If you’ve decided the days of dealing with tangled cords, cumbersome bags and limited mobility are over; you are probably ready to ditch your regular vacuum for one of the many far more preferable central vacuum systems. But making a buying decision should be no impulsive move. Instead, developing an understanding of the different kinds of systems will allow you to choose one that best fits the needs of your home and budget. You also have to gauge how much you would be willing to spend on the installation process. Hiring a contractor can be considerably more expensive than doing the job yourself; though going it alone could end up being a nightmare if you run into problems halfway through the job. That makes it important to not only grasp the different systems available, but also the readiness of your home to have one installed.

Assuming you aren’t building a house from scratch and can just include a centralized system in the blueprints, there are some easy ways to gauge the difficulty of running tubes through your house. You’ll want to first start by figuring out where the power unit and main receptacle will be located. If you own a newer home that features a lot of drywall and open spaces in between to work with, the basement or garage would be a good central point. If you’re dealing with an older structure, where brickwork and plaster are more predominate, using the attic as a starting point to hang tubing downward might be easier.