Qustion about Rainbows and cat litter.

[gottahaveahoove]

Being totally serious here, (and not bashing. I don't do that).
What happens if your only vacuum is a Rainbow water system and you have cat litter boxes?
Will the litter clump in the basin? Is that a real mess to clean out?
Being that I never owned one, but do have 2 cats, (their litter is the "clumping kind). Anyone have issues with this in your households?

 

[fcs3]

Greetings Cat Lover

I might be wary using a vacuum of any sort
on cat litter.
Its made mostly of clay which, when moistened,
swells and adheres to anything it touches.
I've used it, too, and its very difficult
to scrape off the sides of the litterbox if
its been left to dry there. Equate this to
inside your vacuum's fan housing and blades.

Further, "used" cat litter contains urea, a
natural acid which may damage aluminum parts.
Lastly, there's the health aspect of contaminating
the vac's inner chambers which urine, feces and
bacteria. Not to mention what molecules are
forced into and thru the filter, and sent back
into your breathing-space.

Get yourself some long cuffed thick rubber gloves
and do the dirty work by hand. Its not pleasant,
but its no different than a Mama changing diapers.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

Thanks.

I have 2 cats. There are 2 litter boxes. I put liners in them and fill them with Tidy cat, scoopable, for multiple cats. I scoop them out everyday with a scoop. I only vacuum loose particles on the floor left by little paws. I use a nice Hoover, of course.
I was wondering what happens when cat owners pick up litter like this with their rainbows.
"Murphy" and "Harold" watch me vacuum up their 'trail' with the Hoover, of course.

 

[kirbysthebest]

John

With the high dilution you are talking about you may have some slime in the bottom of the basin, but probably not enough to cause problems. I clean up paw tracks from my two all the time. Usually just causes me to rinse once or twice after dumping.

 

[real1shep]

I had a customer who had a spring running under her house. I warned her that without an alarm system should her sump pump fail, she could be in a real mess.  Not two weeks later I got a call from her that her sump pump had failed. Before I got there, she had the bright idea to put cat litter on the water puddling in her basement. I can't even begin to tell you what a friggin' mess that was. I tried to clean up the mess with a wet&dry vac. Never again!


 


Kevin

 

[huskyvacs]

I definitely would not pick up cat litter with a water-based vacuum, just asking for trouble. I only seen a Rainbow once in my life, last year at salvation army. it still had water in it, and having never seen one before, I opened it to see what it was all about, nearly puked right there in the store. A godawful sickly smell in that vacuum from water with god knows what in it. Likewise never pick up salt water (from a leaking water softener) with a shop vac. No matter how diluted (sucking up an entire room of water), I lost a 2 year old shop vac from severe rust damage after doing that.

 

[kenkart]

A Rainbow

Is ok for household dust...not much else, talcum powder, flour or soot will bounce off the water and come right on thru, kitty litter will make a REAL gunky mess, Stay with your Hoovers!!!Much better overall vacuums in my opinion,I sold Rainbows new in the 80s, I have come to believe they are mostly a overpriced mediocre vacuum.But...some people love them....

 

[real1shep]

That's so true about the saltwater. I met a guy on a job in CO with a pickup that had severe rust inside the bed. You don't usually see that in CO. I asked him about it and he had been in the seafood business hauling fish on ice. Said he religiously washed inside his truck bed with fresh water after deliveries.....still rusted out.


 


Kevin

 

[gottahaveahoove]

Wow! So much info.

Let's hope you all enjoy a clump-free AND slime-free basin. I know no one wants that. I know, in my home, I won't have it.
Yay for my Hoover products. NEVER , even once, have I found, slime, sludge, clumps, etc in my units.

 

[floor-a-matic]

i use my 6 gallon craftsman for vacing cat litter (unused)

 

[vacuumdevil]

I would ditch the drag around monstrosity and go straight for the sweeping flaps.

 

[dysonman1]

I've repaired thousands of Rainbow cleaner over the past 30 years of my life. Many were owned by people who also owned cats. I have never seen a water basin come in on a Rainbow that contained clumped up cat litter. Some have been damaged by the use of non-genuine fragrances (Listerine will crack the pan too), but the pans have always been clean.

I have a Persian and a Siamese cat. The little bit of litter on their paws that gets onto the rug when scooping the boxes was only a problem for my bag vacuums. Makes the bag stink in only a few days. My Vacuflo central vac does just fine in those instances.

 

[kirbysthebest]

If you vacuum daily, as I do. The amount you pick up from Paw tracks, where the kitty exits the box and carries some litter with them is very minimal in most cases.

Last night I measured with my Kirby Omega, where I could dump the emptor after vacuuming. Amounted to about a tablespoon of litter tracked outside the box in a day.

Now there are days when Kitties fling litter over the sides, that can be a little more substantial, but still is not enough to set up concrete on the bottom of a basin. Luckily the litter boxes are in a non-carpeted area of the basement so just a little dust pan an broom takes care of the hard surface. A few steps further they get on a carpeted area, this is the area that has minimal tracking.

In high dilution situations like a water basin, or Toilet, remember it's flushable. The Litter dissolves and just requires an extra rinse or so. In the 40 years I have had a Rainbow in the house, I have never had any issues that couldn't be rinsed out.

 

[ultralux88]

I've never had a problem with vacuuming up cat litter, sadly our cat passed in 2014. I've also never sucked up a massive quantity of it at once, I never let it pile up.

 

[ultralux88]

Here's the one idiot that not only put the litterbox in his closet (makes the clothes smell nice and fresh huh!) and then let the stuff accumulate for a good log time, I just can't believe he'd let the stinky litter collect in there!

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[kirbysthebest]

You can't fix stupid

And closet litter box guy is just stupid.

 

[ultralux88]

I wanted to comment on the video and tell him this was only an issue if you're an idiot, but I noticed he has comments turned off on the video. Even with this nasty mess, cleaning it out wouldn't be the end of the world, although none of my machines will ever see this much kitty litter, even the bagged machines never collected tis much before they were full of dirt.

 

[vacuumdevil]

First of all that guy thinks that the opening and any rainbow Basin is a small hole. I'd hate to see what his girlfriend/wife looks like. I mean a rainbow basin is wider than the goatse man .
But in reality no rainbow will struggle with cat litter and you can rinse it out just fine he just needs to put more effort into it.

Also this guy sounds like he's upset about paying full price for a rainbow.