Central Vacuum System? Yay or Nay?

[pinkmomagain]

Do you have one? Do you like it? I've never been in a home that has one. But considering if we should do it in our home renovation.

[khm]

We have one that came with the house, it's fine. I don't know that I'd pay what it probably cost though! They were very in fashion back in the early 2000s when our house was built, but ours wasn't installed new, the first owners had it retrofitted in b/c she just had to have it.

Good vacuums are so well-priced today, I think I'd rather have an upstairs one and and downstairs one vs. the central vac. Our upstairs line is clogged and has been for a long, long time. So, we do have a regular vac up there.

It does do a good job, and I like having the loud dirty part in the garage. I like not having to empty it as often as you would a regular vac.

But, all in all I don't think I would replace it when ours dies and if I moved into a house without it, I don't think I'd miss much about it.

[georgiegirl]

We had central vac in our prior house (we lived there for 13 years). We had to replace it once. We had one in the garage, which was awesome for cleaning out our cars. We really struggle finding good vacuums now. Not sure if I’d spend the extra money to have it put in, but I prefer the central vac to our situation right now.


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[Peaches Keane]

The house I grew up in had one. The kind where you attach a hose to the wall. It was a total PITA. I honestly feel there were no advantages. The tubing was flexible and LONG so it was a big formless mess which made it hard to store, hard to retrieve from its’ storage spot, and hard to carry to the place where it would be used (and then hard to put away again). The suction was just so so. A regular vacuum was lighter, easier to use, and easier to store (and put away).

The systems that are a hole in the wall you sweep things to I have no experience with, but I would worry that the area around it would begin to show a lot of wear and tear and dirt stains.

[jgenie]

Ours was here when we bought our house. I would save the money. I hate carrying the hose from room to room. I like not having to empty the canister but I wouldn’t pay to install one.

[saleenl]

We love ours. We have a hide-a-hose system and are able to reach the whole house with a single outlet upstairs and one downstairs, each about 1500 sq ft. There is no lugging a hose or storing it or attaching it (except in the basement where we can keep it on a hanger next to the main unit). We retrofit our vac system into our 100 year old house when we removed a chimney and haven't regretted it for a minute.

[belovedgandp]

We moved into a home with one in 2018. It was installed when the house as built in 1995. We tried to use it a couple of times, but gave up. DH actually unattached the unit in the basement. It is still there, but was in the way of where he wanted to put a different set of tooling.

Hauling the tubing was more of pain than my Shark. Then we put in all hardwood floors so I now swear by running the robot vacuum on a regular schedule.

[KpbS]

Ours came with our house as well. I've liked it better than I thought I would. I often use just the suction feature with the powerhead motor off to vacuum the hardwoods.

[cvanbrunt]

We've had a couple that were already installed in houses and I like them but dragging the hose around is a pain. If I could install it myself with the retractable/hide a hose I'd be over the moon!

[keh602]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who is annoyed by lugging around the giant hose. I feel so ungrateful, but it truly is a pain sometimes. I would also be over the moon with a retractable hose! I do really enjoy the port in the kitchen that we can sweep stuff up to. Now that is very useful.