When we bought our home we gutted it and renovated. It had a sad old CV so I immediately replaced it with a brand new BEAM system. Great suction. However, having never lived with a CV I didn't realize how much I would hate it. I absolutely hate lugging a 35' hose around. If you get it out for a major clean session that's one thing but with two small kids I need to vacuum messes all the time. The hose would live lying on my front hall. After 10 years of this, I went out and purchased 2 Miele vacuums (one upright and one canister). I love my Mieles! They are small and easy to pull out and put away quickly. They have exceptional suction and the tools are excellent. Wouldn't trade them for anything right now. After getting the Mieles I realized that the powerhead with my BEAM CV did not do nearly as nice of a job grooming my upstairs broadloom as the new Mieles do. BIG difference that is very noticeable. If you do get a CV, I would invest in the best tools available.

My last house, built in 2001, had a VacuFlo system with a dust pan in the kitchen. I said that if I ever built another house, that would be my #1 non-negotiable item. I would never have another house without it!! Of course, I thought I'd never build again, but here we are . . . and I'm doing another VacuFlo. I intended to have the HAH feature but didn't get it -- neither of the two installers here have ever done one, so they're very sceptical and negative. Their attitude, along with the fact that it almost doubled the cost (putting it quite bit over what we had budgeted) meant we gave it up. But I am getting a hose and an accessory kit for each floor, and two Vrooms -- one in the kitchen and one in the laundry room, which will be my dog's headquarters. I wish I could have had the HAH, but I'll be happy with what I'm getting!! I can't imagine going back to a non-central vac! Arlene

I hated my central vac system! Hated the long thick hoses / tubes that you had to maneuver around to walk and vacuum. Previously with a regular upright vacuum, I hated the cording that I used to have to flip around to get to that area to vacuum. And I thought that with a central vac, no more cord! Well, no cord yes, but instead of that annoying 1/2" thick cord that got in the way, I had a massive 2-3" hose that was 10x more annoying than the cord! The head never had enough suction for carpet and it did not seem to get as clean as a regular upright. Plus storage of those 30 foot long hoses PLUS the vacuum heads was a huge storage problem for me! Now with all of these new improvements of the hide-a-hose and the opening you can just sweep into with your broom, I might have taken a second look. But if it were me, looking now, I'd try out the actual systems if you can in someone's home and see how they like their system. The custom and hybrid sounds the ONLY way to go. But I would still hate that huge hose - that part would be a deal breaker for me personally. The only other note of caution I can add with the older systems is that when I worked in the new homes industry with a couple of builders several years ago, they frequently had problems with the systems clogging up with things getting stuck in the walls. It was determined later (after expensive and destructive opening walls for the hose repair IN the walls), that the blockage was due to a combination of new carpet fibers and small toys or objects that children likely stuffed into the vacuum wall openings. When that happened, the entire system wouldn't work. A central vac was a liability and no longer an asset so they stopped putting them in. Maybe in an individual's home that wouldn't happen but with so many different cleaning crews and visitors, it was common then. I have not heard of that being mentioned lately so maybe with all of the hard floors instead of carpet, that this is not a problem these days. Just wanted to add that as something to watch for and to teach children not to play with. I came across another GW thread on this topic with some great details and specifics especially on the hide-a-hose system and them trying out several and their comments. Very timely. Link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Central Vac testing GW link

I can address why not a roomba-- they don't work if you have furniture or rugs with fringes. I've had three generations of them, if you have any amount of furniture they find there way into a corner from which they can't escape. If your carpets have fringes, they eat them and die. If you have four cats, they eat cat hair for a while and then die. If you have big rooms you have to play all kinds of silly games with the "walls" to contain the roomba to an area it can clean, but they escape anyway, wandering off into oblivion. As a long time lab robotics guy I badly want them to work, but they don't. I too have been looking at adding the dustpan device cited above to our kitchen-- the toekick opening was the only thing we liked about the whole house vac system we used to have. I hope someone who has one will comment.