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My husband and I are building a house and we need to choose a Central Vac unit. There are so many and some are bagless with a permanent filter and some use bags. I know the motor is important, but is there anything else I should look for? Or does anyone have recommendations?
DS & DiL got a bagless/perm filter installed last summer in their new house. DS says emptying & cleaning filter is easy & quick. About every 3rd time he sprays the filter under the high(ish) pressure tap in the laundry tub & lets it dry before putting it back. That gets rid of any dust residue.
My sister had a older model filter bag kind and didn't change the bags often enough due to their cost.
It eventually quit partly due to being damaged by my niece & nephew putting Lego & other small toys in the outlet near their room. My sister always thought the kids ran upstairs to get away from the noise (the unit was in the garage right next to family room) but they went running to put toys in the outlet & listen to them rattle through the house every time she started to vacuum. :rofl:
When I built this house I installed an ez flow vac system. This was about 20 years ago and everything still works great. We don't use it much anymore as I installed kempas and tile flooring and removed most of the carpet.
In my opinion, even though it can add resale value I would not install a central vac system again because of the size and features of some of the newer vacume cleaners like the Dyson cordless.
If you do install a central vac system it is important to have plenty of outlets or you would end up with a huge hose. Then you need closet space to keep all of the attachments together. I ran the vac system exhaust to the outside of the house and installed the ez flow vac in the garage where it is handy to vac out our vehicles.
I recommend going w/ a bagless / filterless ("Cyclonic") unit that vents to the outside. All of the light dust just blows out the exhaust, and there is a "can" on the bottom of the unit that collects the heavier objects. No filters to change / clean, and the can only has to be emptied every couple of months.
Like Bill, we have the motor unit in the garage and having a outlet there makes it convenient for cleaning cars and even vacuuming the garage! (we have a "utility" hose / attachments that are used in the garage) We have had Vacu-Maid units in our last two houses (build both), and between the two of them we have had over 23 years of use without a single service call!
We've had central vac in our home since 1983. The system operated very well up until this past March when our house was severely damaged due to a frozen pipe and necessitated a complete restoration. We chose an Electrolux system with two separate motors, one in the basement laundry area and one in the garage.
This system uses disposable bags that last about 9 months or you can use it without the bag and it needs to be emptied every couple of months. We only moved back in this past July so I can't say whether or not the manufacturer's estimates are accurate but so far so good.
The advantages of central vac are that it lasts basically forever. If it breaks down you simply replace the detachable motor portion of the unit. The old system had a beater bar attachment that was motor driven at the vacuum head by electricity. The new systems are so powerful that the beater bar is driven by the suction power of the unit. This means you have a hose that is much lighter as it does not have to encase the power cord for the beater bar. The second advantage is that once you vacuum up something it's out of your house. It either gets deposited in the canister or it blows out with the exhaust. The third advantage is that it's quiet.The basement unit flows out through a muffler unit to the exhaust so that if you are vacuuming a bedroom upstairs all you hear is the air been sucked in through the vacuum head. The fourth advantage is that it reaches everywhere, even 14' vaulted ceilings. A portable vacuum with a 6' hose has to be placed on something to reach that high. The fifth advantage is power. There's just no way a portable unit with a reasonably sized motor can compete with a large wall mounted unit with twice as big a motor.
The only real disadvantage is the hose length. Ours are 36' and you have to have place to hang that up when it's not in use. You can put more outlets in and get a shorter hose or less outlets with an even longer hose.
IMO central vac is a luxury item that like dishwashers and central AC. You'll never go back to hand washing or window mounted AC units.
One tip before I conclude. They now make an outlet for the kitchen area that is used like a dustpan. It's mounted in the kick plate at floor level and you tap it with your foot to open it. When it opens you now have suction right on the floor so instead vow dragging out the hose (or the portable vac) you just sweep the debris into the opening and it's gone. Tap it again and the opening closes and it shuts off. My wife absolutely loves this feature.
There are retractable hoses that stretch from 5 feet to 20 feet. Not ideal if you're using a power brush that gets electric feed through the hose, but we have a standard hose for that. As you are building you may want to look for a system that has retractable hoses that get sucked up into a tube in the wall.
We bought this house out of my wife's parents estate and the house had a Centrol Vac System that had a leak. Before we remodeled we called out Sears (it was a Sears system) to fix the leak and they refused saying they aren't allowed to go into the attack where the hoses ran. We decided never to deal with Sears for anything again and pulled the entire system out in the remodel.
Whatever system you get, keep in mind how you will get it serviced if there is a problem. Hope this helps in your decision making.
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