Losing the suction power in your central vacuum hose can be a very frustrating experience, particularly if you do not know exactly how to handle the situation. Sometimes, as soon as something goes wrong with the vacuum cleaner, an inexperienced owner is inclined to call in the experts, so to speak, and pay too much money for a service they could do on their own. For example, in the case of losing suction in your vacuum hose, the process is very simple.

First of all, you need to determine whether you have lost suction in the central vacuum hose or the motor. You can do this by turning on your vacuum at the inlet and then putting your hand over the opening. If the inlet has good suction power the problem is in your hose. Next keep the vacuum running and cover the end of the hose to prevent the vacuum from sucking in any air. Keep it like that while you run to the central vacuum motor to check to see if there is any exhaust. If you feel exhaust being vented it means that there is a leak in your vacuum; if you don’t feel exhaust it means you have a clog in the hose.

You can find the proper hose with the clog by having each vacuum inlet suck up something you can identify to see which objects have been sucked up or not. The inlet where the object didn’t make it to the motor is the plug, and needs to be snaked out with a drain snake to unclog the system.