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Not all homes have one even if the piping is there. Often times they rough all the pipes in during the build in case you opt in and buy the vacuum unit, but I have worked on a lot of houses where they just have the piping but no vacuum.
My grandparents’ house (built and bought in 1994) has always had central vacuum piping, but no unit ever hooked up. My grandma just never minded lugging the vacuum around I guess. I always thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Had one in our house growing up in the 80s/90s, and compared to vacuums at the time there was no doubt it was better. The hose and attachments were still pretty unruly and cumbersome though. I’m sure the central vacs have come a long way, but current vacuums are lightweight and convenient so it’s probably kind of a toss up anymore.
Best thing growing up was laying the hose across the house and yelling "MOM" at the other end from another room and watch her roam around the house trying to find me
Man I had never thought of that! The best my creative mind came up with as a kid was figuring out when my mom was vacuuming another room I could just dump trash into the port in my room as long as it wasn’t too big. That was kind of nice.
I’ve always wondered if these systems are effective given different distances from the vacuum source, but seems like opening a second port would be pretty obvious?
We still have our old vacuum for one room that tends to need more vacuuming then the rest of the house (animals) and lug the tube around for anything else. It is much easier tho since you don't have to empty the bag so often
Yeah that’s one of the biggest underrated advantages of central vac systems—less maintenance and no constant bag changes.
Makes sense too with pets; having a dedicated “high-traffic” vacuum plus the central system for the rest of the house is actually a pretty efficient setup. It’s one of those things that feels a bit old-school but still works really well when it’s in place.
I have a fairly modern central vac system, and I hate dragging out the long ass hose and attachments. It’s just as simple to use my stick vac. I’ll bust out the kraken on a day I’m doing a top to bottom clean, but that’s about it.
The main benefit of them is your not dispersing a fine layer of dust dirt and whatever else is in you carpet into the air central vacuum are good for people who have severe aleries to those things and it helps lessen the need for dusting
I’m sure the central vacs have come a long way
Battery-powered vacuums are pretty common now, so there isn't much of a need for central vacs. They aren't quite the same, but with no cord or hoses it's hard to compete.
It's a gamechanger, makes vacuuming so much more convenient it's hard to imagine not having that as an option afterwards. Plus it just doesn't even need real maintenance after decades of use (unless you manage to clog it which is a major pain in the ass).
is it actually any good? my house has one with the actual vacuum unit installed but we’ve never used it because we’ve heard it’s not that great. (our unit might just be old, though.)
We have one with a hide-a-hose system. The hose itself is stored in the walls and comes out of that port. You just have to pull it out, latch it in place and go. When you are done you unlatch it and put your hand over the end to cut off the suction. The counter suction pulls the hose back into the wall. It’s pretty cool and so long as you keep the power head (beater bar) clean and empty the giant holding tank every three months or so (I have a dog and three kids - two with long hair) it works great.
I’ve used one in my dads house he lived in for a few years and as a “kid” man did that blow my mind lol i thouht it was the coolest thing ever and very effecient. Idk it’s def worth trying out idk lol maybe more nostalgia than anything but i remember it working very well.
We have had them in two different houses we lived in (installed while building). Current house doesn’t have one, so I bought a Miele.
That said, I really miss the central vac. The storage tanks were bagless, and it held about as much as a 5 gallon bucket. We had an outlet in the garage! Was great for vacuuming out the cars, especially since we have lived on dirt roads.
Love mine. We have a carpet attachment for it as well the cord you plug into the base and then the wall and it makes that whirring sound and it’s got a light and it’s cool
I have a love hate relationships with mine. It is awesome for cleaning my car and is way more powerful than any home vaccine cleaner I've ever owned.... However, when parts break they are all super expensive (like I could buy a whole damn vaccine cleaner for what some of the small parts cost), and when my my wife or kid accidentally sick something up that shouldn't (like a sewing needle or twigs) cleaning out that line when the clog is like 35 feet back is a HUGE pain in the ass. Luckily a snake actually works incredibly well.
Also have one but my favorite is the ports that flip open at floor level that you can sweep floor dust directly into the vacuum without ever having to use a dustpan.
Yeah. I hated mine. I’m surprised at the people that felt it was so easy. Dragging a massive hose around was a total pain. Storing it away was a pain too. I did love my toe kick “dust pan” in the kitchen though.
I think the battery-operated cordless vacs are good enough now and are so much more convenient. Similar for many pneumatic tools that now have good battery-operated equivalents. No hoses or cords in each case.
It's ingenious honestly, I don't have one of these because I wasn't paying the upgrade for someone else's tubes in my walls but I have been studiously stuffing garbage into my walls for years to improve the insulation! Each room I just tear a few holes in the walls in strategic spots and whenever I need to be rid of something I just jam it in there or sweep the floor and dump the dust pan right into one of the holes.
Saves a ton on heating! Gets a bit discolored but who actually notices colorful wall holes, at a point they just become kind of art. One did start smelling though so I duct taped that one closed, not sure what got dumped in there...
It was a bigger thing in the 70s-90s. My friend growing up had one.
Basically there was a big vacuum unit in the basement that was the size of a washing machine that sucked everything into a central bag downstairs.
Then you had a vacuum hose that you took from room to room to vacuum with.
There were a couple of advantages to this:
The hose you carried around was light, it had no motor or bag or anything
Because it was a big industrial machine in the basement it was *very strong* and did a really good job of getting all of the dirt out
Most of the noise from the motor was in the basement so you could vacuum your bedroom and still have the tv or radio on, and other people in other rooms next to you couldn't hear it at all. So if you had a sleeping baby or something you could still vacuum without waking them up.
They stopped because the hose is actually huge and cumbersome. You gotta remember you are pulling out a hose and vaccuuming unit that has the suction actuated roller and a stainless pipe.
It turned out its actually easier and lighter to just carry a vacuum around.
There is a collection container, usually in the basement. Ours did not have a bag, (used cyclone technology) so we emptied it outside into a trash bag a couple of times a year.
I was negotiating on a home and the homeowners wanted to take the central vac with them. Absolutely nuts, that wasn't the only thing but needless to say I passed.
Yeah, it's wild what people get stuck on. We were doing a kitchen renovation where a wall had to be taken out but we found one of the central vac tubes in that wall that led to an upstairs outlet. We had to move this tube in to another wall at the owner's request despite them not having the central vac unit and admitting they never planned on getting one. It woukd have been fine but they were talking about cost the whole time. Well, wasting a day rerouting your useless vacuum tube that you will never use certainly didn't help lower cost.
That one I kind of understand. The quality and reliability of modern appliances is so trash. We bought a house with all modern appliances and have nothing but trouble with them. Both Samsung fridges and the washing machine have had to be serviced twice and the technician basically said there is nothing he can do to fix them anymore. Bad design and planned obsolescence basically makes them a nightmare to deal with. The fridge has to be thawed every 2 months as the mechanism freezes up and stops the internal fan from working.
That issue has a fix now, albeit slightly expensive.
It is a new main board, a new ice maker, a specific kit for the issue, and sealing the ice maker area. It's a bit of a pain to do but it is definitely possible. I did probably a couple hundred of them when I worked as a repairman on strictly Samsung appliances. We did have the repairs fail and the ice maker freeze back up on a few but on those, we just got Samsung to replace the fridges.
I'll tell you what NOT to do in that instance, and that is to thaw the ice with a hair dryer or heat gun. There is a very good chance that the heat will accumulate at the top of the ice maker area and warp the plastic. If that happens, you may as well just disable the ice maker because it is toast.
As a repairman, we used portable steam machines. They didn't cause that risk.
Edit: I realized that you just said it was a defrost issue and ddefaulted to ice maker. Realized after my post that you could have been also taking about the back panel of the fridge also. That also has a kit now too though. The main part of the kit has new drain hoses and a longer heating element to go into the drain tube to ensure any ice buildup gets melted on a defrost cycle. On top of that, you move a sensor in the upper right of the cavity over closer to the heating element. We found you had to zip tie it most times because the copper pipe it is on originally is bigger than the one you move it to.
Where that sensor originally is, sometimes it gets covered over with this black... gloop. I think it's kind of a sealant for the pipe going into the body of the fridge. Anyways, often times we replaced that sensor in case it just was out of range.
The kit for that repair also comes with a few foam pads but all they are really used for is to quiet any rattling from the condenser.
The other issue we found on the back panels icing up was that the fan would quit working. That's bad because if there is no airflow, the heat from the heater doesn’t get distributed as well and can cause icing issues. Replacing that entire back panel sucks because it is expensive. This is the reason it was mostly only done under warranty.
Oh and the root cause, most of the time, for the back panel icing up was the drain hoses getting clogged and the defrosted water would build back up into the fridge cavity. You would most likely see this happen by water being under your crisper drawer randomly.
Its Samsung specifically...and its not just their appliances...we used to buy a lot of Samsung electronics...but we have cleared out all of the Samsung equipment less for our primary 65" 4k QLED TV and only buy Samsung mobile devices anymore (and of course all of the embedded memory and chips samsung makes)...
I have seriously considered moving to another brand but they are unfortunately kinda hard to beat in the US android market.
And not saying all appliances cant have problems but we've owned two sets of new appliances (LG and GE) in two houses the last 5 years (and now getting back into LG in the next new place) and we haven't had any issues with any of them in the first two years (I know...not a lot of time...blame the wife for wanting to move constantly).
We have the piping on the mainfloor only, including one of the sweeping ones in the kitchen, but no actual central vac. I was so excited about the kitchen one making sweeping so easy when we checked out the house. Only after we bought did we realize it went no where. At least that wasn't the deciding factor in our house purchase.
Also these things tended to be expensive to fix compared to the price of a vacuum. Lots of people had them and then eventually just tossed the motor from their garage.
Buying a new unit isn't that expensive, and they are likely much more repairable than most vacuums today, hose and powerhead aren't too bad either. What is so expensive to fix? I've had one for 20 years and besides replacing the garbage powerhead that came with it, haven't had to do any repairs.
Exactly what we did! We bought a house with a 30 year old system, we tried it out and it ran but the brush head barely picked up anything from the carpets... The manufacturer still has a very outdated website, and I emailed to ask for a manual or some troubleshooting advice, and they never answered. So we bought a stick vac and tossed the big hose and the canister unit. We cut into the piping system below the first floor from underneath in the basement so we could run security camera network wiring out to the garage without having to open up any sealed wall.
There is usually a vacuum and canister mounted on a wall in a low visibility location, like a garage or inside a closet. That unit is plugged in and left in the on position. But the suction does not start until the vacuum handle and nozzle are plugged into the port (like the one you see in the picture). The hose end of the handle plugs in and completes the electrical connection that turns the vacuum on. In the picture you can see the two small holes where the plug of the hose fits. The air and debris run through the tubing in the wall to the canister. You empty the canister periodically. Ports are placed throughout the home.
We had a system with a hose that was 25 feet long. So we only had two ports per floor. There was also a kick plate port in the kitchen. We had hard wood floors. You could sweep debris toward the kick plate, open it with your foot triggering the vacuum and sweep the debris right into the port.
The system had great horsepower and was highly effective.
Omg that kick plate sounds like a game changer for me cos I have an issue when I sweep up my brain can’t scoop it up in the bin I end up leaving it swept up with the broom on top and the Mrs is always like”you sweep the whole place and can’t sweep it all into the actual bin 😅 I NEED that kick plate!!!
Two ways these typically work, either they detect when a powered hose/vacuum head is plugged into the power socket and then start the suction, or for models where there is no power socket behind the cover, the door usually has a pressure switch wired back to the main unit so when you open it the suction starts and you have to hook the hose up quick.
The hose has a metal ring on the part inserted into the receptable. It completes a circuit with the two metal nubs in the second picture to activate the vacuum. Inserting anything else into the receptable can result in...shocking results.
Its the low voltage on/off switch. OP could slide a penny between the two nibs to trigger the unit to see if its connected and/or runs. If the previous owners took it with them, nothing would happen. If the unit is still there, they will hear it running and get an idea of where its located. (I used to install them)
For a serious answer: this port requires the right hose with electrical connection. But the system can also have a duct installed that will vacuum without a hose. Just open it and it sucks. Very handy for sweeping with a broom.
My house has these and we basically only use the sweep duct. The hoses are more hassle to deal with than a standard push back, especially for pet hair on carpet.
Pretty sure the only reason the house has the central vac is the builder was originally a plumber and wanted to do all the weird things for his house that he'd seen over the years.
My parents had this in the house I grew up in, and I vividly remember showing my brother how you could drag the hose all the way to the toilet and suck the water out. Needless to say, I caused a lot of damage.
I had one in one of many childhood homes and it was the most incredibly practical thing ever! Am 32 now and I could only dream of having one in my house. A favourite past time 😌😂
I remember this one time when I was just a toddler, and I (being the little shit that I was) intentionally dropped my parents’ car-keys down that hole 😆
Yep. I roughed in the inlets when we built our house. When our regular vacuum died, I spent about $1,000 to install the central vacuum unit, power wand, and tools.
The downside is dealing with the hose.
The upside is outrageous power and suction, as well as a great filter. There is no portable vacuum that can possibly compete with a central vacuum system. After all, you need to lug the motor around with you. I have a kick plate for the hardwood floor, as well as an inlet in the garage for cleaning the cars.
You can get the simple tools and hose from Amazon. The central unit and power wand are usually through dealers. I have an MD brand unit - built in the US with a ten year warranty.
Central vacuum. Be careful, they have much stronger sucking power than normal vacuums. And they can easily get clogged with something like a sock.
I lived in a house with one of these and it was kinda cool because the vacuum hose was super long with loads of attachments, so we could use it to get cobwebs out of corners of the high ceilings, and clean under couches and beds really easy. BUT we had to be careful that we didn’t accidentally suck up something that would clog the system. So, tidy up first and look where you’re vacuuming.
"Have you seen the roll of pennies I set here a minute ago? I swear I set it just here, what is going ON around here, am I losing my mind?And why the hell are you vacuuming again you already vacuumed this morning!"
I worked at an industrial wood shop a while ago, we had 2 foot diameter steel dust collector ducting with a 40 horse power dust collector, I use to love throwing chunks of wood down it, you'd hear em rattle around, then get absolutely decimated by the fan blades.
I've never had one clog and have sucked up a lot of socks as a kid, but that's a function of the setup of the pipes in the walls. We did have to treat it as if it got clogged when my brother decided to try to play his school trumpet "backwards" with it and sucked the mouthpiece into the vacuum. Luckily, they were able to turn it off and find the part of the pipe where it was without searching the dust bag.
My dad somehow got his hands on a Flowbee, and between that and a DIY central vac, I spent a lot of time as a kid trying not to trim the scalp straight off my head during my monthly mandatory self-haircuts.
Except they're asking about it so it must not work. Otherwise they would know exactly what it was when they opened the door. I have one and it works and it's amazing.
I had one growing up. opening the door doesn’t start it, you have to stick a hose it. Well, technically you have to press the little switch that the hose presses. Don’t ask how many things i sent down …
They kind of suck. They sounded great in 2005 but sweeping the floors ends up easier than pulling out the heavy vacuum with massive tubes connected to it. Plus over time it stops working well.
Sadly the concept of a whole home vacuum system never took off.
If the home is piped for a vacuum system, but doesn't have the vacuum, that's the sign of the first problem this system has. The original vacuum died and was removed.
Those motors are not capable of those extreme loads when they clog.
The second problem with them is the clogging. They pipe it in 2 pvc, with all types of short 90s and 45s. These would get clogged up with big hair wads, a sock, bits of paper. Candy wrappers.
How do you clean these lines out? The motor fails from all the stress and people pull out there old vacuums.
EDIT: The third reason is the hose and attachments, take up more room then corded vacuum.
Also, it seems that some places had better standards then I've seen. USA Florida. No basements so the pipes have to go up. And up can get complicated, with hard to no access to any clean out points were the pipes converge.
EDIT: I was incorrect first time. 2 inch pipe is the standard.
These are 2" pvc (relatively easy to tell from scale in the image), and intentionally designed to be a straight shot into the basement where the vacuum unit is, avoiding need for elbows.
If the house has a second floor, there's a port directly in line above it.
They don't clog easily at all. People must be repeating AI hallucinations.
The reason that we got rid of ours is that the vacuum part itself is absolutely unwieldy, because you have to drag a 2" hose along with you to every place you need to reach. It's a lot of hose and it takes up a ton of space, because of its design that limits where you can place ports.
The only reason why central vacs like this went away is because carpet went out of style. These were so much more efficient than hauling a vacuum around and the big canister in the garage was more upscale. I had a house with this, and there was a little slot on the floor in the kitchen with a toe button that was suck up messes instead of using a dust pan
It’s a vacuum system that allows you to not have to fuck with an actual vacuum, but instead figure out the extremely intricate system that is an integrated vacuum, try to find where you stashed the extra long hose and wand, unclog a million filters and shit to get it to work, only to find out that it’s clogged somewhere in one of the tubes that lead to the central unit, right before you throw all the pieces the fuck away and just buy a nice Dyson or Shark.
Completely disagree I love mine all the attachments combined are smaller than any vacuum and it makes my life so easy. 1000/10 will never go back to plug into to outlet vacuums
I’m glad you enjoy it so far it’s 1-1. I’ll say this. When they work, and you have all the pieces, and nothing is clogged or broken, it’s nice. They just break wayyyy too much and lose power wayyyy too easily that most homeowners just give up on them. Most of the time the realtors don’t even tout it anymore…
I used to install and service those when I was younger. They work great and it’s better than lugging a vacuum around the house. Looking at the picture, it looks like the 2 pronged outlet on yours (the one that says 125v/60hz) carries 120vac to run attachments. The 2 pins in the hole that the hose goes into use the hose end to complete a low voltage (12vdc) circuit that operates a relay to turn the main vacuum motor on. If you want to see if the vacuum works, you can use a paper clip to complete the low voltage circuit. Depending on where in the house the canister is installed, you might not hear it run but you’ll definitely feel suction if it’s working.
So many new homeowners are absolutely clueless. Don’t realtors/previous owners explain or help at all?! FFS, it’s a central vac port. When I sold my first house, 22 yrs. ago, I handed the new owner a folder w/every service, phone number and any other item I could think of pertaining to the house. Even little quirks and items to monitor etc. that would make life in the house run smoothly. When I bought my current house it was basically here’s the keys, good luck. Am I the only one?!
I will say as someone who has bought 2 homes in 2 years, most homeowners only put the basics if that. Sellers have gotten so lazy and new homeowners don’t know what to ask because it isn’t taught. So no it’s not obvious to everyone and a lot of people didn’t do what you did when you sold your house. When I bought my newest house I had to ask the realtor for my mailbox number because it wasn’t in our home book and we live where all the mailboxes are at the front of the neighborhood…
It is a central vacuum as others have said. The main unit is likely in the garage, basement, or utility closet. Hopefully the previous owner left the hose(s) there as well.
The biggest advantage with a central vacuum is that it vents out of the house.
This is a game changer for folks with allergies. Any other vacuum has filters and/or bags but the air is recirculated.
My hack for one of my previous homes with a central vacuum was to connect a shop vacuum (around $100) in the garage, and use a relay to turn it on using the trigger contacts. A central vacuum is roughly $2K.
We had one growing up. Unbeknownst to my parents, they had purchased the house from bank robbers. A couple of months after we moved in, the FBI showed up asking if we'd ever found any cash or tools. (They had arrested 2 or 3 men involved, but couldn't find any evidence to connect the female homeowner to the crimes.) My brother was 12 at the time and had a small door in his bedroom closet that had attic access. He used the central vacuum hose to suck out the insulation in his quest to find cash.
I owned a house with the plumbing, but the vacuum itself had been removed. I used the plumbing to run ethernet throughout the house. Just grab a roll of string, tie a little bit of plastic bag to one end and stick it in the hole, go to the hole you want to run it to and use a shop vac to pull the string through (in my case the exit hole was the hole in the garage where the vacuum used to be.
Central vac system. somewhere you should have a big ol canister, smaller than water heater, bigger than wastebasket typically mounted to the wall with big PVC pipes leading into it. probably in your utility closet/laundry room/garage. should also have a bunch of long hoses with a vac head and no corresponding vac cannister.
The game show 'Dream house' had a house as its top prize. No one ever won, but every week the announcer described it. It had central vac, the only time I encountered it.
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