CHAPTER IV
THE PORTABLE VACUUM CLEANER
“I have seen ten vacuum cleaners at the Electrical Show and every one, according to the salesman, is the best on the market! I want one, but which one shall I buy? It’s most confusing!”
This was said to me no less than ten times.
The answer is: that you must find out in the same way as you found out about your motor car before buying it. You didn’t buy your car because a salesman said it was a good car and because he made you sign a slip and because he promised you, as he departed, a quick delivery.
No, indeed, you tried out the car first or last and you asked your friends, who had purchased the same make, how they liked it and you talked a lot about cost of upkeep, efficiency, wear and economy and the service possible to be had from the makers. Didn’t you? Well, the same process is necessary in buying a vacuum cleaner or any other piece of machinery for the house and every Domiologist knows this to be a fact.
“ALL IS NOT GOLD, ETC.”
All vacuum cleaners look charming and shiny and all seem very perfect in the shop! And they all do their stunts beautifully as the skilled operator thrillingly draws designs in the flour or bi-carbonate (clean, unclinging dirt) on the patient carpet. The operator talks glibly, often failing to give the failings of his machine because he doesn’t know them. So the only thing to do is to try it, in your own home, under your own special conditions, and see that it gets under your furniture, removes threads, lint, hair, dust, matches and other substances with the least possible noise (for noise wears on the operator’s nerves and raises a dislike for the cleaner) and the least possible effort.
It must be light weight, easy to operate and economical and durable. There is nothing so hard to remove as “natural born dust.” It becomes imbedded in the carpet and it takes force to remove it and the sort of force that will not destroy.
Taking up the differences in the various machines, it is the better part of valor to know what the nature of our prey is before we start to hunt! So we will examine the animal dust in its hunting-grounds.
DUST’S HUNTING GROUNDS
In your home you have on the floor woolen or grass fabrics; rugs large and small, and carpets, grass rugs and mattings. The carpets or rugs may have a long nap loosely woven (Chinese) Axminster, Wilton, Velvet Chenille or the pile in loops (Brussels) or just woven threads such as ingrain without any nap or pile. Grass rugs (Crex, etc.) and matting are of this kind.
It is easily understood that, as the carpet or flooring is walked on, the dust becomes deeply imbedded and gets tangled up in the fibres, and that surface sweeping never can take out the dust and you have to send carpets each year to the cleaners to restore their color, etc.
Above the floors are, of course, the hangings, mattresses, books, pictures, moldings, ceilings and walls. As to the dust and the litter, such as matches, hair, lint, collects, 85%-90% of it gathers on the floor, and 10%-15% in the rest of the room. Therefore the cleaning is reduced on the upper regions if the floor is kept really clean.
Of all dirt considering the surface dust not walked on that blows in on clothing, etc., litter, threads, hair, lint, and pieces of paper, imbedded dirt, grit tracked in and entangling itself in the carpet, the worst of these, of course, is the hair and lint and grit. These are hard to remove but they must be taken out, especially the grit, which is the destructive agent in dirt. In the Oriental regions, where the street shoes are left on the door-step, the vacuum cleaner might seem useless.
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.
WE ARE THREE KINDS!
And so ... to have the cleaner that really functions, every machine must be constructed so that it can be easily taken apart and adjusted, and in order to know how to know whether the machine is useful, the following resumé of the kind of cleaners may be of service. These will be treated in functioning classes rather than in technical terminologies.
The portable cleaner (we will not discuss the installed types) are divisible into three classes:
1. Using air only as a cleaning agent
2. Using air plus a brush
3. Using air plus beating and sweeping brush
First: In this class are the tank machines having vacuum pumps as well as fans, single or multiple (many fans mounted on the motor shaft) and the small fan portables.
All these machines are on the same principle, having the motor, fans or pumps for moving the air, a dust bag to collect the dirt, and the hose in the tank machines’ case and the extra tools.
In the small portable machines, which we are considering, the narrow slatted tool attached directly to the motor and the fan case is the medium through which the dust from the floor is taken up and the hose, as in the tank type of cleaner, is eliminated for floor work and is only used for altitude cleaning. So the only difference in these types--the tank and the slatted portables--is that the tool for the floor work is directly on the motor case, in the slatted or fan portables, and on the end of the hose in the tank types. In some machines the dust bag is before the fan, in some behind it, in some the bag is enclosed (there are hardly any on the market now) and in others it is hung on the handle. [Wherever the bag is, it must be so made that it does not slip from its mooring and spill.] The principle, however, is the same in each case: drawing air through the tool which slides easily over the carpet, plus the velocity of the air as the instrument upon which the cleaning is dependent. Upon the rapidity and frequency of the passing of this machine over the carpet depends the thoroughness of the cleaning operation.
When the carrier wheels are on either side of the nozzle or just back of it, keeping the nozzle slightly above the carpet, the operator, if skilful, can do a good job.
Second: Using air plus a brush: The brushes are used as follows:--(1) Straight bristle brush (looks like a comb of bristles) attached inside or outside of nozzle, projecting slightly below it so that it will comb the carpet. (2) Spirally wound bristle brush fitted inside the nozzle opening and operated by the carrier wheels, either with a belt or gears. This brush moves in the opposite direction to that in which the cleaner is pushed, and takes up the lint and hair, etc.
AS TO MOTIVE POWER
Motor driven brushes are driven by a belt attached to the motor. It is continually in action when the motor is running except, of course, when the brush is removed for any reason. The surface is continuously swept as the air passes through the nozzle, and there is, of course, more power in the motor driven brush. But its enemies in the friction brush camp aver strongly that the brush is prone by its velocity to wear the carpet! These brushes generally have two rows of spirally wound bristle, and in this type you get away from the old-time carpet sweeper where lint and threads adhere for a long time to the bristles and often return again to the carpet.
Third: Using air with beating and sweeping. These sweepers have a large brush in a large nozzle and the brushes are spirally wound in two rows with a simple belt connection to the motor. These machines are generally adjusted so that the nozzle is about ¹⁄₄″ above the carpet. The bristles extend enough below the nozzle so that the bristles push away the carpet as the air draws it up. This gives the shaking motion at the same time the bristles, coming down at an angle on the carpet, beat it and passing through the nap comb and sweep it automatically. The bristles comb the nap and the air, passing through, cleans the carpet and the imbedded dirt is loosened by the shaking. The surface litter and hair is swept up and it cleans efficiently by applying all the laws of cleaning at the same time.
Of course, with the cleaner come tools for altitude cleaning, for blowing out dust from books, moldings, upholstery tuftings, etc., etc. The extra tools are absolutely necessary and it is well to remember that the price is generally given you without the extra $7 to $10 being added. Tools are made of aluminum steel and fibre, which means that they are durable and will withstand much wear and tear.
If you should own the best vacuum cleaner in the world and take no care of it, it would be as if you had none. Every bit of machinery that was ever or will ever be made needs care. Any mechanism “acts up” if neglected. It is true, that the vacuum cleaner needs very little care, probably oiling once a month and the removal of the dust after every cleaning operation. The oiling is easy to understand, but the reason for removing the dust after every operation is: that, if the dust bags clog up, the egress of the air is impeded, and therefore the action of the motor is impeded, and the fan’s speed is diminished, causing a decrease in velocity and air supply which is what makes the cleaner more useful than a broom.
Do not be fooled by big talk and glib printed matter about high vacuum power, and long air and water columns. What is needed for a good cleaner is air displacement at a sufficiently concentrated point or surface to maintain a high air velocity. 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 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. Of course, raising the nozzle here will help this fault.
MOTORS!
Another battling point is the question of whether the motor put in horizontally into the casting or that which is put in vertically is the better. They all talk glibly on this subject, but heed it not. 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. Here are some very useful devices which are worthy of mention, but for the most part are matters for individual choice:
The enclosed dust bag.
Steel motor case.
Nickled steel motor case.
Aluminum motor case.
Wheel bearings inside the nozzle.
Wheel bearings outside the nozzle.
Detachable nozzle.
Air cooled motor (most motors are cooled by in and outgoing air).
Dust bag on top of the handle shaft.
Adjustment with nut for stair cleaning.
Self adjustment to keep handle erect when released from holding (very convenient).
Automatic current cut off.
Extra roomy hooks for electric cord on the handle.
Oil cups protected from dust (should be always).
And general attachments made as simple as possible.
Dust bag lined and sometimes partitioned.
Dust bag easy to put on and take off with a collar to hold between the soles of shoes to empty without making dust escape.
Automatic closing valve where dust bag collar comes off--to prevent dust flying back into motor casing.
Rubber bumper to protect furniture.
REQUISITE QUALITIES
In short, the satisfactory cleaner must:
1. Sweep loose the adhering dirt such as thread, lint, dust particle, and brush up matted nap or pile to restore color tone.
2. Loosen and shake to the surface ground-in dirt that kills rugs and carpets, so that it can be removed.
3. Have suction enough to carry away all dirt after the soft hair brush loosens it to make it possible.
This is about the whole story. And as to the expense of operation, they cost not even as much as an electric iron, and far less than the cost of extra cleaning folk to-day. Cleaning becomes interesting and the household without a maid or with one, saves time and money. The rugs can be cleaned at home and stored at home in the summer. Here you save summer’s many costs! Cleaning becomes almost a pleasure, at least a pleasanter performance, not a bug-bear--or in this case we might say--a rug-bear! It is an economy, a comfort and a gold lined investment in which the interest is health, money saved, and fabrics preserved. Could you ask for more in a sweeper?
But don’t expect miracles. The vacuum cleaner needs slight pushing over the floor--it can’t roll by itself.
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