I am using a "certified pile brush" to pre-vacuum. It is very aggressive. But I don't know why most commercial cleaners don't use them. They will last 20 years if properly maintained.

Do they still have that cloth bag that does not trap the soil, and just allows it to blown back into the air space to settle back into the carpet as you leave the building. They would be great if they could adapt a hepa filter system. Pile lifers are just that and not great vacuums.

Don, My machine has a zipper cloth bag with paper disposeable bags. DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH BLOWING DUST AROUND.

Are you sure about that, just because it has a paper bag does not mean it traps all thr soil

Don,

The Conquest does not have HEPA filtration. I am not a vacuum cleaner expert. Although I have owned a long list of them in the past 22 years... A few Sanitaires, a Royal Commercial, a Windsor Versimatic, 3 Bernina Commercial vacs, Panasonic Commercial, a few Kirby's, Oreck, a Back-Pack. The Windsor, the Back-Pack and the Bernina's had HEPA filtration. However the Hoover Conquest has better cleaning performance. As I spoke with vacuum dealers I was told that filtration of a vacs discharge can restrict airflow. I went with the Conquest for two reasons... 1) Excellent roller/brush agitation. 2) High airflow. I agree that filtration is a fine idea, however I was looking for a vacuum CLEANER that was able to remove impacted dry soil from the backing of tight looped commercial carpets. Soil removal was my primary interest. And although the Hoover Conquests may allow a few microns of particles to escape through it's bag, it does a terrific job of cleaning (the best I've seen for a commercial carpet). However any GOOD commercial vacuum should reasonably address the needs of vacuuming a commercial carpet - the key is to use it properly.





Rick Gelinas

Rick
Good points, however, the Certified Pilelifter was the worst machine I have ever owned for allowing a large percentage of the soil to blow back into the airspace. We are cleaning professionals and simply blowing soil particles back into the air space makes no sense. It is time the vacuum cleaner industry got up to speed on I.A.Q. and made equipment to meet to-day's demands.

I agree with you Don that the Pile Lifter is not satisfactory, no-way no-how. And I agree with you that the vacuum cleaner industry has done far too little addressing the needs of the commercial environment. It's amazing really that we can send a spacecraft to Mars - but we're still struggling with extracting dry soil from commercial carpet.




Rick Gelinas

I have used a number of vacuums over a 25 year period and have decided that the Hoover Conquest is the best tradeoff. Some filter dust better than others but if you use the mico-filter paper bags in the Conquest rather than using the dirt cup it filters to an acceptable level and still gives the raw cleaning power I want.

Thanks for the info, good stuff

A lot of good info and imput from everyone. But in reply about the paper bags I use DON are enviro-clean bags from powerflite,they claim to filter down to 1 micron. When I first got my pile brush it just had a shake out bag,and it did let dust through. DON have a great day!!!

HAH!! I remember the Certified pile lifters- I used them every day for over 20 years. It was the job of the helper- or most junior guy to use it and turn it on- because at the first start up, the bag would let out a big POOF!! of dust that was in the bag- even when empty, the bag still held a lot of dust.

Whoever turned it on was then breathing the dust- and got it on his clothes, etc.

It was also the most junior guy's job to empty the bag at the end of the day. Another big dose of dust shaking out the bag.

Not gonna do that any more!!

Gary

Hey DW that is great I am glad you are using environmentally friendly vacuum bags, that was my point from the beginning, the Certfied Pile lifter without the bags you mentioned is nothing more than a dust blower.