How NOT to use a garage vacuum

From the Niagara Gazette , April 21 2010

• ACCIDENT: A resident of A Street narrowly avoided serious injury in an early morning mishap Wednesday that involved gasoline, a car and a vacuum cleaner. At 2:53 a.m., firefighters from the Royal Avenue station were alerted to respond to an automobile fire in the first block of A Street. On arrival, firefighters found a 1996 Buick on fire. The fire was quickly brought under control, but the nearby home did sustain a slight amount of damage. Apparently the resident was siphoning gas from the car and during the process some gasoline spilled onto the ground. In an attempt to clean up the gasoline, the resident decided to use a vacuum cleaner. The electrical motor of the vacuum ignited the gasoline, which in turn ignited the automobile. Most electrical appliances are not intrinsically safe and can easily ignite flammable and combustible vapors. If gasoline is spilled, it is best to use some type of absorbent material to remove the hazard. Never store absorbent material that has come into contact with gasoline or dangerous liquids inside a structure or near any heat source.

See the GarageVac at the National Hardware Show

Come see the exciting new GarageVac at the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas on May 4th, 5th and 6th. Owners Peter and Susan Schlapkohl will be there to answer all of your questions. If you're attending the show, stop by and see us at booth #2713

How to find a Garage Vacuum near you

So you stumbled across this blog and now you want to find out where to see this cool wall mount vacuum for yourself. Maybe you've got some ideas for putting it to a different use like a craft room vacuum or something you could take to your RV and you need to see how it will fit. Or you might not believe the claims and want to see for yourself just how powerful this vacuum is. Click the picture to find a GarageVac dealer near you. If there isn't one, call 1-888-499-1825

Customer Service

Want great customer service from your vacuum cleaner manufacturer?

Call us at 772-463-1400..........and listen to a real person answer the phone!

Mon-Fri 8 am to 4:30 Eastern.

Flush Mount the Garage Vacuum in your Wall

The GarageVac by InterVac Design is the only vacuum on the market capable of being flush mounted inside a 2x4 wall. The patented design allows for a cleaner, less obtrusive installation than has ever been possible before.



First, find a spot in the wall where you would like to mount the unit which is close to a stud. It's best to mount one side into the 2x4 for the strongest support possible. Cut out the hole for the GarageVac using the provided template. Hardwire the unit to a breaker or existing electrical outlet with Romex cable and install in the cutout. The Flush mount GarageVac comes with special mounting brackets for hanging the hose along the unit as shown in the pictures.



With the unique stretch hose that extends out to 40 feet, now you can have the benefits of a central vacuum in your garage without taking up all the space. The Garage Vacuum also comes in 4 great colors to match your interior, Black, Red, Gray, and White.



If you don't want to cut a hole in your wall and hardwire the GarageVac, that's ok too, because the hanging model is incredibly easy to install with just the 4 provided screws and template. Then you can remove and place the vacuum on the wall similiar to a picture frame.



And it's not like it takes up a whole lot of space!

QVC Vacuum Demo Disaster

Hilarious! This is not our vacuum!! However, it's a perfect example of why you want to buy a quality unit built here in America.

Garage Vacuum specifications and ratings

Sealed Suction or Inches of Water Lift and how they relate to vacuum cleaners:

The sealed suction of a vacuum cleaner as rated in inches of water lift is a good indication of how well it will perform, especially when comparing systems with higher resistance to the air flow. The air flow is proportional to the amount of suction produced by the motor and inversely proportional to the total resistance to air flow within the complete system. Therefore, if everything else is equal, the more suction produced by the motor, the better the performance of the system. The sealed suction rating is somewhat greater than the suction normally produced when operating with air flow. It indicates the maximum suction which can be produced by the motor as described in the section about the load on the suction motor. Since the sealed suction rating is measured with absolutely no air flow, it is not affected by the resistance to air flow within the system. If there are no leaks within the system, the sealed suction as measured on a gauge will be the same at the cleaning nozzle as it is at the suction motor. Even if the filter system is extremely restrictive, the sealed suction will not be affected by it. Alternately, when air flow is present, the actual suction will decrease as resistance to the air flow increases between the suction motor and the point where it is measured.

GarageVac sealed suction=> 100" of water lift The other garage vacuums, 55-95"

Amperage Ratings and Vacuum:

The amperage rating shows the maximum amount of electrical current which normally flows through the vacuum cleaner's electrical system. This is the sum of the amounts flowing through the suction motor and electronic components. A rating of twelve amps is the maximum permitted for any appliance which plugs into a standard household electrical outlet. Don't be fooled by ridiculous HorsePower ratings, which have nothing to do with vacuum suction.

GarageVac Amp rating=> 12 Amps The other garage vacuums, 8-10 amps

Garage Vacuum

Come see the GarageVac in Tampa this weekend!

This weekend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday March 19-21 you are cordially invited to come see the GarageVac at the Tampa Woodworking Show. Our production supervisor Armando will be there to answer all of your questions. Tell him you heard about it on the blog, and get a show special!
Click here for a map to the show

The advantages of HEPA filtration

You've probably heard the term 'hepa filter' before, but maybe never understood exactly what it meant. Well, let me clear the air and tell you the facts about HEPA filters and why it makes the wall mount garage vacuum a better vacuum.

HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Arresting) filters got their start back in the 1940's during the Manhatten project when nuclear engineers were looking for a better way to filter radioactive particulate from the air. The technology has advanced and today our Hepa and Hepa style filters remove 99.7% of particulate .3 microns in size. To put that in perspective, the average human hair is 50 to 150 microns wide. That's not to say that particles smaller than .3 micron get past the filter, both smaller and larger are stopped it's just .3 micron is the size where 99.7% are blocked. For a vacuum, filtering out the dust, allergens, and pollen is important because you want to catch those particles, not just recirculate them through your vacuum and back into the room. For allergy sufferers and people with weakened immune systems, it's vital to remove the very small pollen and yes, dust mite feces from the environment.

You may be thinking "it's just a filter, big deal". However, the Hepa filter doesn't work like a common sieve type, where there are holes of a certain size and anything bigger gets blocked. The Hepa style filter is actually a collection of usually fiberglass fibers that collect particulate through 3 different means. Interception and Impaction are methods where particulate run into the fibers and either embed into it or stick to it. The other method, Diffusion, is a result of the collision with gas molecules by the smallest particles, usually those below .1 micron in diameter, which are thereby impeded and delayed in their journey through the filter. This is called 'Brownian motion', named after a Scottish botanist named Robert Brown who happened to be the first guy to stare at dust through a microscope.

If you have allergies, asthma, or any other breathing related issues than a hepa style vacuum will clearly make a difference in your life. Even if you don't have breathing issues, don't you still want the best garage vacuum available?

Hopefully you now know everything there is to know about Hepa filtration, but if you still have questions give us a call, we're the vacuum experts! 1-772-463-1400