We had one in our last house, decided not to put one in the new house. The hose was a pain in the neck to drag around relative to a new lightweight vacuum cleaner. I miss the hatch in the kitchen that acts like a dustpan, but not the rest of the system.

Hide-a-hose solves the hose problem. Wish I had the Hide-a-hose, but I love my central vac because it is much more powerful than a stand-alone. I also have a connection in the garage that we use to vacuum out our cars--makes it so easy to keep the inside of the car clean.

Can't advise you on brands--ours came with the house. If you do a search in garden web there are quite a few threads on central vacs in various forums.

I have a central vacuum system and a TOL Dyson ball upright and I can tell you the central vac is leaps and bounds above the Dyson on hardwood floors and ANY cleaning jobs invoking the use of tools - dusting vents, cleaning stairs, sofas and the car. We have a MD Silentmaster central vacuum system with around 8 standard wall outlets that take a regular electric hose, vac pans, and we retrofitted a hide a hose outlet for the main level of our home which is hardwood. If I had to do it all over again I would only get the hide a hose outlets rather than the standard wall outlets. I hate coiling up the regular hose but with the hide a hose you just suck the hose back into the wall. They finally made an electric power head you can use with hide a hose so it works great on carpeting which used to be its downfall. I'd say if you are only interested in cleaning carpets then go with the Dyson. If you want to clean everywhere in your home central vac cannot be beat.

I love our hide-a-hose system. I wouldn't go back to a regular vacuum for hardwood floors....

I personally don't think they are worth the money anymore. I think every one of my houses for the last 15 years has had a central vac. However, my (recently purchased) current house doesn't, even though it is fully hosed and ready for the motor we got two robot vacuums instead and our house is much cleaner than it has ever been for much less cost.

Although, the suction is a bit less, they run daily while we are at work. We have essentially gone from a thorough weekly vacuum to a less thorough daily vacuum and I absolutely love it. I am now thinking about getting a robot mower.

We also have a Silentmaster, with hide-a-hose, and I think it is great.

Was contemplating getting a robot vacuum too. bry911 do you think it would be worthwhile in a house that always has a few (and at times, quite a few!) small Lego pieces on the floor? My main concern is Lego bits breaking a robot vacuum -- likely or not?

Personally, I have found small light rugs to be a bigger problem than small objects. I really don't know about legos sorry, but I doubt they will break the robot vacuum. My experience is that it mostly moves objects around or sucks them up. Anything big enough to roll over ends up in the dust bin and anything too big to roll over ends up against a wall. But that is only my experience.

Yes, especially nice for hard surfaces. Nothing works as well, imho. My last house did not have the hide a hose. I plan to get a bid on a system like this.

We so love dragging around a quart of household dirt, dumping it and washing and drying filters weekly we can't imagine going back to a central vac with a self-cleaning filter and a disposable bag changed every six months.

Yes, get a central vac system, well worth the cost.

We built a guest house a few years ago and my only regret is that I did not include a CV system. We had a robot vac in the guest house , but it was ruining the hand knotted wool & silk area rug.

My parents just built a house and after years of seeing/trying our CV systems, this time around they added a hide-a-hose and are very happy with it.

Love, love, love central vac. We had a Vacuflo in our previous home (for 25 years), and it is still going strong. Getting another Vacuflo was a priority for us when finding our next home. We ended up building, and installed another Vacuflo, only this time it was the Hide-A-Hose. I love this one even more than my previous, since I no longer have to find a place to store the hose or deal with pulling it out and coiling it back up to put away. Also, my one complaint with our previous central vac was that the hose would sometimes kink and I'd have to straighten it out to continue vacuuming---it wasn't bad enough to prevent me from wanting another central vac, but it was irritating. With the H-A-H, I have not had a single kink in the hose. It is much lighter than my old central vac, yet works beautifully. We have installed hard flooring throughout our new home, so no carpets---just a couple rugs at entrances to the house.

I have used a couple other central vacs---helping friends with clean up---and I have not liked them as well as the Vacuflo. I felt our Vacuflo had better suction and also found it easier to use, but maybe it's just because that's what I'm used to. I do remember we did a lot of research before installing it in our previous home, and our research led us to choose the Vacuflo. There are more brands out there than there were 25 years ago, so maybe there are others just as good or, possibly, better. I just don't know about them.

When showing friends through the house, I always show them the Hide-A-Hose, because it is such an important part of the house for us. Today I had to give my daughter a haircut. When finished, I just pulled out a short section of the hose from the wall, quickly vacuumed up the hair, and I was finished! I could go on and on ... I truly love my Vacuflo.

Another vote for the Roomba. I hate everything about vacuuming, regardless of the type of equipment, so I love being able to click "CLEAN" and watching this little fellow take off. Nothing is less work.

The negatives: You have to dump the little container every time you run the Roomba (15 seconds). You have to clean the small beater brush more frequently than a larger vacuum (once a month?). You still need a regular vacuum for big jobs like cleaning up after the Christmas tree, and it can't handle things like vacuuming upholstered furniture and curtains.

But for every day cleaning, you can't beat it.

We have a central vac. No name, but has a lot of power. We bough a stockinet (stretchy knit) sleeve for the hose so that it won't mar woodwork and furniture. We keep the hose coiled up on a peg in a closet.

Aside from the power, I appreciate that there are no spewed dust particles in the house. Sometimes for small things, I would bind having a lightweight stick vac.

I had a Sears central vac installed when we built 30 years ago. Five years ago we redid the kitchen and I had DH install. Hide a hose outet for a 50 ft hose. We hooked it to the old Sears unit. Not ideal, but it works. I hated the old house but the hide a hose is wonderful. We're now remodeling our vacation home that also had an old Sears unit. Im having him add the hide a hose there too. Definitely worth it. But a regular central vac system, I would pass on that.

We actually have a Roomba. I liked it at first, but with 3 small kids it's just not economical. I have to be super careful to pick up all their small toys, strings etc. or it gets jammed or tangled in the brush. I have to make sure to close their bedroom doors because if they leave any clothing on the floor it gets wound up and jammed (socks in particular which always seem to be all over the house) It doesn't sound like much work but I find myself chasing the Roomba to make sure I get things picked up and as soon as I turn around my 2 year old has something else out that will cause problems. It also takes so long to clean the whole room (being open concept) that I can't use it for quick clean ups, which happen all day long in the kitchen. so I end up just sweeping with a broom several times a day. I don't seem to have to clean the beater bar on my upright very often, but the Roomba brush has to be cleaned a few times per month which I despise because it is messy. If I wasn't home all day and could just pick up before leaving the house I may like it better. I also have the virtual wall which works great to keep it contained in a specific area, except for my 2 year old always picking it up and relocating it ;)

As petalique said, the cloth covers you can get for the hose (if you don't get hide-a-hose) really help--the covers help the hose move around furniture and such more easily and quietly

I like the Roomba since it goes under the furniture. Our biggest drawback with the unit is the cat likes to turn it on in the middle of the night. She won't ride on it, but she is fascinated watching in go.

My husband finally built a media cabinet/shelf that sits over it with a hole in the bottom shelf to hit the button to get it going.

We have a central vac with Hide A Hose (10 years now) plus a Roomba and a Braava. Robots are great but have several limitations. Hide A Hose makes a good idea (central vac) near perfect! We are soon to build a new house. My 'must have' list begins with "cv with HAH"!

I just realized that, despite all my words in praise of the central vac, I never mentioned the reason we got one in the first place. I have extremely severe allergies, with asthma that is triggered by my allergies, among other things. Having a central vac is essential.

Love the idea of a roomba, and have owned three different generations of them. In a house with more than minimal furniture and lots of oriental rugs they just don't work yet. Ours will run for maybe five minutes before they either run themselves into a corner they can't get out of or suck up the fringe on one of the rugs and die. They are effective cat toys, but in our house require constant intervention, which pretty much defeats the purpose.

I have a Neato Botvac and it rarely gets stuck. It runs daily while we work and I haven't had to pick it up in weeks. We definitely don't have minimal furniture and it has no trouble. It navigates around 10 chairs and 6 table legs in a kitchen, and while saying it is effortless is a stretch, it always manages to get in and get out.

We do have a small half bath that it manages to lock itself in if we leave the door open but I have been pleasantly surprised. But we don't have small kids, so no small toys.

My allergies react to vacuuming pretty severely so usually I had to leave the house as vacuuming was happening. We used a central vacuum that was vented outside. So far, so good on the allergies with the Botvac running at work.