Wet N Dry Vacuums?

[n0oxy]

wet dry vacs and backpacks

I have 8 wet dry vacs, most are fairly loud, the quietest one is probably my Craftsman 5 gallon. Most of these do not have the power and filtration of a household vacuum. If you really want to clean carpets with one, you could always get the volt power nozzle.
I'm a big fan of backpack vacuums. I have 8 of those as well. While mainly designed for commercial use, these do work well for cleaning your house or apartment, and they filter well especially if you use cloth bags instead of paper bags. Surprisingly most of these do not include an electric power nozzle or even the hook up for one, but there are kits available that will allow you to use one on a backpack if you wish, and for cleaning carpet, you need one.
Mike

 

[tolivac]

W/D vacuums-they have MORE power than a standard home vacuum-its in the CFM-amount of air the vacuum moves.These do not have the suction "pressure" as in inches of water.Most W/D machines are designed for picking up BULKY materials-sawdust,demo debris,wood,metal shavings and such.I do have a Tornado Task Force-sold thru Grainger-this machine is a beast!!!15A motor and very high CFM.Has a GIANT external cloth filter bag that connects to the motors blower output.The idea with this vacuum is large,havy items stay in the 16 gal drum-fines go into the bag.The fan looks like a turbocharger fan!I am going to try this vacuum with the Volt powernozzle-the Tornado vacuum has a 1.5 in hose.Also the mortor on this is detachable from the drum so you could use it as a blower-and very powerful one at that!I have other W/D machines and they all beat standard machines in CFM.Filtration can be just as good on these if you use the Filtrte bags(shop Vac)-they are not easy to get-and team them with the pleated motor filter and the filtration should be as good as a regular vacuum.I have a new Shop Vac 14 Gal vacuum-use the yellow multiplayer paper "drywall" bag in it and the machine came with the pleated HEPA filter.You really should NOT use the pleated filters alone-they will clog QUICKLY this way-use them with a bag.This new machine-came from Lowes has a sort of square,transparent drum.Weird to see the disposable bag inflate inside when turned on!

 

[n0oxy]

hose sizes

There are 4 hose sizes for these machines but most wet dry vacs have the same size in-let on them, I think it's 2-1/4 so you can use whatever hose size you prefer. There's the standard 1-1/4 size, also known as 1.25, this hose size will take all of the standard vacuum attachments from household vacuums. There's another size that Ridgid uses on some of their models, I'm not sure if any other manufacturer uses it, it's 1 7/8 in size. Then there's the 1.5 inch hose, this is the size that is commonly used for commercial applications, there are a lot of attachments that fit this hose size. Finally there is the 2 1/4 size, I've only used this hose size a few times and it's very hard to work with, very bulky and hard to manage. The good thing is that most hoses have the 2 1/4 connector so you can use whichever hose size meets your needs, I would suggest the 1.25 or 1.5 sizes. Here is an article with more information about these kinds of vacuums.
Mike

http://www.ristenbatt.com/xcart/Wet-Dry-Utility-Vacuum-Cleaner.html