If there is a will, there is always a way. Click Here

I don't know if you can do a retrofit of an existing system, but just wanted to say that I really like my hide-a-hose system. I have always had central vac, but this is our first house with H-a-H.

I had it installed recently and the vacuum guy told me that HAH gives a lot of trouble, but I want to know if we can retrofit.

We've been in the house just over 2 years and haven't had any issues with the hoses or the way they work. I have a wide house with garages at either end and I did 2 systems, one in each garage, each servicing half the house, so that 2 people can vacuum the house at the same time. I don't use the "sock" on the hoses, because I have dogs and they would just get covered in dog hair and probably smell after a while.

What trouble did the vacuum guy say they give? Maybe he isn't good at installing the pipes in the correct configuration! You can't have any tight turns.

Most central vacs have a pretty tight 90 degree elbow right behind the inlets, so I suspect that is a limitation?

Nope, with H-a-H there is an angled start behind the inlet, but there is no tight elbow turns. Any turns in the pipe run are special angled pieces and not tight turns.

View behind wall.

The answer to the original question is really no.

You have to have longer pipes with bigger radius turns that no one would do if it wasn't HAH.

I will say that when we built our house, a standard inlet system was installed. A year later, and after a lot of lurking on this site, I pulled the plug and had a local dealer retrofit one HAH inlet in our house. At the time our basement was unfinished so the HAH dealer was able to come out and install the inlet on our main level which is all wood flooring. I believe they hung the HAH tubing and then tied it in to the main trunk line of the regular system.

We really love HAH over the regular central vac hose. So much so that I really never use the regular hose. If I could do it all over again, I would only install the HAH inlets. I would also skip on the vacpans because the hose is much more effective.

A decade later robots and cordless Dysons have much stronger suction and battery life so we do lean towards using those more than the central vac system. However, for weekly deep cleaning, you can't beat the power. Our cleaning lady uses it for her visits as well.

I second that the robots are better. We still use our HAH - and there will always be furniture, stairs, drawers, etc. But, given the robots, I wouldn't pay for an HAH install anymore. A DIY - yes.

Having one in the garage is super nice too - we are years away from robots cleaning my car.

if the basmeent is still unfinished, can the elbows etc be switched out or would we need brand new tubing?

You've got to change out the stuff right behind the inlets to a larger radius. If you can see / get to those, then yes. And you also would need to make sure that there are no tight turns heading backwards from the inlet with the HAH, either - those may be more difficult to determine.

I can't get to the ones easily to retro.

with an unifnished basement (for now), it should be pretty simple, no?

Will the CANA_VAC 700airwatts work?

Simple?

You have to change the outlets (do you have a 2nd floor?). This requires cutting into drywall but can be done. I used brackets that nail to studs but their might be "retrofit" options. If not, you would have to make the hole bigger to attach to the stud and then do drywall repair. The outlet gets pulled on so it should be secured pretty well. I don't see retrofit options but I didn't look hard.

Then you have to lengthen the run since the tube has to be 10 feet longer than your hose. This often involves making a large square in a basement. This is done using $10 elbows that are sweeping - larger radius. This isn't hard but the route does depend on having some access between the ductwork and plumbing. This large square needs to be on the same plane. You can't (or at least not supposed to) have vertical components. You come down from the outlet and then have 60 feet or so horizontally. Very few would have 60 straight feet since you put outlets central in a house which is why you build a square/rectangle - and then head to the unit.

Your unit would probably work but depends on number of outlets, size of house, length of hose.