Carmine,
This will probably fall under your area of expertise and experience, but all are welcome to contribute. As I transition from being unemployed to being self-employed, I am looking for more specialized services to offer my clients.
There are specialized 'rug dusters' for sale which tap the accumulated dirt, dust, sand, and grit out of Oriental rugs by laying them face down over a grid which gives the debris room to fall. These cost upwards of 4,000.00! These have been developed as an alternative to the huge stationary 240 volt dusting machines. All of this to replace regular vacuuming with a Hoover 300, 700, or 150, the ones with the dual divergent agitator bars, with shorter agitator bars and bristle strips in between on each side.
The magic of the Hoover was that the 5,000 taps per minute during slow motion vacuuming set up a wave pattern that vibrated the rug, dislodging the dirt, sand, and grit. It was not accomplished with tremendous suction, though the airflow was good, it was the balance of enough suction to keep snapping the rug up after each tap. The sand was not actually beaten out of the rug as much as the rug was pushed down leaving the sand in mid-air to be caught by the airflow generated by the fan, as explained by the laws of Newtonian physics.
My question is this: Short of finding and restoring a few 150 Hoovers, is there any alternative? Would any later model Hoovers accept the dual divergent agitator? How late? A current Guardsman, maybe, with some alteration perhaps?
A Kirby with a cloth bag has been suggested to me. A G series will not accept a full-fledged sani-emptor, and probably is too powerful to sustain the tap/snap action. A cloth bag would yield too much airflow, and a hepa bag too little as it fills. A Heritage I with a cloth bag seems the only other possibility. The Sanitaire Vibra-Groomer I is not sufficient, about the same as the standard Hoover agitator with just one strip of beater bar per side.
The idea of being able to restore neglected Oriental rugs with simple thorough vacuuming for good pay is very appealing. As I understand it, Hoover abandoned this configuration of agitator because as area rugs gave way to wal to wall carpet, it did not grab and hold the wall-to-wall carpet as well as the newer, less expensive to produce version, which had just the one spiral strip per side. Hoover could have ruled if they had stuck to being a status symbol. Imagine being able to switch out the roller and bottom plate to adapt the vacuum to whatever carpet/rug/floor needed to be cleaned. The mind boggles, while the Hoover just beats, as it sweeps, as it cleans...
Trebor
