—To be of sufficient power to do rapid cleaning and in order to remove from the building all dust and germ-laden air, the cleaning system must necessarily contain some stationary parts. The motive power can generally be confined to these stationary parts, and must, in such cases, be located within the building to be cleaned. Therefore, it should operate with the minimum of noise and vibration.
Machines located in office or other large buildings, containing elevators or other complicated apparatus requiring skilled attendance, which are provided with complicated control and with other attachments, are not objectionable, and in such cases simplicity should give way to efficiency, but unnecessary complications should be avoided.
In residences and other small buildings, where the vacuum cleaner is likely to be the only machinery installed, the system must be one which requires the minimum attention and must be capable of being started and stopped by any person of average ability, without the necessity of going to the point where the machine is located.
The power consumption of the ideal system should be a minimum to accomplish satisfactory results and should be, as nearly as possible, directly proportioned to the amount of cleaning being done. This requirement is most important in hotels, where some cleaning is likely to be done at all hours, day and night. In other words, vacuum must be “on tap” and as readily attainable at any point in the building as your water or electric light. In office buildings, where a schedule of cleaning hours is fixed, and in residences where cleaning hours are few and the capacity of the plant is rarely more than could be attended to by one operator, this requirement is not of as great importance.
Lastly, our ideal system, from the standpoint of the purchaser, must be of such rugged construction, as will enable it to operate efficiently for, at least, ten years and its mechanical details such that it will operate continuously, without expert attention, and that the annual expense for repairs during the life of the machine will not exceed 5% of the first cost of the system.
CHAPTER III.
The Carpet Renovator.
In undertaking the comparison of a number of different makes of any appliance, in order to determine the good and bad points in each, where the apparatus is composed of a number of separate and distinct parts, each having its proper function, which they must perform in order to make the whole apparatus effective, as in a vacuum cleaning system, it becomes necessary to isolate temporarily each part and consider its action, first, as a unit working under the most favorable conditions, and, second, as a component part of the whole apparatus in order to determine where the weak points in any system occur and what modifications are necessary in the various parts of the apparatus to make some vital part of the whole more effective. It is further necessary to determine what are the vital parts of the system in order that the other parts may be accommodated to the effective action of that part.
Four Important Parts of Vacuum Cleaning System.
—In analyzing a vacuum cleaning system it naturally divides itself into four parts, viz.: the cleaning tool or renovator, the air-conveying system or hose and pipe lines, the separators or other means of disposal of the material picked up, and the vacuum producer.
The author considers that the renovator is the most important part of the system and that the other parts should be made of such proportions and with such physical characteristics as will produce the proper conditions at the renovator to permit it to perform its functions in the most effective manner.