Vac for Fine Dust.

Hi all,

My old Earlex CombiVac has given sterling service sucking up all sorts of unmentionable stuff and taking all sorts of abuse for many years. Its Achilles heel though, has always been fine dust. The filter clogs far too quickly and I'm left with a time-consuming and messy paper bag beating exercise before I'm given another minute or so of decent suction.

The job it *really* can't cope with is extracting the dust from my wall chaser, which I realise is quite a tall order. It works fine for about a quarter of a chase, then it suddenly goes all asthmatic and visibility reduces dramatically.

Recently, it's been cheesing me off to the point where I'm willing to spend some money replacing it. Can anyone recommend anything around the

100 quid mark that'd be likely to last for a whole chase and then be relatively quick to prepare for the next one?

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp
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Nilfisk Alto Aero. Bought one for the garage and it works so well I keep using it for round the house too.

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got the smaller model than that for about £80, so shop around.

Alex

Reply to
Alexander Lamaison

Use your existing vacuum cleaner to drive a DIY cyclone.

Example

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time back someone posted instructions with pictures to this group.

Reply to
alan

more examples

see bottom of page of

Reply to
alan

No bagged cleaner will cope with that - it generates enough very fine dust to clog a bag in under 10 seconds (and if it doesn't instantly clog, the vacuum isn't trapping the fine dust).

You have two choices: a cyclone, or eject the dust outside with a vacuum which can be operated with the bag removed and has an outlet hose connection (and doesn't pass the unfiltered air stream through the motor).

I use a Dyson - it's the only thing I've found which copes with the rate of fine dust from a plaster chaser, doesn't clog, doesn't eject any in the air outlet, and carries on working for hours on end. Nothing else comes even close.

It will sand-blast the inside of the dust collection cannister, so it won't stay clear plastic, but that doesn't affect operation. Also, a cannister full of plaster/brick dust is heavier than the handle on it is designed for, so be careful to support it's weight when emptying it. Empty it when it gets to the full line, to prevent any dust getting into the filters. Note that because it does trap everything, it fills quickly.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Sounds good. Nilfisk is top of my list at the moment, though I was looking at the Multi rather than the Aero (I occasionally use the Earlex to blow rather than suck and it looks like the Aero doesn't do that). Is the "push to clean" feature worth having, or just a gimmick?

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

Thanks for that. I'd seen them before, and very ingenious they are too. I'd thought of doing something similar, but I need the portability of a single unit to do both the sucking and the filtration.

The other thought that crossed my mind was to take the filter out of my Earlex and run an extra hose from the exhaust outlet to a window. I don't think I could be that nasty to the neighbours though.

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

The standard suggestion is a cyclone, but avoid dysons which filter fine du= st and clog. You can also add a diy cyclone to your hoover. If its a round = tub type like a henry you might be able to mod it to work semicyclonically.= On some you might make a small cyclone that ataches to the top of the mach= ine - you only need it to trap fine dust, bigger bits can pass right throug= h. A water filter is an option I've zero experience with.

If you're happy to simply throw the dust outside, hoover dustettes don't le= t the dust get into the motor.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Iv'e got the aero 25-21 and the bag's never blocked up. It's so good that I modded George to take the same bags (although the cheap bags for George from Comet or similar seem as good but won't fit the Nilfisk). The push-to-clean does work but, to be fair, there's hardly ever anything on the filter. I use it every couple of times that iI do the house - so about every 6 - 8 weeks - and it does seem to restore the carpet-lifting power. Be aware that the hose and flex aren't all that long. I need to move the plug twice to do the who;e house; George would do it in one go.

Reply to
PeterC

The Multi was out of my price range a couple of years ago. May be cheaper now. Also, being new, there weren't many people to vouch for it back then.

I'm sure it works but I've never had it block so never needed to use it. Obviously I've pushed it a few times for 'fun' :-P

Alex

Reply to
Alexander Lamaison

Yes, I completely forgot to mention how awesome the bags are. They're fleecy rather than paper so you can suck up small (possible large but I'm a coward) amounts of liquid without taking the bag out.

Quite.

Yes, they really aren't designed for housework ... but they're really good at it.

Alex

Reply to
Alexander Lamaison

I'd worried about this. I was hoping that the Earlex was particularly bad and it would be possible to buy one that took four times as long to clog, by a combination of having much more filter area and being able to suck through a thicker layer of dust. The Earlex filter is a fairly small, flat paper bag and it runs out of suck when there's only about

1mm of dust on it. I think I may be hoping for too much though.

The Earlex does seem to have separate cooling for the motor, but I think firing that amount of dust outside would make me quite unpopular.

I wondered about Dysons. I've always been impressed with the one we use to clean the house but I wasn't sure how one would cope with the abuse. There are a few local ones on Ebay at the moment. It sounds like it'll be worth a punt on one.

That sounds really quite encouraging. Two days before the first auction ends and I can try one out...

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

They do sound good for general use/abuse. I'm just worried about how they'd cope with the explosion-in-a-talc-factory that is a wall chaser. I reckon I might try a cheap second-hand Dyson first and get a Nilfisk if that doesn't work out...

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

and clog. You can also add a diy cyclone to your hoover. If its a round tub type like a henry you might be able to mod it to work semicyclonically. On some you might make a small cyclone that ataches to the top of the machine - you only need it to trap fine dust, bigger bits can pass right through. A water filter is an option I've zero experience with.

I think the plan that's forming is to get a used Dyson and try it out. I've never found another bagless cleaner that actually works. I'll try to avoid any poncy HEPA stuff and if I do end-up with one, I guess I can just ditch any over-the-top filters...

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

Well, maybe your experience will be different to everyone else on here that's found they block rapidly on fine dust.

If you do the motor will soon die. But you can always repeat the experiment.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

found they block rapidly on fine dust.

It depends on the model...

Old DC01s don't have the airflow to capture the ultra fine stuff in the cyclone, so they clog the filters. You can run them with filters removed though. The later more powerful ones will capture stuff down to smoke particle size. so can probably be used with filters in place.

So long as you maintain airflow through it, the motor should be ok.

Reply to
John Rumm

You must have a different Earlex to me then. The filter in mine is a like a large car air filter.

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does clog but it normally takes a while and by that time the entire thing is fully covered with cack filling all the folds in the filter material. I just take it out give it a bash (outside!) and brush off with a stiffish hand brush. I think I've only throw one out over at least 10 years, I can't remember when I bought the Earlex. I've not fed it with the output of a wall chaser though... But it's certainly dealt with the lumps and dust from chasing with an SDS.

Other muck collection/filter options are available:

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Reply to
Dave Liquorice

found they block rapidly on fine dust.

The DC07 that we've had for years gets used to clean the carpets after all my little wall-chasing sessions. It hasn't had a problem yet, so I guess my experience already does differ. Plugging one directly into the chaser is another story of course...

I've never taken one apart so I don't know the setup. Is the filter that clogs for the motor cooling air then? Is it only for the motor air or all of the air? If it's just for the motor, then I can probably just let it clog, since the duty cycle will be very low. If it handles all of the air, then I may need a rethink...

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

Mine is a WD1000. It came with a sponge filter for wet stuff:-

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the paper bags (to be used along with the sponge filter) for dry stuff:-

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website seems to suggest it can be used with the pleated filter, but it's difficult to see how you would fit that without leaving gaps for air to bypass it. Perhaps the design has changed without the model number.

Cheers,

Colin.

Reply to
Colin Stamp

found they block rapidly on fine dust.

Not at all.

If you over-fill it so there's no cyclone left, then dust goes through to the foam backup filter. This is very easy to do to start with, because when you haven't used one before, it takes you somewhet by surprise the volume/rate of dust they pickup compared with other cleaners.

Also, they're designed to trap smoke particles in the cyclone (to trap smell of cigarettes), and plaster/brick is heavier, and will trap more easily in a cyclone.

Given what you're doing, make sure the pre-motor (foam) filter is in good order (clean), and for a second-hand cleaner, you might as well just remove the post-motor (HEPA) filter. All it does on my Dyson is filter out the motor brush dust, although it might be in a bad state in a second-hand misused one and a possible cause of restricted airflow.

We have 5 Dysons around the extended family, and never had a motor fail.

I bought a DC04 14 years ago. I was bought to clean the house when lots of building work was going on , but almost instantly got repurposed for cleaning up the building work because it wass so good at it. That's all it's ever been used for.

Later, a DC07 was bought for doing the house. After that, DC07's gradually appeared all around the family, when they saw how good it was.

BTW, I've never paid more than half price for any of them, and they were all bought brand new. Just a question of keeping an eye out and being prepared to wait, when you want one.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

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