M. S. Cooley

“ The carpet renovator is generally considered first in importance, because the cleaning of carpets has nearly always been found to be the principal field of usefulness in vacuum cleaning work. This is due, perhaps, largely to the fact that from the beginning of the art of vacuum cleaning, this function of the system has been held before the eyes of the public by the manufacturers of the earlier systems. Nearly all demonstrations of cleaning systems shown to the public consist of the removal of ordinary wheat flour from a carpet. ”

“ The dependence on the raising of the renovator from the floor to flush out a larger pipe line should not be carried beyond that to be obtained from a single renovator. That is, when the pipe must serve more than one renovator at the same time, the quantity of air that two or more renovators will pass, if they were raised from the floor at the same time, should not be used in determining the limiting velocity in the pipe, as such an occurrence is not likely to be obtained often enough to thoroughly flush the pipe. ”

“ This form of renovator, while more efficient than the oscillating floor type, still had its faults in that it had a tendency to push the dirt along the floor in front of it, much the same as the floor brush from which it was copied was designed to do. Also, there was too much tendency for the air to pass into the body of the renovator without coming into intimate contact with the surface to be cleaned. While this type of floor renovator or a slight modification thereof is still in [57] use by several manufacturers today, it never has and never will be an effective bare floor cleaner. ”

“ This nearly universal invasion of the vacuum cleaner field by anybody and everybody looking for a good selling article, establishes the fact that the vacuum cleaner is not a fad or fancy, but has become almost a household necessity and has led [20] large corporations to take it up as a branch of their business. First, the Sanitary Devices Manufacturing Company and the Vacuum Cleaner Company, the pioneers in the field, after a legal battle of years, consolidated with a view of driving their competitors from the field as infringers of the patents controlled by the two organizations. ”

“ An ideal vacuum cleaning system would be one which, when installed in any building, will displace all appliances used for dry cleaning in the semi-annual renovating or house cleaning, the weekly cleaning or Friday sweeping and the daily supplemental cleaning. If our system be truly an ideal one, the premises should never become so dirty as to require any semi-annual cleaning at all, and, if the daily cleaning be anyway thorough, there need be no weekly cleaning. ”

“ There are a few portable machines using rotary exhausters of the Root type, and piston pumps, all of which are heavy to move about and, in making them as light as possible, the efficiency of the exhauster has been sacrificed. These machines will do the same quality of cleaning as the stationary plants recommended for residence work and they require about 3⁄4 H. P., which is no less than is needed for a stationary plant of the same capacity and efficiency.
The most popular type of portable cleaner is one which can be attached to a socket or plug connected with the lighting system. ”

“ Because of its generous proportions, made necessary to accommodate the material picked up, and its centrally-pivoted handle, made necessary by its mechanical construction, it is impossible to operate it under low furniture. Like the lawn mower, it must be in motion in order to operate its revolving brush, on which its cleaning action is dependent. It is impossible to make use of same in corners, along walls, or close to heavy furniture, its use being limited to a literal slicking up of those portions of the carpet in the most conspicuous portions of the apartment. ”

“ Another class of cleaning which requires a special system and special appliances is the renovation of furs. Furs must never be brushed, as it tends to mat the hair and produce an effect opposite to renovation. The only agent suitable for renovating furs is compressed air and the form of renovator best suited for this work is a straight nozzle, flattened at the end with a slot approximately 4 in. ”

“ During this time it has become necessary to alter no less than five times the stock form of specifications for stationary vacuum cleaning plants which were adopted by the Government, with the intent of obtaining the widest competition possible with efficient and economical operation, in order to keep pace with the variation and improvement in the apparatus manufactured. As each new type of system has come on the market a personal investigation at the factory, together with tests, has been made. An exhaustive test of carpet renovators was also conducted, using one of the Government plants. ”

“ The appliances which remove the dust from the air current which has carried it through the hose and pipe lines, in order to prevent damage to the vacuum producer, play an important part in the make-up of a vacuum cleaning system. ”

“ In large office buildings where all cleaning is done after office hours, where the building is provided with its own power plant, and where speed of cleaning and ability to clean all apartments with the fewest tools to be carried by the cleaners is desired, it appears to be better to use only Type F renovators for all carpet work, as the extra power required will not be of vital importance. ”

“ What is desired in cleaning operations is a certain degree of vacuum at the carpet renovator, with the system operated under the same conditions that will obtain in practical cleaning, and with cleaners of various types attached to hose ends equal in number to the capacity of the plant. ”

“ The vacuum produced when the machine is moving no air is slightly less than the maximum that the exhauster can produce and there is very little variation in the vacuum with air quantities which can be moved without exceeding the capacity of the motor or other means producing the power. The curves showing the power required to operate [157] and the efficiency of this type of vacuum producer are, therefore, plotted with abscissae representing the air moved in cubic feet per minute. The vacuum produced and the power required to operate are plotted as ordinates. ”

“ To supply the needs of this class is evidently the field of the portable cleaner, as even the poorest of these machines is more effective in the removal of dust and dirt than the broom and carpet sweeper.
The selection of a portable cleaner by one who must necessarily resort to the use of such a cleaner should be made with care. The motor should be looked into and only one which has brushes readily removable and one in which the condition of the brushes can be easily noted should be selected. Lubrication is important. ”

“ In a school house containing four class rooms, where the janitor cleans the play rooms and corridors during the school period, as can be readily done with a vacuum cleaner since there will be no dust scattered about to fill the air and render it unsanitary, the class rooms can easily be cleaned in one hour by one operator. The author considers that one sweeper capacity for each six to eight rooms is ample for a large school. ”

“ Having decided on the type of vacuum cleaning system that is best suited to the conditions of the particular building in which it is to be installed, it then becomes necessary to ascertain what are the tests necessary to determine whether the installation will produce the desired results. ”

“ As the building was likely to be located in a city where no other vacuum cleaning systems were then installed and in a new building in which no dirty carpets were available, and as it was not desirable to have the contractor furnish the material for the test, it was considered necessary to use some material in soiling carpets which would be readily obtainable anywhere, which could be readily brought to a standard, and which, when worked into the carpets in a reasonable length of time, would be as difficult to remove as the dirt found in the average dirty carpet. ”

“ It is interesting to note that to produce the most efficient plant for all of the four cases named, all of the various types of vacuum cleaning systems which have come into general use have to be operated each under its most favorable conditions and the engineer should select his plant to best fulfill the conditions of the special case at hand, just as he would select his prime mover for an electric generating plant according to its size and location. ”

“ When the vacuum cleaning systems combine scrubbing with dry cleaning, the separator and vacuum producer must provide for the removal of water as well as air. A few manufacturers have attempted this, among which are the makers of the Rotrex system, described in Chapter IX, in which the water is passed through the pump and into the sewer under sufficient pressure to overcome the friction in the exhaust pipe through which the expelled air passes after leaving the separator. ”

“ Much difference of opinion exists among the various manufacturers of vacuum cleaning systems as to the maximum length of hose that should be used with a cleaning system, and as this maximum length determines the number of risers to be installed, some fixed standard is necessary. As already stated in Chapter VI, the author considers that this maximum should be fixed at 75 ft.; that is, the risers should be so spaced that all parts of the floor of the building can be reached with 75 ft. ”