Basic Vacuum Refurbishment

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This is a page for general information on vacuum repair. Many people will toss a vacuum that does not suck and does not blow, so these can be found on the roadside and in trash receptacles all the time.

Dry Clog Cleaning

Assuming the vacuume turns on, and revs up, it most likely just needs a cleaning. If there is dry debris falling out of the device, especially sand, cat litter, rice, etc, this is likely all that is wrong. The device picked it up, but these things do not go through well, and tend to clog hoses and mechanisms. These are the sorts of dry goods that need to be swept rather than sucked, and the last bit can be sucked, potentially.

• Take off all hoses that you can get to come off. Usually they are clipped, with a button or a twist to release.
• Take out the bag/canister and give a good cleaning where needed
• Remove all filters. Most can be cleaned by running water into them, and wringing out. Let them dry to a degree before replacing to avoid water damage of the motor mechanism. Some have 5–10 different filters for the air, so don't be too surprised. If it falls apart with application of water, you will need to get a new one to put the machine in service, but not a huge loss, as it was not going to stand up inside the sucker.
• Turn it upside down, around, and backwards. If you cannot see light through the hose, it is still clogged, so get at whatever is in the way.
• Put everything back together, and see if it sucks or blows. Failure to suck means it's something on the sucking side. Just failure to blow means there's a block on the blower side. If there is motor noise, but nothing at all going through, you may have a bad motor or rotor.

Hair/Thread in the Roller

There is nothing more to this than weeding it out, take apart the mechanism if needed, and drag the hairs out, cutting as needed to strip the pieces out. If it is bad enough, you may be able to purchase a new roller, possibly better than the one you have.

Bad Belt

Replace it. There is nothing else for a belt that has given up the ghost. These can be a pain to rerun, but look for images of the device online, and run it though in a similar way. If they keep breaking, remember that this is typically the last line before the motor, and companies would rather you break a belt than a motor. These are typically cheap enough, especially in bulk, and commercial vacuums will break one about every 2 months with moderate cleaning on an office. It's just not that uncommon for direct drive rollers to break a belt.

Example instructive video: Jane Drill - Replacing a Vacuum Cleaner Belt