there are other excellent reasons to consider a chamber sealer. 

Chamber Sealers Don't Need a Cool-Down Period Between Seals

If you've owned an edge sealer, particularly an inexpensive one, you've probably been frustrated by the cool-down period necessary between seals, and the increasingly poor seals if used for a long time, even with cool downs. If you don't allow the machine to rest, it will overheat and can't pull a vacuum. This can cause bulk sealing jobs to take a really long time--with a lot of sitting around doing nothing while waiting for the edge sealer to cool off. 

Chamber vacuum sealers are designed precisely for heavy-duty use like bulk sealing. They have powerful pumps and a cooling fan that allows them to run for long periods without a break. 

Rotary oil pumps offer the most durable and continuous operation, but they require oil changes. Dry piston or rocker pumps are almost as durable, allowing you to seal dozens of bags in a row before a cool down is necessary (and no oil changes necessary).

For most home users, the maintenance-free dry piston pump is plenty robust enough, even if you do large sealing projects like hunting or harvest season.

You can buy edge sealers with cooling fans, and they are also great for large sealing projects, but you don't get the other cool features of chamber vacs.

They Can Seal Liquids (Here's How)

A chamber vacuum sealer can seal liquids. You can literally seal a bag of soup, without a mess, and without freezing it first. If you've only used an edge/channel sealer, you might think it's impossible. But the physics are actually simple. 

A chamber vacuum sealer works by evacuating air from inside a chamber rather than inside a bag. This means that everything inside the chamber has the same air pressure (or more accurately, the same level of vacuum).

Because the pressure is the same throughout the chamber-- inside and outside the bag-- the contents of the bag stay put, including liquids.  

It's not foolproof: If you've ever tried to chamber seal a warm liquid, you know that it can make a real mess. This is the result of liquids boiling due to the extremely low pressure inside the chamber. This is not the same problem as liquids getting sucked into an edge sealer, but it can be just as messy.

The warmer a liquid is, the greater the chance it will boil in a chamber vacuum sealer. So for best results, always make sure your liquids are room temperature or cooler before sealing--refrigerated is best--and always leave plenty of room at the top of the bag to avoid a mess. 

Chamber Vacuum Sealers Are More Durable Than Most Edge Sealers

A chamber vacuum sealer is more durable than inexpensive edge sealers. Even an inexpensive chamber vacuum sealer is going to be well-built. 

This is by necessity. Removing air from a chamber requires a lot of mechanical energy. A sturdy build quality is important to make sure that air can't seep into the chamber during the vacuum process. Therefore, chamber sealers are solid, heavy-duty appliances. 

The new generation of chamber vacuum sealers for home users are amazingly lightweight, some under 20 pounds. Makers have found ways to lighten up the design, which is great, but the vacuum pumps are still heavy duty, commercial-grade quality. These lighter chamber vacs may not stand up to the continuous daily use of a commercial environment because of their lighter frames, but for most home users, it's an excellent design: they get the heavy duty pump in a lighter package.

There are certainly well-built edge sealers on the market (Weston and Avid Armor are both examples of commercial-grade edge sealers), but the price of a good quality edge sealer is now about what you'll pay for one of the new generation chamber sealers--so you can decide which features are most important to you.

Chamber Vacuum Sealers Pull More Vacuum Than Most Edge Sealers

You can measure air pressure in psi, kPa, bar and more. The most common unit of pressure in relation to vacuum sealers is "inches of mercury," also written as inHg or "Hg. (Hg is the symbol for mercury on the periodic table). Though measuring vacuum is negative pressure, the minus sign is usually omitted.

Perfect vacuum is -29.92 inHg. It is not attainable in earth's atmosphere, but is the standard by which vacuum pressure is measured. And since vacuum is a given negative, the minus sign is usually not used. 

Many manufacturers do not supply this specification with their vacuum sealers. FoodSaver, for example, says this is proprietary information. 

Thank goodness for YouTubers, who have, in the interest of answering this question, posted videos measuring the vacuum strength of inexpensive edge sealers. Here's a short one (about 2 and a half minutes) that finds the vacuum pulled by a FoodSaver to be around 22 in-Hg:

The obvious question is, "Is 22 in-Hg good or bad?" 

The answer is that it depends what you're comparing it to. If you're comparing it to a zip-top bag or a plastic container, then it's good; food will keep a lot longer in the FoodSaver bag than either of these.

However, if you're comparing it to a chamber vacuum sealer (or even a more expensive edge sealer like the Weston Pro 2300), then it's not so good. The Weston edge sealer can pull a vacuum upwards of 26 inHg, and chamber sealers can pull up to 29.5 inHg (that's really close to perfect vacuum).

We don't mean to pick on FoodSaver; they make a good product that's perfect for many people's needs--and all consumer grade vacuum sealers pull about the same amount of vacuum. As you go up in price and build quality, you also go up in vacuum strength.

This is important because the more air you can remove from a bag, the longer the food will stay fresh. So the amount of vacuum pulled is (or should be) a big consideration in buying a vacuum sealer. And by design, chamber vacuum sealers pull a stronger vacuum than edge sealers; even well built, expensive edge sealers can't quite compete with chamber vacs.

Also, the more air you can remove from a bag, the better food will cook in a sous vide water bath--more air in a bag means more insulation, which means longer and less even cooking.

They're Not a Throwaway Product--And They're Easy to Repair 

Okay; maybe "easy to repair" is a slight overstatement, depending on how handy you are. But chamber vacuums are fairly simple devices. But that's not really the point here.

The point is that unlike low-priced edge sealers, a chamber vacuum sealer is not a throw-away product. Most manufacturers make and sell replacement parts and offer repair services should the chamber sealer ever need it. 

If you're handy, or know someone who is, you can find repair videos on YouTube and possibly on the manufacturer's site. So repair is totally do-able. Since there are only a few things that can go wrong (e.g., the pump, the sealing bar), you'd probably need only a small amount of mechanical know-how to figure out a repair yourself.

This is one of the best aspects of a chamber vacuum sealer. It's designed to last for decades, and to be worked on by consumers if and when needed. 

The new generation of home-use chamber sealers aren't as sturdy as the commercial grade chamber vacuums, but they're not throwaway items, either. You should be able to buy parts and get these machines repaired. (Incidentally, this is also true for commercial-grade edge sealers: if you spend upwards of $200 on a vacuum sealer, you should be able to buy parts for it or send it in for repairs rather than throw it away.)

Chamber Sealer Bags Are Cheaper

This is one of the best features of chamber vacuum sealers: bags are cheaper.

Chamber sealer bags cost waaay less than edge sealer bags. Depending on the quantity you buy, they can cost as little as a fifth of what you'll pay for edge sealer bags. This means you'll save money in the long run on bags, too. and since bags are your biggest ongoing expense, cheaper bags should catch your attention when you're deciding which type of vacuum sealer to buy.

Example: 

Here are 44 FoodSaver bags (edge sealer) for about $20, which comes to about 45 cents per bag. These are quart bags, or about 7x8 in. (that's small). 

Here are 500 VacMaster bags for about $46, which comes to about 9 cents per bag. These bags are 6x12 in., so quite a bit larger than the edge sealer (FoodSaver) bags above. (Edge sealer bags this big can run upwards of 50 cents per bag.) 

So even in smallish quantities, the chamber vacuum bags cost significantly less; if you buy 1,000 bags at once, the prices are even lower.

If you buy off-brand bags or rolls of bags for your edge sealer, the price comes down--and you can use any brand of bag with any brand of sealer, as long as it's the right type of bag--but the edge sealer bags are still more than chamber sealer bags. You'll have to estimate based on how many bags you think you'll get out of a 50-ft. roll, but the overall cost is never going to be as low as for chamber bags. (To compare: a box of 250 10x13-in. chamber vac bags is about 270 ft. of bags. You do the math.) 

Why the huge price difference? Edge sealer bags need a special lining that helps to "push" air out of the bags, so they're more expensive to manufacture (and always will be).

Chamber sealer bags don't need this. The equalized pressure inside the chamber eliminates this problem. So chamber sealer bags are simple, smooth plastic.  

What to Look For in a Chamber Vacuum Sealer

• Size, weight, and "portability"
• Type of pump
• Extra features. 

Size, Weight, and Portability

There's no getting around it: chamber vacuum sealers are big. Many weigh upwards of 80 pounds. If you get one of these behemoths, you'd better know where you want it, because you won't want to move it again once you've got it settled.

Having said that: newer chamber sealers have been streamlined. They're designed for the home kitchen, so they're lighter and easier to use. If you want a chamber sealer you can move around or put in a closet when not in use, you have options that weren't available even just a few years ago.

No chamber sealer is truly "portable," and if you're buying one, you probably don't care about portability all that much. But if you do have to move it, it's nice to know it weighs 30 pounds instead of 80 pounds.

Are the lighter weight chamber sealers less durable? It's true they're not made for commercial use, but in our testing they've done well, and are equal to the performance of the bigger, heavier models.

Whether this translates into long-term durability, we can't say for sure. And since most vacuum sealers have a 1 year warranty, there's no promise from the manufacturers, either.

Type of Pump

Chamber vacuum sealers generally come in two pump types: dry piston or rotary oil. Dry piston pumps are maintenance free because they don't require oil changes. Rotary oil pumps are not maintenance free and require periodic oil changes. 

Rotary oil pumps are the most robust. You'll find them in industrial-grade sealers that cost several thousand dollars. They'll seal pretty much indefinitely without overheating.

How often do they require oil changes? The VacMaster website recommends about every 60 hours, or when the oil is dark or milky. (For a home user, this could be anywhere from once every 6 months to once every 5 years.)

Dry piston pumps aren't quite as robust, but they're close, and they're more than adequate for most home users, even those who do large bulk sealing jobs. They can typically do well over 30 consecutive seals before they overheat.

Changing oil on a vacuum sealer isn't hard, but it's a little messy, and you need to have easy access to the back of the machine (a struggle for some of the older, heavier models like the VacMaster VP215).

Also, the oil is extra equipment you need to have on hand for a rotary pump. So unless you're using your chamber vac commercially--several hours a day of continuous operation--a dry piston pump is the best way to go.

Chamber vacuum sealers do not typically have a lot of extra features, including an accessory port. Their strong, durable vacuum pumps and the ability to seal liquids are what people pay for.

Many of the newer chamber sealers do have an accessory port, though, which is great to see. An accessory port allows you to seal external canisters, jars, wine bottles, and more.

What Are the Drawbacks of a Chamber Vacuum Sealer?

The drawbacks of a chamber vacuum sealer are:

• They're expensive
• They're large and heavy (it can be hard to find a spot for them)
• Their capacity is limited by the size of the chamber.

The drawbacks of a chamber vacuum sealer are pretty much the same things that make it such a robust machine: it's a big, bulky, heavy, expensive piece of equipment. 

Until recently, you couldn't find a chamber vacuum sealer that weighed less than 80 or so pounds. That is a lot of bulk to have sitting on your kitchen counter. This is changing with the new generation of vacuum sealers we review here, but even 25 pounds may be a lot of weight for some people. So you have to decide if you want to make this kind of commitment to a kitchen appliance (even if it's a great one to have).

A chamber vacuum sealer is a big purchase, and you need to feel comfortable spending all that money, even though prices have dropped and you can now get a good quality chamber vacuum sealer for under $500. 

If you want the capability to do external sealing, the Wevac CV10 is the way to go (and an excellent price, as well). The Avid Armor USV20 is a compact, easy-to-use sealer with great design, but has a smallish chamber and is also the most expensive of our three favorites.

All of the sealers we review here have great features, but they're very different. Depending on what you want, they're all good choices--and the prices just keep coming down.

Thanks for reading! 

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