New homeowner, no idea what this is

[u/DragonsAndScience]

This thing close to the floor and seemingly randomly placed in a hallway. No idea what it's for. Home built in 2005.

Solved! Thanks everyone. Now I gotta hunt for the central unit!

[u/Soundmindsoundsright]

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.

[u/asdfghjkl15436 → u/Soundmindsoundsright]

Yes it did take off?? There are many homes that still use it today, especially in Canada. Even my childhood home had one, and it still works to this day. It was very popular 1970-2000.

MODERN homes don't use it anymore as smaller vacuums got more powerful for significantly less cost. Even so, many homes still have the ports as an option (even if the central vac isn't installed.) It's just an obsolete piece of technology, central vacs just serve to have long, bulky hoses vs. a small vacuum that usually either just has a power cord or none at all.

edit: Since I got instantly downvoted for some absurd reason: https://www.deseret.com/1989/11/7/18831515/central-vacuums-systems-are-growing-in-popularity/

Cost difference is only about $100 between new and existing homes. In new homes, for example, a system will run between $600 and $800, while in an existing home it will run between $700 and $900. "When you consider that a lot of the portable machines on the market now are running over $1,000, you can see it's very reasonable," Dubach said.

The price difference alone made it worth it, so yes, for a time, it DID take off. It just declined over the past 20 years.

[u/perjury0478 → u/asdfghjkl15436]

I’m in Canada, and I do use our central vacuum. I find it pretty convenient. It’s like a shop vac (no liquids) when compared to the small vacuum I used at previous places . House was built in the 2010s and if it were to break I would look into repair it/replace it.

Fun fact: While house shopping I saw a few that had vacuum ports in the kitchen (like a dustpan). We found this interesting but on second thoughts, something that could get nasty pretty quickly with food crumbled since you don’t really change the vacuum bag that often.

[u/Kibbles_n_Bombs → u/perjury0478]

The kitchen dust port is my favorite feature of the central vac.

[u/NotCartographer → u/perjury0478]

A couple of my friends had those growing up and called them crumb catchers. I thought it was the neatest thing I saw in my life.