Central Vacuum

I spent some time this week working to get our central vacuum installed. The process is fairly straight forward. The rough in for the inlet had been installed before we did the drywall in the hallway.

For the hose, we're using a Hide-A-Hose system. This is basically a 40 foot hose that is stored inside the pipes that run from the inlet to the power unit installed in the basement. The picture is of the power unit and the final few feet of PVC pipe. You have to make sure that your pipe run is long enough to provide the 40 foot of space needed for the hose, even if this means running the pipe in a loop before connecting to the power unit.

All the pipe is 2" PVC and the 90 degree bends are made with 2" gray PVC pipe normally used for electrical wires. These pipes have a much longer radius in the bend to make it easier to pull wire through them and the same principle applies for the vacuum hose. Will try to get a couple more shots of the piping and the hose posted next week.

I haven't completed the vent for the unit which allows the fine dust to exhaust outside. The vacuum debris is collected in a plastic bag inside a canister on the power unit which should make it easy to empty.

For operation, there is a low voltage connection at the hose inlet upstairs to activate the unit, you basically pull out as much of the pipe as you need to use and then lock in place and start vacuuming. When done, you remove your tools, release the clamp and put your hand over the end of the pipe while it's still running which causes the hose to be sucked back in to the pipe until needed again. We're not quite done with the install but the tests are promising!

Will provide an update next week.