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central vac help...

15 years ago

This is a repost from the cleaning thread since there is a bit more action on this board.

I pretty much decided on getting a Beam central vac and now am agonizing over the immense accessory choices available. Turbocat V, Turbocat Zoom, Turbocat regular, stretch hoses, ....... my head is swimming. I'm not sure what I need to buy. Our house is about 4000 square feet -- mostly hardwoods except for the attic which has a carpet. Can anyone offer some clarity on what is a must have and what is junk? Where is the best website too to get this stuff?

Thanks in advance.....

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Comments (5)

gaile1960
15 years ago
I have a Vacu-Maid with the Hide A Hose system. I have mostly hard wood floors and it works well. The carpet head is an Ultra T210. It doesn't work well on low pile rugs at all.You do want one with a lot of power as they will somewhat drive themselves. If you have carpeting on your stairs I would get t he small head for that. I had it at my last house, no carpet on stairs here. The only other accessory I use is the flat brush for the wood floors.
housefairy
15 years ago
I have the Vacuflo. Love my vacuum. The thing I use alot is the door with the kick plate that you can just sweep. It's real easy to just grab a broom and sweep the mess up. I do have the little turbo attachment. Mine is very noisy but it does work well. It comes in handy for vacuuming the RV. One more thing that comes in really handy is I have a hose connect as close to the front of the house (garage doors) as possible. It's so I can vac out the cars and RV while they are in the driveway. An extra hose with attachments stays in the garage. I've bought the thing that goes under the refrigerator, which I don't like. I have a blind duster that's okay, but I don't know that it works any better than the hose duster that comes with the set. You might want to buy two sets of indoor hoses just so you don't have to lug them up and down the stairs. Also put the sock on your indoor hose, it protects the woodwork.
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My husband installed a system from Galaxie. It saved us literally a couple thousand dollars in installation by just buying materials and installing ourselves. For less than 2k, we installed 7 inlets, 3 vacpans, and got a electric powerbrush, 30' hose and attachments. We have a ranch so it was much easier and 3 of then were in new construction walls (basement) but the other 4 were in existing walls. It is not a difficult job just VERY time-consuming. The power unit failed a couple years after the install and we did have some hassle getting it replaced, but other than that, the system has worked well. The hose can be a pain, but you cannot beat the versatility of a central vac system.
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Wow, eight years seems like a short time to blow out a central vac motor. Are you sure it needs to be replaced and not just repaired? Sorry, I don't have any advice to give. I suspect that unless you live in a large metro area with multiple CV dealers, you will have to buy whatever brand the local dealer sells.
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Is your house going to have a full basement? I ask because we are doing HAH and we also have a very open first floor. The piping for the first floor outlet runs down into the basement. It makes one sweeping 90 degree turn, goes about 15 ft., makes another sweeping 90, goes another 15 ft., hits the last sweeping 90 and runs about 20 ft back into the center of the house. After you have enough pipe to fit the hose, you can use traditional 90s and 45s to get the feed back to the vacuum unit. For the second floor outlet, they took the pipe into the attic and have basically the same configuration. Our builder has also never used HAH. We met with his central vac guy and explained that we wanted HAH. He basically gave us the same response your builder gave you. We went onto the HAH website and found a certfied installer in our area. He knew exactly how to make everything work with our layout. Our builder is anxious to see how everything works. I would see if you can find someone in your area who has experience with HAH.
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Put in a central vac - I had the rough-in when we bought this house and at some point somebody had it hooked up, but the place allocated for the vac was in the furnace cupboard - might have been 'convenient' but a stupid place (and illegal) to put it. With quite a lot of effort I was able to drill some holes in the garage and sneak the pipe through, around some ducts. Now it lives in the basement and vents to the outside, we can vacuum any time of night since it's almost completely silent outside, and really quite quiet inside. I've admired those kitchen sweep things and would love to put one in when I do up the kitchen. We have a dog that sheds like you wouldn't believe, so one of those would be ideal. I agree it would be easy to rig up with a relay, but it'd be dodgy at best - when I was house-hunting, I saw one where somebody rigged up a shop vac as a central vacuum, it didn't fill me with confidence....and it sort of went with the house, half-assed. Looking at it another day, a central vac is a real selling point here where I live. With what we've done with the house since May when we moved in, I think we've added at least $30k value, by spending maybe five grand.
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fausta76
Original Author
15 years ago
gailefiona - I would have loved to get the hide-a-hose but we saw that too late (or at least that's what my husband told me so that I wouldn't keep adding up extras)! I was thinking of getting the RugRat (smaller head) for the stairs like you suggested. For your hardwoods, do you use a 12" brush? Are there any differences between the brands?

housefairy - I like the idea of a set of tools for the car - thanks for that suggestion. We did get a vacpan for the kitchen which i'm excited about -- just wished i had thought to put one in the laundry in time. What kind of hose do you have?
housefairy
15 years ago
I just bought the hoses from the dealer. The hose for the garage doesn't have the switch. You just plug it in and it works. It came with its own set of attachments. It was cheaper than the switch hose and it stays in the garage. Plus your not as concerned if you damage the hose. Though I've had it for twelve years with no problems. I do have two outlets for the garage, so I have to replug (anyway) when I vac out the garage.

Your vac man should be able to come out and retrofit your laundry room. I had the system retrofitted to our current house. The guy did an amazing job. Had him put a system in my Mom's house. One of the best things I've bought.
chris8796
15 years ago
I agree with the garage kit and a hose w/attachements on each floor. You didn't mention if you had electrified valves (direct connect) or not. I prefer the power heads, so you switch on the fly turning the beater bar on/off, while leaving the vacuum on. You can do the hard wood and turn on the power head on when you hit an area rug.

I also like the mini turbo brush for upholstery.

Here is where I bought all of my stuff 3-4 yrs ago, I'm not sure about attachment price, but they had great prices on the vacuums themselves.

Here is a link that might be useful: Allegro

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