A vacuum cleaner (also hoover in colloquial British English) is a device that uses an air pump to create a partial vacuum to suck up dust and dirt, usually from floors. The dirt is collected by a filtering system or a cyclone for later disposal.
Most homes with carpeted floors in developed countries possess a vacuum cleaner for cleaning.
In 1876, Melville Bissell of Grand Rapids, Michigan created a vacuum cleaner for his wife, Anna, to clean up sawdust in carpeting. Shortly after, Bissell Carpet Sweepers were born. After Melville died unexpectedly in 1889, Anna took control of the company and was one of the most powerful businesswomen of the day.
The first powered cleaner employing a vacuum was patented and produced by Hubert Cecil Booth in 1901. He watched a demonstration of a device used in trains that blew dust off the chairs, and thought it would be much more useful to have one that sucked dust. He tested the idea by laying a handkerchief on the seat of a restaurant chair, putting his mouth to the handkerchief, and then trying to suck up as much dust as he could onto the handkerchief. Upon seeing the dust and dirt collected on the underside of the handkerchief he realized the idea could work. Booth created a large device, known as Puffing Billy, driven first by an oil engine, and later by an electric motor. It was drawn by horses and parked outside the building to be cleaned.
Booth started the British Vacuum Cleaner Company and refined his invention over the next several decades. Though his "Goblin" model lost out to competition from Hoover in the household vacuum market, his company successfully turned its focus to the industrial market, building ever-larger models for factories and warehouses. Booth's company lives on today as a unit of pneumatic tube system maker Quirepace Ltd.
In 1910 P.A. Fisker patented a vacuum cleaner using a name based on the company’s telegram address—Nilfisk. It was the first electric vacuum cleaner in Europe. His design weighed just 17.5 kg and could be operated by a single person. The company Fisker and Nielsen was formed just a few years before. Today the Nilfisk vacuums are delivered by Nilfisk-Advance.
In 1905 "Griffith's Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets" was another manually operated cleaner, patented by Walter Griffiths Manufacturer, Birmingham, England. It was portable, easy to store, and powered by "any one person (such as the ordinary domestic servant)", who would have the task of compressing a bellows-like contraption to suck up dust through a removable, flexible pipe, to which a variety of shaped nozzles could be attached. This was arguably the first domestic vacuum-cleaning device to resemble the modern vacuum cleaner.
Nine patents granted to the New Jersey inventor David T. Kenney between 1903 and 1913 established the foundation for the American vacuum cleaner industry. Membership in the Vacuum Cleaner Manufacturers' Association, formed in 1919, was limited to licensees under his patents.
In 1907, James Murray Spangler, a janitor in Canton, Ohio invented an electric vacuum cleaner from a fan, a box, and a pillowcase. Crucially, in addition to suction, Spangler's design incorporated a rotating brush to loosen debris. Lacking the funds to produce his design himself, he sold the patent to W.H.Hoover.
Spangler patented his rotating-brush design June 2 1908, and eventually sold the idea to his cousin's husband, W.H. Hoover. Hoover was looking for a new product to sell, as the leather goods produced by his 'Hoover Harness and Leather Goods' company were becoming obsolete, due to the invention of the automobile. In the United States, Hoover remains one of the leading manufacturers of household goods, including cleaners; and Hoover became very wealthy from the invention. Indeed, in Britain the name Hoover became synonymous with the vacuum cleaner so much so that one "hoovers" one's carpets. Initially called 'The Electric Suction Sweeper Company', their first vacuum was the 1908 'Model O', which sold for $60.
Hoover is also notable for an unusual vacuum cleaner, the Hoover Constellation, which is a canister type but lacks wheels. Instead, the vacuum cleaner floats on its exhaust, operating as a hovercraft, although this is not true of the earliest models. They had a swivel top hose with the intention being that the user would place the unit in the center of the room, and work around the cleaner.
Introduced in 1952, they are collectible, and are easily identified by the spherical shape of the canister. They tended to be loud, had poor cleaning power, and could not float over carpets. But they remain an interesting machine; restored, they work well in homes with lots of hardwood floors.
The Constellations were changed and updated over the years until discontinued in 1975. These Constellations route all of the exhaust under the vacuum using a different airfoil. The updated design is quiet even by modern standards, particularly on carpet as it muffles the sound. These models float on carpet or bare floor—although on hard flooring, the exhaust air tends to scatter any fluff or debris around.
Hoover has now re-released an updated version of this later model Constellation in the US (model # S3341 in Pearl White and # S3345 in stainless steel). Changes include a HEPA filtration bag, a 12 amp motor, a suction turbine powered rotating brush floor head, and a redesigned version of the handle, which tended to break.
This same model was marketed in the UK under the Maytag brand, with the model being the Satellite. Same machine, different badges, owing to licensing restrictions.
The 5.2 amp motor on older US units provides respectable suction but they all lack a motorized brush head. Therefore they generally work better on hard floors or short pile rugs. Old units take Hoover type J paper bags but the slightly smaller type S allergen filtration bags can be easily trimmed to fit the retaining notches on the old vacuums. Replacement motors are still available from Hoover US for some models.
Hoover made another hovering vacuum cleaner model called the Celebrity in 1973. It has a flattened "flying saucer" shape. Hoover added wheels to it make it a conventional canister model after a brief run as a hovering vacuum. It uses type H bags.
For many years after their introduction, vacuum cleaners remained a luxury item; but after World War II they became common among the middle classes. They tend to be more common in Western countries because, in most parts of the world, wall-to-wall carpeting is uncommon and homes have tile or hardwood floors, which are easily swept, wiped, or mopped.
Vacuum cleaners working on the cyclone principle became popular in the 1990s, although some companies (notably Filter Queen and Regina) have been making vacuum cleaners with cyclonic action since 1928. Modern cyclonic cleaners were adapted from industrial cyclonic separators by British designer James Dyson in 1985. He launched his cyclone cleaner first in Japan in the 1980s at a cost of about US$1,800 and later the Dyson DC01 upright in the UK in 1993 for £200. It was expected that people would not buy a vacuum cleaner at twice the price of a normal cleaner, but it later became the most popular cleaner in the UK.
Cyclonic cleaners do not use bags: instead, the dust collects in a detachable, cylindrical collection vessel. Air and dust are blown at high speed into the collection vessel at a direction tangential to the vessel wall, creating a vortex. The dust particles and other debris move to the outside of the vessel by centrifugal force, where they fall because of gravity, and clean air from the center of the vortex is expelled from the machine after passing through a number of successively finer filters at the top of the container. The first filter is intended to trap particles which could damage the subsequent filters that remove fine dust particles. The filters must regularly be cleaned or replaced to ensure that the machine continues to perform efficiently. Since Dyson, several other companies have introduced cyclone models, including Hoover, and the cheapest models are no more expensive than a conventional cleaner.
In early 2000 several companies developed robotic "vacuum" cleaners. Some examples are Roomba, Robomaxx, Trilobite and FloorBot. These machines propel themselves in patterns across a floor, cleaning surface dust and debris into their dustbin. They usually can navigate around furniture and find their recharging stations. Most robotic "vacuum" cleaners are designed for home use, although there are more capable models for operation in offices, hotels, hospitals, etc. Some such as the Roomba are equipped with an impeller motor to create an actual vacuum. By the end of 2003 about 570,000 units were sold worldwide.
In 2004 a British company released Airider, a hovering vacuum cleaner that floats on a cushion of air. It is claimed to be light weight and easier to maneuver (compared to using wheels), although it is not the first vacuum cleaner to do this—the Hoover Constellation predated it by at least 35 years.
There is a recorded example of a 1930s Electrolux vacuum cleaner surviving in use for over 70 years, finally breaking in 2008.
A vacuum's suction is caused by a difference in air pressure. An electric motor reduces the pressure inside the machine. Atmospheric pressure then pushes the air through the carpet and into the nozzle, and so the dust is literally pushed into the bag.
Tests have shown that vacuuming can kill 100% of young fleas and 96% of adult fleas.
Vacuum cleaner configurations:
Most vacuum cleaners are supplied with various specialized attachments, tools, brushes and extension wands to allow them to reach otherwise inaccessible places or to be used for cleaning a variety of surfaces.
Vacuums by their nature cause dust to become airborne, by exhausting air that is not completely filtered. This can cause health problems since the operator ends up inhaling this dust. There are several methods manufactures are using to solve this problem. Some methods may be combined together in a single vacuum. Typically the filter is positioned so that the incoming air passes through it before it reaches the motor.
The performance of a vacuum cleaner can be measured by several parameters:
The suction is the maximum pressure difference that the pump can create. For example, a typical domestic model has a suction of about negative 20 kPa. This means that it can lower the pressure inside the hose from normal atmospheric pressure (about 100 kPa) by 20 kPa. The higher the suction rating, the more powerful the cleaner. One inch of water is equivalent to about 249 Pa; hence, the typical suction is 80 inches (2,000 mm) of water.
The power consumption of a cleaner, in watts, is often the only figure stated. Many North American vacuum manufacturers only give the current in amperes (e.g. "12 amps") and the consumer is left to multiply that by the line voltage of 120 volts to get the power ratings in watts. The power does not indicate the effectiveness of the cleaner, only how much electricity it consumes. The amount of this power that is converted into airflow at the end of the cleaning hose is sometimes stated, and is measured in air watts: the units are simply watts; "air" is used to clarify that this is output power, not input electrical power. This is calculated using the formula:
|cleaning power (air watts)||= airflow (CFM) × suction (inches of water) / 8.5|
|= airflow (m³/s) × suction (Pa)|
Air watts measured at the vacuum's motor can differ by as much as 50% (depending on the type of vacuum) from the air watts measured at the end of the hose. This is most noted in central vacuums.
Some vacuum cleaners include an electric mop in the same machine: for a dry and a later wet clean.
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