On Thu, 6 Apr 2017 03:51:43 -0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

On Mon, 03 Apr 2017 23:25:48 -0400, opined:

With a good central vac why would you EVER want a "regular" vacuum
cleaner??????

We had a Beam for about 20 years, and it outcleaned ANY portable vac I
ever tried. I replaced it last year with a new CanaVac unit and it has
WAY more suction - it will literally lift carpet.

The central vacuum is too fraught with weak spots.
Like how do I debug when it doesn't work?
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....w/C-a-6iiVHrMJ
A whole lot easier than tearing apart many of the "standard" vacuums
today.. I can isolate why mine doesnt start by turning it on manually
with the unit-mounted switch. If it runs then and not when plugging in
the hose, it is a remote wiring issue. If not it is a unit problem.
The "switches" on the outlets are all in parallel, so if none work you
know where to look (common wiring). If only one doesn't work you also
know where to look.

On Thu, 6 Apr 2017 03:51:45 -0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

On Tue, 04 Apr 2017 08:56:43 -0400, opined:

Over about 30 years of using central vac in two homes -
I think that I've had maybe 3 or 4 clogs - all were in the hose -
not in the vac line. Just sayin' ...

The hose was snaked two years ago, right here, in a.h.r.
https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7573/1...fb4ff8bd_c.jpg

You can tell by the sound of the vac machine if it's a clog -
- over-working, high pitch - as opposed to a broken line -
the sound would be normal, but no suction.

I can't tell what the sound means as the motor is in the garage and the
outlets are scattered about the house.

You might also hear the
location of the break inside the wall - it would noisy unless it was
a big open disconnection...

Hmmm. I may need to try that, but I never could figure out why it had such
low suction as it used to work just fine.

Maybe I should debug again.

If the hose is __definitely not__ the problem - check & snake the
inlet to the vac machine.

I have a 75-foot snake but what are the hoses made of inside the walls?
Are they strong enough to take a steel snake that is meant for plumbing?

I also have a 100 foot electricians snake.
But I'm afraid of puncturing the tubes inside the wall because I don't know
what they are made up of.
The tubes are generally polycarbonate or PVC. Just for giggles,
disconnect the pipe from the unit and check suction AT the unit. If
suction is good, you have a pipe issue. Reconnect the pipe and check
suction at the "service" outlet - on both of mine there is a place to
connect a hose directly to the unit. If you now have NO suction (or
very little) you have a leak, if you have good suction you likely have
a clog. If no suction at any of the outlets in the house, the clog is
close to the unit (shared pipe) - snake from the bottom. If you can
stick an air hose up the pipe and blast with pulses of air as you push
it up, you should be able to dislodge anything stuck in the pipe. A
3/8" air hose will snake around the tight ninety bends in the pipe. If
the clog is at a "WYE" in the pipe it is very likely the installer
installed it backwards, the air needs to follow the "sweep" of the
"T-Y" connector to prevent blockages.

Also, with the system running (turned on with the system switch) have
someone open the outlets one at a time and see how the motor pitch
changes.

On Thu, 6 Apr 2017 03:51:47 -0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

On Tue, 04 Apr 2017 00:05:29 -0400, opined:

Amperage is only one indicator and doesn't tell you a whole lot - it
depends on the efficiency. A combination of water column and CFM is
required to really analyze a vacuum.

What you say makes sense in that the amperage is only an indirect
indication of potential sucking power and air flow.

But how does a homeowner, "easily" obtain sucking power and air flow?

Of course, I put my hand over the opening, and that's about all I could
measure.

My current system has an 8.4 inch Tangential bypass motor. I was
wrong on my last post - it's not Elite, it's Signature.
It is rated at 675 air watts and 147" vacuum.

Air watts?
I never heard of "air watts" until now.

I see it's a measure of efficiency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwatt

I don't really care about efficiency since a vacuum is just used
sporadically. What I care about is sucking power.

It is also rated at
12.7 amps, whichn is an HONEST 2 HP (1524 watts) which means it needs
a dedicated 15 amp circuit.

One of the vacuum cleaners says it's 12.0 watts, and it doesn't flip the
circuit breaker, so, I'll take that as an upper range for portable vacuum
cleaners.

12 watts is a very low powered vacuum - 12 AMPS would be a relatively
powerful one.

For all you ever wanted to know, and more - including all the
terminology, see: http://canavac.com/buyers-guide/

That site is nice but it doesn't help for troubleshooting an existing
central vacuum setup.

I have a central vacuum cleaner, but I gave up on it years ago after asking
here on this newsgroup how to debug why it had almost no air flow.

How do you debug low suction in a central vacuum system?
12/30/2014
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....w/C-a-6iiVHrMJ

None of the outlets seem to be leaking overtly.
https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7500/1...7989dca3_c.jpg

The 25-foot long external hose is clear of obstructions:
https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7573/1...fb4ff8bd_c.jpg

The motor works and the motor filter is clean.

I suspect there is either a blockage inside the walls or a tear inside the
walls.
https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7533/1...abc9b313_b.jpg

So it's effectively dead.
I can't imagine how one "fixes" that, without ripping the walls out, which
I'm not going to do. Ever.
I just gave you troubleshooting instructions - and my whole system
was installed without opening walls, so it can be repaired the same
way. If it was installed when the house was built, you MAY have a
problem. The unit installed at our church was installed when the
renovations were done, and leaked like crazy - the original installer
ended up paying someone who knew what they were doing to come in and
fix it - including holes in the drywall ceiling.
Incredible how an "installer" thought taped joints were going to work
transitioning from the plastic to metal and back (apparently he
thought he had to use metal transitions through concrete floor and
through walls) Just about every taped joint leaked.

On 4/5/2017 8:51 PM, Danny D. wrote:
On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 05:12:49 -0700, Bob F opined:

Try using one of your new vacs to reverse suction the whole house
system. Maybe you can clear the obstruction.

If it has good suction at the motor, the tube is plugged.

If suction is low at the motor, there is a leak or the motor is bad.

That's a GREAT idea!

Remove the vac cover and filter 1st. You could even blow from the vac
end with an air compressor, leaf blower, or even the output of another
vac at the same time. If the inlet connection to the vac unit is
removable, you could even try using your hose connected to the vac,
going to the house vac inlets to reverse clean them.

Does your vac have more than one motor? One motor could be bad, and
effectively "short circuit" the airflow from the other the others. I
have a used unit I got free that has a flaky circuit breaker on one of
the motors so it needs to be tapped to get it working.

I had asked two years ago how to debug the whole house system:
How do you debu low suction in a central vacuum system?
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....w/C-a-6iiVHrMJ

I eventually gave up because I think the problem may be inside the walls.

I didn't have the additional vacuum cleaners at that time, but now that I
do, I can take the most powerful one and see if it can suction the wall.

I thought of snaking the wall outlets but I don't know what the material is
made up of so I didn't want to risk puncturing the tubes inside the wall
with my 75-foot snake.
https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7573/1...fb4ff8bd_c.jpg

They in wall pipes should be pvc pipe with wide bends - considerable
tougher than that hose.

On 4/6/2017 7:33 AM, Dan Espen wrote:
"Danny D." writes:

On Thu, 06 Apr 2017 08:54:27 -0400, opined:

Both of the two central vac units that I have owned -
diffferent makes - had an additional inlet at the machine -
if yours does - you coulld check IT for suction - carry your
hose to the garage.. and listen to the motor..
Also - if IT doesn't have suction - ta-da.

Inlets?

I never noticed if there is an additional "inlet".

There is an outlet for exhaust which is near the vacuum motor and which
blows to the outside of the house.

I guess I could take it apart and disconnect the main inlet hose though.

I'll look later on today when it gets light and see what I can see.

Like hubops, my unit has an outlet right on the vac unit that is not
part of the in-house system. Disconnect the in-house system, seal it
with a cap or duct tape, then use the outlet on the vac.

Since you are trying to play qualified vacuum repairman, you might
want to by a tool the repairman would use the actually measure
the vacuum. Not sure what it's called, but pretty sure it exists.



Have an old auto service vacuum gauge. Drill a tight hole for the gauge
in the middle of a 3"x3" piece of plywood and place the gauge/wood over
the vac inlet to read the max vacuum value. If the reading is
significantly higher at the motor than at the house inlets, you may have
a leak.

How much air comes out of the vac unit? High flow suggests a leak. Low
flow could be a plug or bad motor unit. You have changed the
filter/bag, right?

On Thu, 6 Apr 2017 10:15:56 -0700, Bob F wrote:

On 4/5/2017 8:51 PM, Danny D. wrote:
On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 05:12:49 -0700, Bob F opined:

Try using one of your new vacs to reverse suction the whole house
system. Maybe you can clear the obstruction.

If it has good suction at the motor, the tube is plugged.

If suction is low at the motor, there is a leak or the motor is bad.

That's a GREAT idea!

Remove the vac cover and filter 1st. You could even blow from the vac
end with an air compressor, leaf blower, or even the output of another
vac at the same time. If the inlet connection to the vac unit is
removable, you could even try using your hose connected to the vac,
going to the house vac inlets to reverse clean them.

Does your vac have more than one motor? One motor could be bad, and
effectively "short circuit" the airflow from the other the others. I
have a used unit I got free that has a flaky circuit breaker on one of
the motors so it needs to be tapped to get it working.

I had asked two years ago how to debug the whole house system:
How do you debu low suction in a central vacuum system?
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....w/C-a-6iiVHrMJ

I eventually gave up because I think the problem may be inside the walls.

I didn't have the additional vacuum cleaners at that time, but now that I
do, I can take the most powerful one and see if it can suction the wall.

I thought of snaking the wall outlets but I don't know what the material is
made up of so I didn't want to risk puncturing the tubes inside the wall
with my 75-foot snake.
https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7573/1...fb4ff8bd_c.jpg

They in wall pipes should be pvc pipe with wide bends - considerable
tougher than that hose.
They virtually never have wide bends.in the walls.

On Thu, 06 Apr 2017 12:25:58 -0400, opined:

The unit is already trying to suck that way- unsuccessfully so I'd
try sucking out the inlets.

Good idea. I just suctioned backward, all the in-house inlets but I didn't
get much by way of debris.

Here's basically what I got out of the more than half-dozen inlets:
http://i.cubeupload.com/1XHC3N.jpg

All but one seemed clean, where the one most used had a little bit of
debris I could hear hitting the vacuum container sides.
http://i.cubeupload.com/JGkKeB.jpg

It took a while to get the hoses right because they're all the same size on
the large end and the same size on the small end, where I needed to fit
together a large-to-large using this gasoline tube piping.
http://i.cubeupload.com/CrPUAN.jpg

I changed vacuum cleaners from the Eureka floor type to use the Costco
tin-can type with the air blowing out visibly, where it seemed that none of
the vacuum inlets is clogged because the air blew out pretty well.
http://i.cubeupload.com/QdwsYB.jpg

On Fri, 7 Apr 2017 20:32:53 GMT, "Tekkie®" wrote:

You could also use an electricians fish tape to find out where the
obstruction is.
My fish tape won't go around the elbows in the central vac pipe very
easily- not at all if one bend is 90 degrees to the previous bend.. I
find a 3/8" flexible air hose is about all that will easily traverse
multiple bends - and even that takes some patience.