Shop-Vac loss of suction?

[dukegrad98]

Hi, folks -- long time reader and FFR owner, very infrequent poster. I was more active on the "old forum" years ago, but it's amazing what a wife and kids will do to hobby time. Anyway, I digress -- but I periodically miss the camaraderie and the wealth of knowledge in this group.

Have any of you ever had a shop-vac lose vacuum / suction? I've got a small or medium sized rolling Craftsman Shop-Vac out in my workshop, where it has done pretty light duty for the last year or two -- just occasional floor clean-up, spot clean-up after a project, and a few times I've vacuumed sand and dirt out of the car floor mats out there. It mostly picks up sawdust, metal chips, and the usual bugs and dirt and whatnot that you find in that environment. It's never been used for anything wet. I bet it doesn't have more than 20 hours of use on it.

When I tried to use it last weekend, the machine just wouldn't suck. It sounds normal, and there is a slight vacuum present that you can feel if you put your hand over the hose, but nothing like what you would expect from one of these things. It will barely pick up sawdust at the hose nozzle, and it has no prayer of working with any attachment on the hose end. I checked all the obvious stuff. The collection bag in the canister barely has anything in it, so no issues there. The filter on the motor head is clean -- both the sponge-like prefilter and the paper filter element. Just as a test, I tried running the vacuum with both filters removed, and didn't see any improvement in suction at the hose end. Now that I think about it, I didn't try it with the bag removed, but it literally had almost nothing in it.

Am I missing something obvious here? Or is this just a disappointing tool experience that I need to toss in the dumpster and replace with something better? I know Dyson wants us to believe that vacuums (other than theirs, anyway) magically lose all their suck over time. Even if there's some truth to that, I am scratching my head why this one checked out so quickly and with no previous sign of failure. Thanks for any experiences / tips / recommendations.

Cheers, John

[Bob Cowan]

Most likely the hose is clogged. Use something longer than the hose and run it through to clear any blockage. That's happened to me a couple of times. Also, check the filter while you're there.

[J R Jones]

If Bob is correct, feeling for suction at the canister body will be normal.
Mechanically it could be the impeller loose on the motor shaft. You may have noticed the power cords on vacuums run warm, lots of load there.
When my Craftsman crapped-out the review data said Rigid is best and available at Home Depot.
My Rigid is great, the filter is great and works even when in need of cleaning.
jim

[NAZ]

It's an air pump, if something is plugging the intake or discharge it will not pump air. It will also increase in speed as the load is reduced by not pumping air and you can hear that if you still have your high frequency hearing. Remove the obstruction and vacuum on brother. I make a lot of chips machining parts and suck them into my shop vac which tends to plug the convoluted hose when I vacuum too fast. So I have to stop and clean out the hose. Larger diameter hose doesn't clog with chips as easy.

I'll second JR's endorsement of thew Rigid shop vac -- mine's a 6.5HP and the only reason I bought that one is they didn't have a 7HP. Get the biggest shop vac they make that will run on your 120VAC 20A outlet. And the Rigid comes in orange & black colors sorta like my favorite bike, so that's a plus.

[JasonD]

Make sure the lid seals to the canister and there aren't cracks in the canister or lid.

[dukegrad98]

Thanks for the tips, guys -- I hate it when people don't follow up or report back, so here I finally am to do that.

I said I had checked everything obvious, but it never occurred to me that the convoluted tube itself would clog -- I've never had that happen in a few decades of using shop-vacs. Sure enough, you were right. My hose is badly clogged, in two separate places from what I can feel. It's bad enough that ramming a PVC pipe through to clear it was impossible. I ran out of time to deal with it, but I'll give cleaning it another shot or else I'll just buy a new hose and try to get a little more life out of the vacuum.

Thanks again!
Cheers, John

[EZ$]

Try taking the hose off, go out on your lawn, and swing the hose from the end furthest from the clogs, and beat your lawn like it was a borrowed mule. The hoses are flexible and tough enough to handle the abuse. If there's something in there that you can't ram out with a piece of pvc, you may be able to break it up and then get it out.

[dukegrad98]

Last follow-up on this, just to say thanks again for the suggestions and advice. The problem was in fact the hose, clogged in two places. After my previous efforts to clear it with a PVC ramrod failed, this weekend I took the hose off the canister and beat it like a rented mule as EZ$ suggested. That loosened up some of the junk stuck in there. The ultimate solution was combining the shaking and beating with holding the canister connection end of the hose to the nozzle of my commercial-sized backpack leaf blower (coincidentally almost an exact fit) at full throttle. While holding that together I lost my handle on the skinny end of the hose, just as the plug shot out of the hose. I was then rewarded with a sparkling shower of tiny aluminum chips. Fortunately, I had thought to put on the safety goggles. Despite blowing myself off as much as I could with the shop air compressor, when I went inside to shower my six-year-old daughter asked why I was completely covered in glitter.

The vacuum is working properly once again.

Thanks for the tips, guys --
Cheers, John

[tomshep]

So much is throw-away today. Got to HD or Lowe's and get a new one.