Thank you. Love the info about the mechanics behind plumbing a central vac. I have a house built in 1977 with a NuTone system that I am slowly converting to a Beam system.
Thanks! Yet another topic I had no interest in previously. From now on this will be something I'm aware of. Thanks for making a pedagogical video that a layman can understand! Wohoo!!
Stupid question. Why do they install the piping with contact cement? Why not use tape to seal the joints in case there is a clog? So the pipes can be separated, the clog removed, and the pipes put back together?
Our CV has some pretty sharp 90's in it, but it's NEVER clogged in 10 years of use. Seeing your video, it makes sense.. NEVER does our system's piping work against gravity. Any dirt going into the piping is going horizontal or down, but never UP.
I’m currently installing my own central vacuum and I sincerely hope I’m not making terrible plumbing mistakes. I definitely am not making anything like this. I have a trunk line that runs vertical up to my 2nd floor from the basement. It then ends in a 90 sweep to a 45 to the left, a 90 sweep up and then a 90 short to the inlet. The 1st floor inlet is a short 90 to a 90 sweep t that joins the trunk line down to the basement. Then once the vertical pipe reaches the basement ceiling height, I have a 90 sweep to go along the basement, a 90 sweep T which branches off to a 90 sweep going down to a 90 short basement inlet and then back up at the T that branches off to the basement inlet the pipe goes along the ceiling 10 feet to a 90 sweep, 90 sweep T that goes off to the kitchen vroom which after the 90 t goes to a 45 to a 90 sweep up to a 90 short into the vroom inlet and down back at the 90 sweep t it goes along the ceiling to a 90 sweep and down to the head unit.
I did a service call on a system where some moron had drilled a hole in the short 90 behind an inlet, and ran the wire inside the pipe for a certain length, not sure how far. I tried to convince the customer to let me open the wall and do it right but they didn't want to.
My new build home is missing a short-90-degree elbow at the inlet on the first floor. Rather a straight 1 foot pipe has been to go through the wall on the first floor to the garage. Should I get the builder to return and install a 90 degree elbow?
Question, broke a piece of piping taking out my central unit where do you buy the piping looks to be 1 1/2 inch? Oh, and is it special piping or will regular pvc work?
The people that sell the $5 per foot thin wall PVC pipe sure have invested a lot of effort to strike fear and spread BS about plumbing PVC for CV systems. Pipe IS pipe. The cheaper, thicker wall pipe will work fine. Use common sense!
Just curious, as you were looking at this, you no doubt instantly recognized the hard 90 upward turn where you stated the problem was. So why not just hack off that one elbow, clean it out, and replace it. I would imagine that would have saved the homeowner a lot more money with you not having to rebuild that entire section of piping just for a clean out.
I'm not the video creator ---- but ---- that's carbon dust from the motor brushes. Central Vac pipe has a magnet/static pull to it when in use and it attracts the black carbon dust that comes from worn motor brushes. It's pretty normal for older systems --- Excessive black dust is a bad sign though.
