Compact?

[spiralactivator]

I'm in the process of cleaning out/closing up my mother's house (and finding a new place to live, but let's not even go there!), and one of the interesing things I found was an early-'70s Compact Electra canister vacuum. It's a bullet-shaped contraption, avocado green aluminum, with a shake-to-empty bag. My mom said she got it from a door-to-door salesman and paid in installments. She also said it didn't work, but after de-furring the carpet and sucking out the ashtray, I found out otherwise! Since I have a Hoover Portable, I gave the Compact to my aunt. Does anyone out there in Applianceville have any experience with Compacts?

 

[tolivac]

Yes-Excellent machines-even sold them for a little while-they now go under the name TriStar.

 

[portendere]

FWIW

Create a clean and healthy home with the TriStar vacuum, shampooer, water filtration system and air purifiers.

 

[Designgeek]

We had one when I was a kid. Excellent vacuum. High intensity suction, and the dust bag design is very smart: preserves full suction right up to the point where it's full. If you suck up something you need to recover, e.g. your car keys, you can find it easily at the top of the heap in the bag. When you dump the contents in the rubbish bin, they come out fairly quickly & cleanly without a bunch of ambient dust. The machine is built like military-spec, is very easy to maneuver, has all the attachments you need, and it even looks retro-cool.

The only possible shortcoming is it has no particularly good place to store the cord. On the other hand, you can just leave the cord in a neat pile behind it in the closet, and when you take it out to clean house, the cord will trail behind like a long tail until you get to the room you want to clean.

What I would do if I had one nowadays: I'd get a spare cloth bag so I had two (heck, get three) and then after emptying the dust from one, put in the second one, use the dusting brush to suck most of the remaining dust out of the cloth from the first one (the one that's just been emptied), and then stick the latter bag in a closed container of warm soapy water & shake in order to wash it out thoroughly. Then hang it up to dry so it's ready for the next round.

IMHO all the possible sanitary issues of vacs with reusable cloth bags can easily be solved by getting spare cloth bags and washing them in rotation. On the other hand I may be completely wrong and full of bull-poopie, so anyone with more experience in this area is welcome to chastise me accordingly.

Create a clean and healthy home with the TriStar vacuum, shampooer, water filtration system and air purifiers.

 

[mixfinder]

Wash Your Bags

A clean bag is a happy bag, may not apply to all inanimate onjects.

I worked for Electrolux, in the 70's as a door to door salesman. I would ring the doorbell and pray no one was home, so I din't have to go through the spiel.

Elux used a cloth bag to demonstrate the 1205 and later vacs. You'd vacuum a spot on the rug with owner's old cleaner. You would tell them to let you know when it was clean enough. Then I would take the Elux, vacuum the same spot, remove the cloth bag, hold it tightly to the floor and snap the handle on the back of the bag twice. Let the dust settle and remove the bag. There on the rug, to the complete horror and shock of the home owner would a nice oblong shaped pile of dirt, hair and debris.

We were told the cloth bag inbibited suction, paper bags were superior, and never to wash the bag and lint and other sediments would clog the cloth pores of the bag making it less efficient. Elux would not honor the warrantee on a new vac if you used cloth or after market bags.
The purpose of vacuuming is to remove dirt. The more suction you have, the greater your chance of deep cleaning.

The more freely air passes through the dirt in the bag, the higher the suction of the machine and the more efficiently it cools the motor, increasing the life of the vacuuum.

That said, what ever bag you use, CHANGE OR EMPTY IT OFTEN.

It isn't about how full the bag is. A quarter inch of heavy dirt in the bottom of a bag will stop airflow and function while a bag filled to the top with lint lets the air pass through.

I listen to the pitch of the motor, check the suction, as I am cleaning and if you have an Electrolx and adjust the suction control correctly (mid range) it will pop open and shut down the machine when suction drops, regardless of how full the bag is.

My daily driver is a Hoover Self Propelled Wind Tunnel. The air passes through the dirt in the bag as it creates suction.

I change it often.

I hate the smell of old stink, when the air blows through old dirt in the bag. Worse if you have animals and it blows the smell of old dog through the house while you are cleaning.

I am not at all sure washing the bag is the best way to care for it, as it removes factory finishes and changes the function of the cloth.

More than one bag is a cool idea. Turning it inside out and vacuuming it or brushing it, oustide and downwind, are highly useful.

What ever bag you have, empty it often. (LOL)

Kelly

 

[urarachu]

I use a tristar...

as my bench vacuum. Strong suction on those babies.

 

[eluxomarty]

Love my tri star

Compacts are now called Tri Star but they are the same vacuums. Love mine, the suction, the ease of moving it around, and the attachments! Clear with gold specks! How retro it that? LOL! To store the cord on compacts, wrap the cord around the front end where the hose conects back to under the switch back and forth until the cord is wrapped. On Tri Stars, a cord hook was added to the top of the bag cover and you wrapped the cord around that and the switch. The switch also acted as a cord hook.

 

[eluxomarty]

bags

oh they still make Comact/TriStar paper bags to place into the cloth bags. Mostly bojack DVC brand bags but there are still genuine C/TS bags out there. The dvc brand work just as well. I like the idea of having a second cloth bag though, to place the new one into the vacuum and then vacuum the previous bag clean for the next round.

 

[insulinpumpuser]

Compact/Tri-star

Hi, all. I got a new in the box Tri-star in the box at a thrift store for $50.00. I freaked-out. What I do for paper bags is I buy micron filtration F&G bags and cut them in half. So then I have 2 bags. I also cut out a cirle for the inner filter and then I put a Glade plug-ins gel cartrigde and put that in the tank area under the bag. My house smells like heaven when Im done.....Bill in Az.....

 

[tolivac]

I always use the paper bags inside the cloth bag of my TriStars or Compacts-then you don't have to worry about cleaning the cloth bag-the paper bags give you more filtration.There is an Envioncare bags that are multilayer that can be used in Compact-TriStar machines-they are even better than the factory bags.

 

[Washinsheen]

My parents bought a Compact when I was small, back in the late '60s. It was turquoise and shaped like an egg. It came with all the attachments, which included an floor polisher. They still have that vacuum and use it to clean out the cars. I hope to inherit it, some day.