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Install a air vac central vacuum system to a new house
QUESTION: I'm considering having the builder install a air vac central vacuum
system to a new house but I'm not sure if the pvc pipe running all through
the house will make it more difficult (or maybe impossible?) to route my
wiring (network, audio, video, etc.)? Any experience with this one?
thanks
ANSWER: We really like the kickpans. We had one lower cabinet bay installed
without doors (where we put the cat's litterbox) and we put a kickpan
directly under it. Very handy for a quick sweep of the excess cat
litter. We also have them in the kitchen, dining room, and next to the
fireplace (for sweeping up the endless firewood debris - not ashes).
The suction of the kickpans is fairly noisy, but we really oversized
our main unit. It's not a big deal - sweep up the debris into a
little pile in front of the kickpan, turn the kickpan on, and the
debris is gone in a second or two.
We've got two wall outlets in the basement, one in the basement
workshop, one in the garage, three on the main floor, and three
more upstairs. We can work with a 20 foot hose, although the
shortest I've found is a 25 footer.
The unit is located in the basement, and exhausts outdoors. We can
hardly hear the unit running. It's a Silent Master model S5, rated
for houses up to 20,000 sf. Since we're 3800 sf we've got lots of
power to spare. This baby will suck the color off a cue ball. They
don't rate them in horsepower, but it has 905 air watts, 139" of
water lift, and 191 cfm. (http://www.mdmanufacturing.com) I did
some A/B comparisons of a few models, including vacuflow (which is
popular around here) and this unit was quieter, although I wouldn't
call it quiet. It has 12 gallon filter capacity and it takes about
2-3 minutes to change the paper filter bag.
The hose is the most irritating thing about the system, but no worse
than the cord of an upright vac, and this thing is far more powerful
than any upright I've seen.
We got the "super" outlets, so when you plug the hose in you have
power at the tool head. Highly recommended. Also, we wanted the
motorized beater head, not the air powered units. I can't see how
the air powered units can do as good a job without negatively
impacting airflow.
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