Bad Central Vac Installations are Nothing New
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- For years I thought modern central vac systems might be a little TOO easy to install, resulting in often substandard work. Here, some sections removed from a 1915 Arco Wand system reveal that even in the dawn of vacuum cleaning, where installations were much more costly and labor-intensive, some installers still didn't know what they were doing!
That was informative and some of the best advice to avoid mistakes and understand the mechanics of central vac tubing, I am researching for my new home. Perfect forensic analysis, I had no idea central vac was installed in the early 1900’s. Thanks
hehe its nice to know that there were those "don't give a shit its frickin Friday" installers that we still have around today
A few of my most memorable calls:
1) Installer vented a hoover into a furnace/hwt vent. They used a cupsaw and drilled into the bottom metal cap of the vent.
2) Installer forgot to run a low votage wire and decided to drill a hole in the short 90 behind the mounting bracket and fish a wire into the pipe and then 40' down the trunk line to the mechanical room where they drilled a hole in the pipe and spliced into an accessible LW vac wire.
3) That double 90 tee in your video --- An electrician installed that behind a main floor mounting bracket with the radius of the 90 flowing towards the mounting bracket from the second floor line. You can see the plastic stop when you look inside the mounting bracket.
4) Someone ran vac pipe about 6 ft high in an attic space. During winter construction the mounting brackets are open and the influx of hot air meeting cold air in the attic caused the pipe to ultimately freeze. First time I have ever had to cut ice out of a vac system.
5) Someone drilled a hole in a dryer vent pipe and then proceeded to vent a cyclonic dynovac into it. Over the years the dryer vent lost it's outside cover and rain was able to go directly into the pipe. The water managed to go into the vac pipe and down into the motor itself. A nasty mud sludge mess and quite the first hazard as well.
6) No vent outside for cyclonic vacuflo X 5 or 6 times.
I could go on an on. It's the wild west out here. It ultimately hurts the industry and our pocket books.
Yep those are pretty bad. What did you end up doing about #2? Were you able to find a way to reroute the LV wire? Or did you go wireless? I'm assuming you were called out because it clogged eventually.
For #2 I provided the client with a few options:
#1) Cut out wire and seal system and use on/off toggle switch on vacuum canister in garage for that one outlet.
#2) Cut out wire and seal system. Courageously find a way to fish a wire in a fully finished basement by using fishing rods and pulling off pot lights. Quoted high based on 5+ hours of ugly 'fingers crossed' work.
#3) Get an RF hose.
He opted to leave the wire in the pipe after I had removed the clog despite telling him that it will certainly clog and it effects overall performance of the vacuum canister.
The amusing part of the story is that he actually owns a commercial electrical company. Go figure.
Wow...you sure he didn't do that himself? He might have seen "pipe" and thought "conduit"! You know the old saying, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
Have seen #2 myself, customers complained of low suction and an "air noise" behind the inlet. The blob of glue that was sealing the hole came out and was causing a leak AND clog! Ugh, they had money but didn't want me to cut the walls open... That was one job I came prepared with everything needed to fix it right, but nothing to fix it the way they wanted. "I'm sure he had a good reason for doing that..." "Laziness, there's never any good reason to run the wire inside the pipe. It should never be done."
those bad installations resemble some under the sink drain lines I've seen improperly installed. The Tee connection that connected to the vacuum power unit with the two protruding pipes, seems very odd. I would think the Tee fitting would be an inlet for the hose connection. And the piping from the power unit, other than maybe an elbow or two would be a straight shot with the PVC down the line.
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