Ours are hardwired and that works very well. I'm not sure I'd like the remote, however our installer didn't offer that feature so it wasn't ever in question :-) Smaller doors *would've* been nice, however. Of our seven outlets, only one is really visually obtrusive-- the one in our entry. It was the best location to reach the north side of the house, but still, it does bug me sometimes. I might've been a bit more careful about placement if I'd known what it was going to look like. You can see it in this picture-- its about 18" from the floor on the left. Everyone that walks in for the first time wants to know what it is, which makes me think its pretty noticable. Here is a link that might be useful: Hide-a-Hose

hi there... i'm actually buying plumbing "guts" at the moment and need to talk to our GC about the CV and install. so, we need to figure out the total w/install in order to decide. either way, yes, i'm getting the hide-a-hose. LOTS of them! i have a feeling the online system will come out less and i've read good things about them (imperium). sorry i can't be more of a help but we're just not to that point yet. i'll definitely post back after we've decided. good luck to you!

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.

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.