Pressure Vacuum Cleaner for Whole House

Whole house vacuum clearer systems have access ports (inlets) where a user can plug-in a flexible pick-up tube. Behind the access ports are tubes that lead to a central vacuum clearer. The user aims the end of the flexible pick-up tube at the dirt, and the suction takes the dirt via the tubes to a container in the central vacuum cleaner. This article describes one setup:

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The vacuum cleaner itself is larger and perhaps has a quieter motor than portable units, but it's conventional in design. A fan covered by a dust filter provides the suction.

But what about positioning the motor and fan on the other side of the dirt? Make the house airtight, and when using the vacuum close the usual exhaust ports, like the ones for the kitchen and bathrooms. Make an opening from the outside of the house to the inside, and have a fan in it blowing through a filter (for pollen etc.) toward the inside. In other words, have a fan that pressurizes the house. Behind each access port, have a tube goes directly to a screened-in container outside. The user closes up the house, starts the pressurizing fan, and uses the flexible pick-up tubes as in the conventional arrangement. Dust and gases get removed from the house, and the larger pieces of trash get caught in the screened-in containers.

I see advantages to this kind of system:

The tube system is simple and cheap.

Short tubes going outside are unlikely to clog.

Instead of capturing most of the dust as with a conventional unit, you exhaust the dust to the outside. This exhaust doesn't need much of a filter. A screen would prevent you from littering the neighborhood.

Relatively clean incoming air goes to the fine filter. This would need infrequent replacement.

Pick-up tubes can be different sizes.

There's a possibility of quiet operation.

Would this be a practical system? Has anybody ever seen anything like it?

Reply to
Nehmo Sergheyev
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just buy a dyson man! but if you invent a system that can dust, hoover and cook (other than marriage) let me know!

Reply to
Gav

I wouldn't use a Dyson to stop my car rolling down the road.

Buy a Henry and with the money you save...a lifetime supply of bags.

D
Reply to
Vortex

No but inevitably it's going to come down one side or the other. Your sucker blows. OR Your blower sucks.

Plummeting swan filters would add some topicality.

Reply to
Mike Halmarack

It would not be practical because

  1. You would never be able to seal a house as well as you wanted and if you did, you would not be able to sell the concept to many customers. You would need to seal better than tyou would for caulking cold air entry.

  1. You could not open a door or have kids entering or leaving the house while you cleaned. "Kids we are on lockdown until I finish blowing the dirt out" (it is not a vacuum)

  2. It will hurt your ears when you have a bad sinus day due to the rising and falling baromatric pressure in the house.

  1. Air is compressable, so even if you switched on a compressor with X cfm airflow, the airflow at the exit port would be less and delayed acording to how much air volume in the house there is. Airflow would be slow at the exit port.

  2. Most of the compressed air in the room would flow right over the dirt to get to the exit tube, leaving most of the dirt inside the carpet.

  1. It would force dust further into the carpet as air leaked through the unsealed subfloor

Can I blow any more holes in your idea.

It would and does work for smoke removal though.

Reply to
PipeDown

my dad made a interesting observation about his brand new home with central vac.

he remarked and my step mom agreed the central vacs hose is harder to manuver and manipulate than a standard vac. although it probably cleans a bit better

Reply to
hallerb

[...]
  1. If you applied even a tiny amount of the pressure differential you find in something like a Dyson to a whole house, it would be instantly blown to pieces all over the neighbourhood.

I have a mental image of this happening when they start doing the new pressure testing of houses as required by UK Building Regs. Misquoting Michael Caine's famous line, "You weren't supposed to blow the bloody doors off"...

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

The message from snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) contains these words:

"Eight pounds of over-pressure wave seemed to glue him to the wall" Jethro Tull, Protect and Survive.

Reply to
Guy King

You missed April Fool's Day by 6 days....

This has to be a troll, nobody could be THAT stupid...

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

R U sure. Usually trollers make up a name for the session or use it to make many stupid posts. This guy's handle shows up robustly on google with lots of no nonsense posts. An inventive dreamer perhaps.

Reply to
PipeDown

or not: I was wondering whether I'd have to buy some new bags for our new Henry or whether I could get away with emptying and re-using the one that came with it. It seemed to be getting quite heavy (lots of small building debris) so I opened it up to see and found that the paper bag was split and so it was only the cloth filter doing the work. Seemed OK so that's how I left it (after emptying it, natch).

Reply to
John Stumbles

No way!

You would have to do the following every time you used it, probably more...

Seal extractor fan in kitchen Seal extractor fan in bathroom Seal chimney Seal cat flap Seal waste trap in Kitchen sink(s) Seal any vented tumble driers (That doesn't mean just close the door either!) Seal waste trap in bath Seal waste trap in hand basin Seal waste trap in shower Seal waste trap in toilet Seal any over-flow pipes

While the system was on, you may have trouble opening your fridge, freezer and probably any other sealed jars etc. due to the lower pressure inside.

Not very practical all in all!

Reply to
Sparks

First problem. Dust becomes airbourne, choking user and leaving dust on every vertical surface.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Not to mention every horizontal surface, :)

Reply to
Glenn

Hmmm, First real air tight house is not easy to build. If you pressurize I don't think it has to be air tight. Real problem is how big a turbine? Air liners do that.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Maybe your lungs will balloon? LOL!

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Interesting idea. I don't think the pressure that could be achieved would pick up much dirt. Somebody should do a trial to see why this won't work.

I don't have any extractor fans.

I don't have a chimney.

I don't have a cat or a flap for it.

Put the plug in.

I don't have a vented drier.

Put the plugs in.

Hmmm, good point. Get the wife to sit on that.

I don't have any overflow pipes.

I don't eat or drink while I am doing the vacuuming.

It would be very quiet. I think it would generate less dust in the air than an ordinary vacuum cleaner. If it works at all at a pressure that won't blow the windows out. :)

Reply to
Nick

Interesting thought, but I'm afraid that pressure sufficient to blow dirt out a discharge pipe would blow out the walls or windows of a house.

Something I did that DOES work extremely well was to "pipe" our house with compressed air. I had several quick connect outlets across the house where we could plug in a 50' hose. In addition, I had two 6" outlets that connected to my 5hp shop dust collector in the basement. The vac wasn't one of the portable types, but was a 5hp induction motor vacuum that had two 6" inlets to collect sawdust and sanding dust as I worked. By using a 6" flex hose from one of the two outlets upstairs, it was like a "super" vacuum that moved a LOT of air.

When it was time to do Spring cleaning, for instance, I'd just lay the 6" lines into a room and use the compressed air to blow dust off of our stone fireplace, Ficus tree, bookshelves, library shelves, under beds, and even baseboards. When followed by a good vacuuming of the carpet by a conventional vacuum cleaner, we had great cleaning in a minimal time.

Reply to
Mark and Gloria Hagwood

Yes! Like Goldfinger's private jet! Hyperbaric cleaning! You're a genius!

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

And other parts of the anatomy...

Owain

Reply to
Owain

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