My vacuum seems to be off

[daniel@procarpet]

I have never gotten a complaint about drying time ever until just recently. I have had two complaints even though one job was a commercial building with no AC or air ventillation. The machine seems to be running fine. I checked the wand to make sure it wasn't clogged. I did notice the seal on the waste tank lid was split or cracked in the middle but not around the perimeter. Could this cause the vac to be off? What else should I check?

 

[KevinL]

Start your tm with no hose on it and cover your inlet with your hand or set of blocks and listen for air leaks from your waste tank and whatever. have you checked your blower filter? Add one length of hose at a time and see if something is clogging a section.

 

[Able 1]

Do you have the 2.5 on the tm your talking about? If so did you hook it up with the 2 2" to the 2.5 Y? I would run something through both vac lines to the waste tank see if one is clogged. Happend to me about a month ago.

 

[Greenie]

All good advice, start problem-solving, start at blower filter and work yoru way back to wand, you WILL find the issue.

When you have NO hoses hooked up and TM is running at normal speed, What does your vac gauge read?

And tehn after determining your OPEN HG reading, as you block the vac inlet with your hand, what does the vac gauge read under CLOSED conditions?, and how fast did it get to it's maximum reading?

Do you notice the waste lid "sucking" down under obvious load, or does it appear to not move much?

What wand, and what glide did you have on these 2 jobs?

Dump valve partially open?

 

[daniel@procarpet]

I will check all this stuff first thing tommorw morning and post what I find. I am using a prochem quadjet on the Legend XL with standard 2 inch hose to the wand. I have never had any problems running three sections of hose, but the last two jobs I did required three sections and the vac was definetley off. I cleaned out the waste tank today and cleaned the blower filter which was not dirty as I use in-line filters and have three of these on the truck to switch between jobs. The blower filter had a little grease on it because of all the restaurants I have been cleaning lately.

How do you post pics on this site? I will shoot some pics of my tm and waste tank lid. I will do what Jeff said and start at the blower filter and follow out to the wand checking for any air leaks along the way. I think the seal on the lid has something to do with the loss of vac.

I did recently have my machine serviced for an oil leak and somehow the thing that keeps the engine from running at too high an rpm got knocked out of whack and my supplier reset it and said it was ok.

 

[Rex Tyus]

All of that is good advice. HOWEVER, NEVER under estimate the importance of ventilation and current specific humidity. IT MATTERS. A closed up building here with no ventilation,ac,dehumidifier.... will not dry well. Period. I know some guys are gonna disagree. they will say ..

" I have high humidity where I am and never have a problem(in high pitched girlie voice) "

Bullshit! It matters. Where many guys around here fail. SS especially is they don't give adequate info to the customer for post cleaning dry times. Check everything listed. Make sure your unit is up to par. NEVER leave a freshly cleaned building without proper provisions for drying. If you live in a dry climate then one day you have unusually humid conditions it will screw you up.

Your unit rpms dropping will definately through off the performance of your extraction. As much as an air leak, depending on how bad the drop.

 

[MerCrewser]

If this has blower hxs be sure those are cleaned too. If Blower filters had grease on them, the blower hxs are probably due for cleaning. This will not show up as a higher lift reading on the gauges.