As a cleaning freak, I would suggest you to install the Central Vac. The points or reasons are below:

• You are making a 3-story house so with canisters or uprights, it will be a tedious task to carry up and down in routine cleaning.
• Second thing, you are going to use carpets in the bedrooms which are upstairs; these anyhow need regular maintenance and so, vacuums are a requirement.
• Stairs are going to be there, and if you are going with carpeted stairs, they will too need some care.
• It's a 1 time investment on the major part and it is going to help you in the future.
• It adds somewhat more value to you property!

Efuy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMTifQMt0SY you do not have to do the work.

Get a Roomba. much cheaper. BTW do you have an elevator for those 3 flights?

I did not enjoy my central vac. I probably would not install one again.

Never use mine.

I love my central vac. I would install one again.

(We actually put one in this house and our last house. Added it, not new construction.) But if you don't do your own cleaning that might be a different story.

I use mine everyday we have big dogs that shed plus a busy kitchen but I do have a roomba for our walkout basement and I love it but it is not cheap. on our main floor the roomba won’t climb my shag carpet so I don’t use it there . I do think if you have a housekeeper who brings a vacuum it is working for you it would drive me ctazy to wait for someone to vacuum my house .I am a bit of a clean freak and have never found a housekeeper that cleaned my house better than I do.With kids I find you need something all the time for clean up. Ido however when doing designs for clients use a hose for each level with a central vac system.I have never used the retractable type but seems like a good idea on paper.

I'd vote no since you have a maid and don't have pets.

Our last house had one and was only good for dog hair and crumbs on hard surfaces. Completely useless on low-pile area rugs and a total joke on carpet. It had a heavy 50 foot hose that I had to lug out of our hall closet and heave back in after every use. I loathe that vacuum.

It was pain having to use two vacuums to get the job done, and I stopped using the built in vac.

The ONLY plus side to it was that it was quiet, and I didn't have to use ear protection. (Too many loved ones suffer hearing loss and I wear hearing protection for blenders, vacuums, hair dryers, and power equipment like mowing/saws)

I would vote "no" too, given you have a housekeeper. For $3,000, you could buy quite a few really nice vacuums and place them on different levels of the house instead of the central vac.

If your primary concern is using it for crumbs in the kitchen/dining and vacuuming cars, I'd suggest looking at a cordless dyson stick vac. A central vac seems overkill for that purpose.

Seconding (is that a word?) CP's consideration of an elevator. We have a three floor home, I'm 37 and run marathons, and climbing all the way up from the ground floor suuuuuuucks. Don't get me started on hauling mattresses up there.

Consider roughing in the piping for central vac, with an electric outlet at the most likely spot for the head unit (garage, basement), but don't actually get the head unit. A simple rough-in should be considerably cheaper and easy to do now. Retro-fitting after drywall will be a nightmare on a 3-story house.

This way, if you change your mind later you can catch a sale on the head unit and it's plug'n'play. Plus if you go to resell later and your potential buyer is a central-vac fan, you're good to go.

While you're at it, get pricing on "hide-a-hose" (we're putting in Cyclovac) rough-in. You can still skip the actual hoses & head unit, but if you add those later you're not dealing with storage of the long hoses. "Hide-a-hose" rough-in is a bit more complicated (expensive), but still should be well under $3k.

Another vote for a Roomba or some kind of robotic vac. Love mine (I own three!). Mine are basic models, no voice or phone controlled features, so they go on sale closer to $200 vs. almost $1K for the higher end models. They are great if you don’t like doing housework or have large rooms & don’t want to spend all week vacuuming.

No. I have a 3 story house and a weekly housecleaner. I have a central vac (and regular vacs) and rarely use them.

My parents bought a 1950s era sprawling ranch with a central vac. Once we figured out how to use it, my mom used it all the time. Her biggest problem was remembering to turn it off, because it was so quiet. I'm sure technology has advanced these things considerably from 65 years ago.

We love our CV with Hide-a-hose. I've observed that most folks who don't use their CVs do so either because they don't clean their own house or because they don't have HAH.

I, too, have a kid, no pets, housekeeper, carpet and wood, and a central vac (previous owner put it in). I have literally never used it. I honestly don't know if it even works. We don't wear shoes in the house, so in between housekeeper visits, I don't feel the need to vacuum (aside from the occasional spill) other than under our nook table where we eat all of our meals (wood flooring). I have a small handheld vacuum for that purpose. I also have a larger vacuum that gets almost no use. I say pass on the central vac.

I used the central vac in this house one time. Was more trouble than it was worth. I bought a second upright vac for the upstairs to leave up there.

We just sold our large home that had a CV. I used it once but the housekeeper loved it. I also had the vac pan in the kitchen and used it often. We are in a rental house until our new house is built and I bought a stick vac to use that I love! We will probably not install a central vac in this down-sized house because I love the light-weight stick vac so much. If I could have a vac pan without the entire CV system then I'd be in vac heaven.

I grew up with a central vac system and have had one in my current home for the last 7 years. I think if you are someone who does your own cleaning (or are very meticulous) then they are hard to beat. If you are not someone who uses the attachments on a vacuum to clean above the floor as well as rugs/floors then you will probably be better off with a standard vacuum. Plus, if you don't like putting things away you're going to put off vacuuming with a central because you will dread wrapping the hose up (thinking back to my mom lol).

Our house cleaner uses our central vac when she comes every other week. We also use the hide a hose feature quite often in-between her visits to do the high traffic areas. In addition, we have a robotic vacuum and a Dyson cordless for very quick cleaning jobs.

For your needs, I echo other people's comments about the Dyson cordless and/or a robotic vacuum to just supplement with a regular upright vac. My mom used to use her central vac all the time when we were growing up but now she rarely touches it. She's not the best at putting things away either so it's just easier for her to grab her Dyson cordless or her Riccar Supralight upright. Both are lightweight, easy to grab and go and do a great job.

I love my roomba but I still need to vacuum once in a while to get the stuff the roomba misses. I certainly do not have a hose that weighs anywhere near 50 lbs but the HAH is intriguing but I don’t think retrofittable.

Patricia, we built our house 7 years ago with a reg. central vac system and then had a hide a hose outlet retrofitted into the main level of our home one year later. They were able to do it through the basement ceiling.

I have had central vac with and without hide a hose. Loved it with the HAH and meh without. Great on hard surfaces, not great on rugs unless you get electrified head. If I got it again I would def get that baseboard thingee you can sweep into in the kitchen. Roomba didn’t work for me- kept getting stuck under furniture.

I decided against a central vac, advised to me by my builder and because at my moms house that she built when I was younger, it was constantly breaking and now no longer in use. She might have used it five years total. In my kitchen I put a Sweepovac which I LOVE. it’s nice and small and discreet and perfect for every day cleaning. Got it from amazon. For my upstairs which is all carpeted I have a Roomba and I love it also. No need for central vacuum imo.

My wife has a guy vacuum with an upright vacuum once a week . . . sometimes I do it more often.

I clean my own house. We no longer have small kids. We had central vac in previous house and I liked it but didn't put it in current house. I have a vacuum on each floor so no lugging them up any stairs. The only thing I miss is the vac pan that I had in my kitchen. It made for easy crumb cleanup.

I don't like the idea of housekeeper running the vacuum brush over my rugs, that she just ran over other people's rugs. Vacuum filters also don't stop everything from going through, so when she starts up the vacuum in your house, you are getting a bunch of dust from other people's dirt. Just saying .... :-)

I have a Miele vacuum with a HEPA filter that I keep in the house. That is the vacuum my housekeeper uses. :) It works just fine for her.

My mother's vacuum had temporarily stopped working, so her cleaning crew used one they use on other people's houses. My mom's house wound up with fleas. :-(

I hate the central vac. I own a Miele canister and upright that get used all the time. Buying a TOL cordless one soon as well. I'd probably rough one in though for any future buyers who would want a central.

In theory, central vacs are superior because no filter is 100% effective and they exhaust outdoors where it doesn't matter. They're also more convenient because you're not dragging around the power unit and you don't need to empty the canister as often.

That said, it's tough for a central unit to compete on performance with a powerful HEPA filter vacuum where the motor is 2 ft. or 3 ft. from the pick up point. You can purchase a really nice (e.g., Dyson) vacuum cleaner for each level of your home for a whole lot less than a central vacuum system.

We are also building a home and central vac was priority on my list. I was not able to get it. Everyone I know that has it, loves it. Suction is far superior to any vacuum you can buy, no dust bags or canisters to get rid of and instead of lugging a vacuum up three levels you would just have a hose. For $3000 I would get it. That's not a big amount of money to absorb. As for people that are saying by one for every level. A decent vacuum is at least $400 or $500. Three of them is half way to your central vac which is for a lifetime opposed to 10 years if you are lucky with a vacuum

Central vacuums are TERRIBLE! Manufacturers claim that they have 120 inches of water lift and 200 CFM, which is COMPLETE BULLSHIT!!!! Once you install a central vacuum with tubing going through the house, that performance will DROP like a stone!! VacLab did a video of why central vacuums are COMPLETELY FLAWED!!! They're also IMPRACTICAL, which is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE in 2023 when we have compact stick vacuums!! And if you were using a power nozzle on carpets, I can ONLY imagine how DISGUSTING the carpets would be after GRINDING all of that dirt into the fibers due to lack of performance! Central vacuums have NO place in modern homes, ESPECIALLY in apartments!!! They should ONLY be allowed in the 90's and 2000's McMansions where it makes sense!

CWG, You may have noticed this topic died 3 years ago.

I don't know how much "lift" my parents' 1950s vintage central vacuum system had, but it sucked the crap out of anything we threw at it. As an aerospace engineer and rocket scientist, I was amazed at the performance even at the 100-ft distance from the vac in the garage to their bedroom outlet/inlet. Maybe modern equipment is less effective than the old stuff - from back when America was great and we all rented our telephones from the phone company monopoly.

I have to disagree with previous poster about central vacs and suction power. My central vac is just as powerful, if not more, than my Miele C3 Marin canister. It also pulls up the rugs into the powerhead when cleaning near the edges. That being said, they're not for everyone and other types of vacuums have become much better over the years - specifically the battery life and suction on stick vacs. I love my Dyson stick vacs and reach for them more than my hide a hose. However, for deep cleaning jobs that require a lot of attachment use, you can't beat a properly sized and installed central vac system .

Don't you love seeing an old thread resurrected by someone who has never posted before, but needs to bash a whole industry or a specific product!

Since I posted here 3 years ago, I'll add an update. Been in the new house for 17 months and very happy with the Hide-a-hose central vac we installed. We have a wide large one story house, so I installed a unit at each end of the house. Works great when two people are cleaning.

I have wood floors and tile throughout the house and also have 3 dogs. The central vac excels in this situation. I also have hand knotted area rugs and those just get the regular floor brush attachment and should never have a beater brush used on them. And since they are area rugs, they can easily be lifted/flipped to clean the underside and the rug pad.

I also have a Miele canister that we used in the guest house of our previous house, but it sits unused as the H-a-H central vac is easier to use and does a better job.

All different vacuums have uses and positive/negative aspects, but I have been very happy with the central vacs in the 4 houses we have owned over the years, specially now that I have the hide-a-hose version.

I'm the original poster. We didn't install a central vac. I put in a Swepovac under out kitchen sink, which I use occasionally. But, most of all, I'm content with my robot vacuum that sweeps up every night!

We've had cvac in three homes over 16 years.

On the plus side, lots of power and outside exhaust (actually in our garages not to disturb the neighbours) and, with certain ones, filter cleaning just once a year.

But dragging around and storing clumsy hoses is another matter. (I was told by many with household staff, "Who cares? That's their job.) And retrieving items mistakenly sucked up is definitely harder.

For our current build, I'm tempted to rough-in, as cvac is expected by many buyers, but mainly depend on robots and cordless sticks. No carpets here.