No one is ever comfortable living in a dirty house. That is why people spare some time in their busy schedules to clean their houses. Did you know that your house can appear clean but filthy at the same time? If you didn’t know, you now know better. Dirt and dust particles are too small for you to see with your naked eyes. As a result, most of them remain even after scrubbing your house because it is quite impossible to get rid of what you cannot see. Luckily we found the best canister vacuum cleaners. These appliances work by sucking up dirt and dust particles. All the sucked particles of dirt and dust are stored inside the vacuums from where we can dispose of later. Picking the right vacuum is half the battle so luckily guides exist.
How Vacuum Cleaners Work
Vacuuming with a Canister Vacuum
How vacuums work can be likened to sipping soda through a straw. When you suck your soda up, the pressure at the top of the straw drops. The result is a greater fluid pressure at the bottom than the top. That is why the soda is pushed up to your mouth through the straw. Obviously, this is the suction mechanism in its simplest form. The mechanism utilized by vacuum cleaners is similar only that it is a bit more complicated. Essentially, it is this technology that enables vacuum cleaners to remove stubborn dirt and dust particles from various surfaces. While there are several appliances that you can do without in your home, a vacuum cleaner is not one of them.
What is the Best Vacuum Cleaner?
Although there is an array of vacuum cleaners in the market, they all don’t have the same performance. Whenever you think of buying a vacuum cleaner, you should strive to get the one that meets all your needs. How then can you figure out the best vacuum out of all the many options in the market? You should look for the one that has the most powerful cleaning performance. Cleaning performance denotes the ability to clean the dirt and dust in your home efficiently. The performance is determined by many factors. Remember that vacuums work by sucking up impurities. Therefore, one important factor that you should always consider is the vacuum suction power. It goes without saying that the best vacuum cleaner is the one that has the highest suction power.
What is the Meaning of Suction Power?
Suction power can be defined as the strength with which a vacuum cleaner sucks in the air during cleaning. Typically, suction power is generated by the vacuum cleaner’s motor. If you have ever used a vacuum cleaner, you must have felt a fan blowing inside. This fan blows the air getting in helping suck up the dirt and dust in the surface being cleaned. When the air is being drawn into the vacuum cleaner, the air pressure inside drops. It is this low air pressure that enables the filters inside the vacuum to trap small objects.
How Vacuum Suction Power is Measured
To many people, the term “suction power” is still not clear. As you can guess, how it is measured is even more confusing. This post is meant to clear up the confusion and to assist you to acquire the vacuum cleaner with the best cleaning performance. The suction power is measured in the following ways.
1. Cubic feet per minute (CFM)
This measurement represents the amount of air sucked by the unit in every minute in cubic feet (ft3/min). It is perhaps the most important way of measuring vacuum suction power. The reason is that it shows the power of the airflow into the vacuum cleaner by taking into account the motor power and the resistance of the exhaust system. This exhaust system may include fans, filters, bags or cyclones. The larger the CFM, the higher the suction power. Most vacuum cleaners you will find on the market operate in the range of 50-100 CFM. Note that not all manufacturers include CFM in their specifications. Others include it in watts or amps. In this case, the common range is 1000-1500 watts and 10-15 amps.
2. Water Lift
This method of measuring the suction strength of a vacuum cleaner is also referred to as inches of H2O. Here, the unit is completely sealed before it is connected to a tube containing water. The suction power is determined by the level the water rises. The higher the water level, the higher the suction strength.
3. Air Watts (AW)
The suction power can also be measured in Air Watts. The term represents the amount of watts that the appliance utilizes when carrying a unit of air through an opening. In most cases, this opening in the nozzle of the vacuum. The term is somewhat constructed to differentiate between suction power and motor power. The difference is emphasized because it is possible to have two vacuum cleaners with the same motor power but different suction powers. It also explains why you will find two figures for watts in the specifications of vacuum cleaners.
Wikipedia has some awesome information on air watts that we strongly suggest checking out. We have had some questions on this topic and have found their information to be quite accurate with some detailed information on calculations and pull rates for vacuums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwatt
It is possible to have a vacuum cleaner that has no nozzle opening. In this case, you can calculate the Air Watts if you know the CFM and the Water Lift. The formula that you can use is:
Air Watts= 0.117254 x CFM x Water Lift
4. Watts
As we have already stated, watts indicate the power consumption of the vacuum’s motor. The value does not directly indicate the vacuum suction power. Almost all vacuum cleaners have this value indicated in their specifications. High watts mean that the unit has a powerful motor and thus, sucks better. However, this method of measurement is not very reliable because the motor power does not always correlate with suction power.
5. Amps
Just like watts, amps also indicate the consumption power of a vacuum cleaner’s motor. Therefore, the above explanation of how Watts measure suction strength stands. You can also convert amps to watts using the formula:
Amps x 120 (Volts) = Watts
What is the Importance of a Strong Suction Power?
If you have ever done any house cleaning, you must be aware that dirt can be categorized into two. There is the one that is easy to get rid of and the one that can prove a headache to clean. A vacuum cleaner with a low suction strength can only remove the first category. If you continue using a low-suction vacuum cleaner, the dirt will continue accumulating, and I bet you will never stop complaining of poor health. You, therefore, need to use a vacuum cleaner with a strong suction strength for you to remove the hard and invisible dirt. Although the vacuum will not clean all the dirt, it will certainly remove most of it even in some tricky corners of your house.
You can learn more about canister vacuum cleaners and vacuums suction on these pages:
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