Retro Fit Central Vacuum Project

A couple of months ago Dan McGrath wow’d us with his Home Brew DMX lighting system.  Now he’s documented his retro-fit central vacuum project complete lots of photos, parts list and costs…

[googlead]”Design – I spent absolutely ages planning this, I had originally intended to fit a central vacuum system when we first bought the house, but never did. Recently I’ve boarded out and reinsulated the loft, and it seemed like an ideal location for a central vacuum system, so the idea was reborn.  The main things to consider are the pipe run itself (and trying to hide as much of it as possible) the location of the outlets to provide best coverage of the house and the vacuum unit itself.

Installation – Ok, I started with the installation of the vacuum unit itself, I decided to fit this in my loft, as I have a lot of space in there and it is now nicely boarded and easily accesible. I already have some stuff in the corner of the loft, such as a fileserver and bathroom extractor fan so this seemed like an ideal location, it is also near the external wall I’d planned to run the pipework down and close to a source of power (these units need a standard 13amp socket or fused spur).  The first job was to build a small mounting frame for the vacuum unit that would support its weight. For this I biscuit jointed up some planed softwood to make a pretty simple mounting frame that was then screwed to both the loft floor and the roof timbers….”

Read the rest of the article and marvel at the photos- www.yourmissus.com