The Manufacturer Of The Intervac Roadvac Reveals WHY It's The Best RV Central Vacuum System For The Outdoor Lifestyle.
Dirt in the Dust Bag Actually Stops The Suction
– The RoadVac RV Vacuum Cured That!
Susan: When you have a vacuum cleaner, if you start out with a really good strong cleaner like we have with the Intervac, what happens to people is they start thinking that their vacuum cleaner is not performing well over time. But what's really happening is the dust bag is starting to fill with dirt.
In other vacuum cleaners, if you look at the bag, it will be smooth and flat inside and the more dirt you put into their bag it starts to block the airflow.
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The Motor Can’t Create Suction And Have Power… If It Doesn't Have Airflow Going To It All The Time.
What we did to prevent that from happening and causing the vacuum cleaner to lose power:
- We created a series of ribs inside where the vacuum cleaner bag is tight
- Bag never touches the walls of the vacuum cleaner and
- There's air flow going to the motor the entire time
- From the first moment you put a clean bag until it is completely filled to the top
- You're not going to lose suction because of the chambers that allow that suction to go to the motor.
- The other benefit is that you get full use of your dust bag.
- You have a bag that looks small, but it'll hold as much as a bag three times the size
- because it compacts and it fills it all the way to the top without losing suction.
- Our vacuum does not lose suction.
Rotating Brush – Or Not?
Susan: There are always going to be people that believe they have to have a rotating brush. And so with our vacuum cleaner, we do have air driven turbo heads that a customer can purchase if they feel strongly that they need that. But we have looked at it, tested it here.
- The suction on our vacuum cleaner goes up to 600 air watts and that is a lot of power. It's just that when you have customers who believe that if it doesn't have a rotating brush, it is just not getting it clean. I am not here to change their mind about it. I'm here to provide them with what they're asking for. If they want to purchase a rotating brush from us ok, if that's what they feel like they need. We have enough power on our vacuum cleaner to have those brushes rotate the way they're supposed to.
No Batteries To Run Out Of Power
Susan: As long as you have electricity, you can run this thing 24 hours a day if you feel like it. We've run them for three weeks at a time before we shut them off. It's a pet peeve of mine that these battery operated vacuum cleaners, and stick vacs, they promote them as being so convenient. But the truth is if you use high power, using a rotating brush, it runs out of battery power in about three to four minutes. If you use it normally it's going run about eight or nine minutes and die.
I was very gratified to see that consumer reports just recently pulled their rating on the Dyson stick vacuum because of them talking about battery life, which just isn't there, and they have now taken it off where it was, in their top five. It's not on the list at all of vacuum cleaners and it's also been cited for the frequency of breakdowns on it.
- Intervac has a long 6-year warranty.
- Your Intervac Roadvac will last you 10 or 15 years and it's going to run as long as you have it plugged in.
Not all Attachments Are Created Equal
Susan: All our vacuum attachments are called a friction fit. This means that you put the two pieces together, press down on them and twist it at the same time. That creates friction because they're slightly tapered and they'll stay that way. When you go to remove it, you just do the same thing. Reverse twist it, pull it out.
Some attachments have what they call a button to button fit that and that means you've got to take a button, press it down with your thumb while you line up the holes and then you'll release it and then that button holds it in place. To me, that's tedious and it puts a lot of pressure on your hand. And I personally don't like that type of fitting. I think it's just much easier to put two pieces together, give it a slight twist and you're ready to go. It couldn't be simpler.
Vacuum Attachments Must Be Useful.
Susan: We're always approached by companies trying to sell us other accessories for the vacuum cleaner. And the first thing we do is test them ourselves. With the compliment of tools that you get with an Intervac there's really no job we can't do. It's got a dust brush, so we can get into your dashboard and places like that.
We've got an upholstery tool where the brushes slide off of it. So if you go to do the floormat on your car, you wouldn't want to have brushes on it because you've got this floormat and you want to get a lot of suction right on that and this thing is so strong, it will pick the mats up off the floor of the vehicle.
- When you want to clean your couch, for instance, you're going to put those brushes back on and you're going to clean your fabric chairs and couches.
- We have a crevice tool. It’s when you want to get up into the corners of things, that's exactly what it's for.
- The floor tool is going to switch from a bare floor to a carpet, just step on a pedal, then it's going to bring down brushes. You're going to step on the pedal to your bare floor and then you step on it again and it's ready for your carpet. It has wheels on it, so it's easy to maneuver it.
With our telescoping wand, you can use it with or without. If you're doing something like a dashboard, again you don't want to put a wand on it and stand three feet away from your dashboard.
Some Optional Tools.
There's a long crevice tool that’s 24 inches long. RVers love this because it's great for cleaning the slide outs, which can accumulate a lot of dust and dog hair. That can create an expensive repair job later. So that's a tool that gets purchased as aftermarket. Some people don't feel like they need it and that's ok. It's the same thing with our turbo brushes.
So, I would say the majority of our customers are very pleased with the performance. They don't feel like they need anything or they don't have any carpet. So, it's not a concern to them at all.
We have not found another tool that we thought made any sense and added anything to the array of tools that would do something for that you can't do with everything you're getting with the Intervac to begin with.
Brush Heads – Swivel or Not?
Susan: In our combination rug floor tool, where you're having to get around chair legs and under the couch, you'll see what's called a double swivel head on it. The neck piece is going to turn the floor tool any direction that you need it to go. You're not going to have to pick it up and turn it with your hand.
We use these tools here. We use them of course in our own home. And so when something is inconvenient, when we're using it, that's what we're going to address. So, having the wheels on that tool, so that it slides easily across the surface and having that double pivot makes it just a simple thing. You won't even think about it. You just move your wrist and it turns where you want it to go.
Dust Bag Changing
Susan: We have a competitor that is not doing as well, since we came into the market. One of the ways that you access their dust bag is you had to remove the top of the canister. Very difficult to remove. I mean, women hated it because if you just spent $30 on a manicure and you break a nail trying to get this top off because of the way that it's connected.
First, we don't use any metal. We manufacturer these, we do injection molding here at our plant and so everything is plastic. It's not these metal devices where you're stuck trying to get a lid off a jar. You don't want to be doing that.
We have a slider. You just put your finger in the opening, push with a little pressure, pull forward.
- The whole front panel comes off and you have access to the bag and
- It's got a little rubber neck on it that holds it onto the intake belt.
- Just pull it off, take it to the trash can, throw it away.
- There's no dust blowing up in your face.
- There's nothing spilling on the floor.
- Take a new bag put it over the neck and close the door.
- It couldn't be more lightweight and simpler.
Cleaning The Vacuum Cleaner!
Susan: There’s really nothing to clean because everything's going to go into the dust bag and unless you forget to use a dust bag, you're going to have a clean vacuum cleaner all the time. It's made from polycarbonate. If the outside of your vacuum cleaner gets any dirt on it or you spill a cup of coffee over it, just take a rag and wipe it down. You can use cleaners, anything like that. It's like a computer case, whatever you can do to a computer case, clean the Intervac the same way it's the same durability.
Washable Filters vs Disposable Filters
Susan: The bag itself is not washable. It feels like cloth and a lot of people mistake it for a cloth bag, but in fact it is paper. So you do need to throw that away and put a fresh bag on. The secondary filters are washable and just use a little soap and water, let it dry thoroughly and reuse it. Because our bag is such a high filtration bag, that secondary filter seldom gets dirty. So when you buy replacement bags, you get a, another secondary filter with it. So you should always have clean filters available to you.
Dust Bags vs Air Flow
Susan: You know, you can't have a completely filled dust bag and get any airflow. And therefore, you're not going to have a vacuum cleaner that works, it's going to overheat. But you know, when you use a dust bin, the problem to me is when you go to empty it. When you pour that into a garbage can, you've got dust flying back up in your face. It's now going back into your living area and you've just defeated what you were attempting to do. You've made it dirty again.
With a dust bag, it’s all in that bag. It's sealed in that bag. And when you go to change your bag, you're just taking it over to a trashcan. So in a way you can't spill the dirt. It's not going to fly back up in your face.
And it's a very simple operation. Not like a dust bin. I mean, I can't stand bugs. We know if I have a dead bug, I'm going to get the vacuum cleaner out and vacuum it up. Last thing I want to see is a dead bug flying around in a plastic canister and I don't want to see it when I've dumped it in the trash can either. So that's another reason I like a dust bag, but that's just me.
A Secondary Dust Filter
Susan: We keep the secondary filter right under the bag because what we're trying to accomplish is that if anything does get out of that bag, we want it captured by the secondary filter. We don't want it going into the motors. What you're doing with your dust bag and your filters is besides keeping the air clean, you're protecting the motor because the motor is whirling around doing its thing. You don't want to have any kind of dirt getting in there because it can tear your motor up. So it's really important that nothing is passing through that motor.
Noise Levels of Vacuum Cleaners
Susan: Noise level is subjective, and we have a measuring device and we measure noise, but we're always looking for ways to get the noise down. So there's two things about an Intervac. When you buy a CSRM model, the power unit is located down in the pass-thru of the RV. So it's basically outside. That's another thing people like about central vacuums is the motor is not in their house. So, noise is not an issue.
But of course, we have our model where you're going to install it right in your closet or in your Kitchen island, so noise is going to be more of an issue. But the nice thing about ours is because the unit is recessed into a cabinet that noise is going to be buffered by the cabinet itself.
It doesn't stop us from still trying to find ways to buffer the noise even more because everybody would like to have a vacuum cleaner that's completely quiet. That's not going to happen. You know, you do have to have a motor, but then I have just recently been experimenting with some new material that is damping sound down even more so I think on our horizon you'll probably see another 10 decimals come out of out of our noise level.
Replacement Parts
Susan: We have a six-year warranty and it's nothing that you're going to replace or repair yourself because the only thing that can go wrong is the motor. I mean, I guess if you lost your front lock or something, I don't know how that would happen, but we can replace it for you.
But when the motor goes bad, you must send it back to us. We check it out to see if it's a warranty issue because the brushes might go bad, but we get very, very, very few warranty items. If you abuse it yourself, by using it without a dust bag, then you know that would void your warranty.
But we always take care of our customers so that they don't have to buy a whole new vacuum cleaner. But you would send it back to Intervac, the day we get it, we check it out, we repair it the next day, whether it's under warranty or not, and return it to you.
But we do not allow a customer to replace a motor themselves because we have UL inspections.
Everything must be built a certain way and we would not want to see a customer forget to unplug their vacuum cleaner and then go start messing around with the motor and, get really curly hair. So you will send it in, and within six years everything's taken care of, including the shipping.
Intervac Customer Service – You Get A Live Person in the USA
" We Don't Hand You Off To India... "
It serves two purposes. It takes care of the customer, it gets them the answer they want, but we learn things. We are talking to you and we're finding out, what is wrong with your vacuum cleaner. Is this something that we need to think about improving?
If we're getting the same phone call over and over, we're going to look at the design and say, you know, maybe this isn't such a good idea, we're going to change it. If we don't get that feedback, we never know that customers are unhappy.
It's always going to be a priority for Intervac to talk to the customer. We want to know what they're saying.
Just like talking to the lady yesterday and at first, I thought she was going to complain to me about not being able to pick up dog hair and I heard her say, “I could not believe how strong the suction was. I cannot believe it picked up all the dog hair, and I thought my Sharp was the best vacuum cleaner until I used yours.”
That's very gratifying. That's what we do this for.
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