Vacuum cleaner

“ A vacuum cleaner might show in a technical test a tremendous vacuum and when used on the carpet the nozzle be so constructed as to mitigate the power of the suction so created and, therefore, be ineffectual as a cleaner. Therefore, the salesman can talk glibly to the uninformed about [51] vacuums and tests and never say “but our nozzle is so large or so high or so low that the air intake is bad.”
Too much vacuum often makes the machine heavy by sucking too heavily upon the carpets. ”

“ We are apt to overlook the fact that a vacuum cleaner depends upon atmospheric pressure to drag the dust and dirt out of a carpet. A vacuum cleaner would not work on the moon, where there is no atmospheric pressure. The apparatus consists of an air pump, usually driven by an electric motor, which exhausts, or partially exhausts, the air from a foot piece that is dragged along the carpet. As the air under atmospheric pressure rushes in through the carpet to take the place of the air that has been pumped out, it carries with it all loose particles of dirt. ”

“ The Adjutant took another furl in his bath-towel.
"If you really must know," he said composedly, "I'm going to buy a vacuum-cleaner for the Mess."
"You infernal old wangler!" cried the outraged Pilot, when at last he was able to make himself heard. "Of course it takes forty-eight hours to buy a vacuum-cleaner, doesn't it?"
"As a matter of fact," said the Adjutant solemnly, "my whole experience of vacuum-cleaners leads me to the conviction that you have to look at a great many of them before you can pick a really good one." He glanced round for his clothes. ”

“ In their third stage vacuum cleaners have become ordinary household implements, in substitution for, or in addition to the broom and duster, and small machines are now made in a variety of forms, driven by hand, by foot, or by an electric motor attached to the lighting circuit. ”

“ All that is necessary for the purchaser of a cleaner to know about the motor is that it should be made by a reputable firm, have a good speed that is spectacular and that it be not imbedded too deeply in unnecessary fixings to be oiled and cleaned.
The universal motor is best for the average purchaser as it works well on indirect or direct current, whichever is supplied to you in your neighborhood. Nearly every cleaner employs a universal motor.
Every vacuum cleaner manufacturer has some point of his own that makes him the most delightful of talkers. ”

“ There is no trouble at all about installing the stationary vacuum cleaner after the building is erected, but naturally it is less expensive to put it in during the building and when planned for ahead than it is to put pipes through a house after it is built. ”

“ The carpet doesn’t wear out so much from the top as it does by being cut from the roots by the stamping in of the cutting grit. Therefore, the vacuum cleaner has been invented to save the carpet, and not only to destroy the carpet destroying factors, but to annihilate the microbe drawn into the house from the street on your offending shoes. ”

“ It operates from any light socket and consumes but a very small amount of current, much less than is consumed by a toaster. It can also be purchased with different attachments with which curtains, radiators, clothes and walls may be cleaned. The possession in the home of one of these vacuum cleaners makes it unnecessary [213] to take up rugs, carpets, tear down curtains and go through the semi-annual worry, wear and tear of house cleaning. The vacuum cleaner will do it better and many times quicker without removing a single article of furniture or disturbing a rug or curtain ”

“ The principle of operation differs with different makes, and some are less effective than others, but there are several patterns that do good work and are not expensive. Experiment with one at the first opportunity. A room cleaned in this way is markedly different in odor from a room that has been swept with a broom, even when this is well done.
A good vacuum cleaner must have an air conveying system, a separator or other means of disposal of the material picked up, and a vacuum producer. ”

“ Just as with silver, with only one maid it is better not to have too many brasses out, unless you can hire some one to clean them.
When I tell you the order of cleaning a room by a hand-power vacuum cleaner that is made only to sweep the carpets and rugs, does not go by electricity, and has no attachments, you will see that it saves you the most troublesome and heaviest part of the work of sweeping day and that two or three rooms can be cleaned in the time it would take to clean one with a broom. ”

“ This cleaner is placed in the basement, with arrangements for starting same from any floor. The manufacturers state that this apparatus produces a vacuum of 2 in. mercury in a carpet renovator, 4 in. mercury in an upholstery renovator and exhausts 25 to 30 cu. ft. of free air per minute with open hose. The machine operates by water pressure and the manufacturers state that it requires about 6 to 8 gals. of water per minute. All air is exhausted outside of the building and all dust washed down the sewer with the exhaust water. It is therefore, a fairly efficient and sanitary cleaning system. ”

“ This cleaner, as well as all other portable cleaners, discharges the air from the exhauster directly back into the apartment cleaned, and is open to the same objection that was raised against the early compressed air cleaners. While all the dust may be caught by the dust bag, the microbes are allowed to escape with the air and the cleaner is not a sanitary device by any manner of means. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From this it is evident that the vacuum within the renovator will be increased above that necessary for economical cleaning. It will require somewhat more effort to push the cleaner over the carpet and also a slightly greater expenditure of power at the hose cock to operate the cleaner with a short than with a long hose. ”

“ On first consideration, the portable cleaner would appear to have a considerable advantage over the stationary type in that the length of hose is usually limited to not over 15 ft. and there is no pipe line, which results in the elimination of practically all friction loss, giving practically the same vacuum at the renovator as at the exhauster. This should result in a saving of practically 50% of the power required to operate the exhauster. ”

“ When a large quantity of air is available, nearly as good results in cleaning this character of surface can be obtained by the use of the straight rubber-tipped corner cleaner, with a round opening about 3⁄4 in. in diameter, as illustrated in Fig. 32. A very high velocity will be obtained through this renovator which will pull the dust out of inaccessible places. This form of cleaner is also very effective for cleaning the corners of rooms, where the floor and walls intersect, [63] veritable dust catchers that they are, the cleaning of which is fully as important as it is difficult. ”

“ It has also the advantage of holding the dust which collects, and with the aid of a small 'vacuum-cleaner' such as most households possess nowadays, the cases may be cleaned thoroughly without removing a single shelf. ”

“ The results of actual use of the bare floor brush of the bristle type show no gain when cleaning bare floors. As stated in Chapter IV, the felt-faced renovator, being more effective while it requires less air. In other words, it is the degree of vacuum within the cleaner and not the quantity of air which produces the cleaning in all cases where any degree of vacuum is possible. When intimate contact between the cleaner and the surface cleaned cannot be had, the volume of air determines the efficiency of cleaning. ”

“ The power required to operate this cleaner is also so great that special power wiring and large capacity outlet plugs have to be installed throughout the building. Such equipment has been provided in at least two department stores where these cleaners are in use. This means that [229] one wires his building for vacuum cleaning instead of piping it, and there is also the necessity of moving a heavy machine about to do the same work as a stationary plant. ”

“ At the same time a hundred or more portable vacuum cleaners have been marketed. These are of almost every conceivable type and form and are operated by hand, electricity, and water power. Among them will be found machines which are good, bad and indifferent, the efficiency and economy of which will be discussed in a later chapter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is another type of mechanical cleaner manufactured by the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company which is provided with a mechanically-operated brush for loosening the dirt from the carpet. The dust is then conveyed through a single-stage fan to a dust bag. The cleaner does not depend on the vacuum to loosen the dirt and will do quite effective carpet cleaning with a small expenditure of power. Owing to the small suction produced, it is of little value for cleaning anything but carpets. ”

“ Vacuum cleaners which work by means of suction are sometimes useful in cases where large accumulations of dust require to be removed, and not simply redistributed, but a powerful variety is necessary as the smaller vacuum cleaners remove the top layer of dust as a rule, and leave a solid substratum. ”

“ Different Kinds of Vacuum Cleaners. There are cleaners with bellows, pumps or fans to draw in air and dirt. The ones with bellows in them work on the principle of a bellows which is reversed so that when the air is drawn in, it brings the dirt with it. The other kind works with a fan which draws or sucks air from the floor thru a nozzle into the machine. In the machine, the dust is filtered out of the air and collected in a pan.
The machines with fans in them are mostly power machines, as the fan must revolve very rapidly. The hand machines are mostly of the pump and bellows types. ”

“ During the present school year, vacuum cleaners are on trial in four of our school buildings. While it is yet too early to pronounce judgment upon them, there is, nevertheless, a strong probability that they will solve the dust problem without soaking the floors with filthy and highly inflammable oils. ”

“ Vacuum cleaners are a necessity in crowded city quarters, where we cannot beat and shake dusty carpets and rugs out of windows, on the roof, or in the street, on account of our neighbors. That we cannot all have them does not make them less necessary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, therefore, necessary for the exhauster to be capable of handling 140 cu. ft. of air or 70 cu. ft. of air per renovator in order to do effective carpet cleaning when carpet renovators and brushes are used in conjunction.
When two floor brushes are used with the above arrangement of pipe and hose, the vacuum must fall considerably or [113] the air quantity be greatly increased. However, the reduction in vacuum will not result in serious loss in efficiency when only brushes are in use. ”

“ 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. ”