Suckers for change

Take a cotton pillow case and something that resembles a small tea chest fixed to a broomstick and you have some semblance of the earliest motorised domestic vacuum cleaner in your hands. I don’t know if James Murray Spangler realised he was onto something big but he had just pulled together the best of a number of previous patents into something practical, light and manageable for domestic use. Indeed, a true first.

Spangler of Ohio, USA, was a retail salesman in a furnishings store, whose job involved the domestic upkeep of the sales floors, including cleaning the carpets. What drove Spangler to file his 1907 patent for his device was his suffering from asthma and the vigorous sweeping of carpets which only exacerbated his suffering. However, unlike his 100 years on successor Dyson, Spangler didn’t have the resources to develop and market his own product and this is where his cousin Hoover steps in.

Whether the idea of spanglering the carpets didn't offer the perceived values of cleanliness and efficiency that hoovering seems to have done I'm not sure, but Hoover certainly caught the attention of his market in such a way that his name is still the generic term applied to suction cleaning appliances globally.

Just taking this back a short way, there were numerous attempts to produce carpet cleaning machines around this time, probably one of the most successful being that of John S Thurman, a machine that blew compressed air onto the carpets to remove the dirt. Other machines simply brushed carpets to remove dirt.?

When Hubert Cecil Booth, a 19th Century Gloucestershire engineer, wasn’t constructing ferris wheels, suspension bridges or marine engines, his attention turned to vacuum cleaners. He had studied the then current carpet cleaning methods and watched the demonstrations, yet was determined that the answer to carpet cleaning was suction. In fact, when he was describing to his friends his idea of using suction with a filter cloth to capture the dirt, he was so convinced that he demonstrated his theory by sucking the upholstered seat of his restaurant chair through his handkerchief, proudly displaying the resulting dirt on the handkerchief to his startled and somewhat curious onlookers.

That being said and done, Booth filed his patents and in 1901 his ‘Puffing Billy’ petrol driven, horse-drawn vacuum cleaner was available for service. Westminster Abbey, Royal Navy, Buckingham Palace, Royal Mint, were among the first customers of the services of BVCC, the British Vacuum Cleaning Company.

So it is now 1908 and we have Booth, with his successful vacuum cleaning machine, which by now is electrified and being installed into buildings as a central vacuum system, and on the other side of the Atlantic we have Hoover and his recent acquisition of a patent for something that is going to be really big.

What wasn’t appreciated at this time was that Booth, with his central vacuum system, had by far the most hygienic and healthy cleaning system that exists, even by today’s standards. Why? Because all the dirt and dust extracted through the system passed through a central filtered collection bin and the exhaust air was vented outside, or at least into a basement area, rather than back into the rooms that had been cleaned.

Vacuum cleaning is a vicious circle. Whatever it is you are cleaning up, a vacuum filter will never catch everything and what escapes the filters becomes a high speed projectile flung back into the air. How long it remains suspended in the air depends on its size and weight but it is true that small unseen particles of indiscriminate nature sucked up from floors are propelled back into the air where they remain suspended for hours until they are breathed in or settle naturally.

In many domestic settings this is often a cause of intense irritation to sufferers of respiratory diseases whilst the more industrial settings, and in particular the construction industry, there are many dusts causing more sinister effects including diseases, cancers and life-changing disabilities.

Unfortunately, a lot of people simply are not aware of the dangers of what can be vacuumed up. In doing all the right things, like putting away the brooms, we can expose ourselves to even more danger without the knowledge required for the safe handling of dusts and powders. Of course, the user has to have the knowledge but the first responsibility has to rest with those providing the equipment. Gone are the days when we can simply and cheaply acquire the familiar friendly face for the workshop and expect it to serve as a catch-all. Believe me, I've seen potentially lethal situations where worker are going about their daily business without a clue. This is 2023.

Vacuum cleaners seem to be relegated to the bottom of the importance queue when it comes to issuing the needed tools and equipment for a worker to fulfil their tasks when, in reality, keeping the worker safe has got to be the prime factor in assessing any task. So it's not been uncommon to see an engineer with a beautiful line-up of professional tools and, despite what some might argue, good tools do make a job easier (yes, I'm an advocate of Snap-on hand tools and Hilti and Festool power tools) only to find them trying to hold together a ropey vacuum cleaner with a cracked top, split hose and an evidently burst bag. It simply isn't good enough. It wasn't good enough back in 1923. This is 2023.

Dust extraction is a primary control measure for the safety, health and welfare of the operator and of passive workers in the vicinity. It needs to be sized correctly for its application and the correct specification for both the task being performed and the dust being collected.

Don't leave anything to chance because chance is impartial. It can happen to you. Where air pollution is a risk in the workplace, dust masks and respirators are simply not enough protection against the dangers and, using the standard hierarchy of controls, a realistic risk assessment should be carried out and appropriate control measures put in place.

Choose your vacuum cleaners and dust extractors wisely and if you or your workers need to know more, I've got more information on this which I'll gladly share if you would like it.

About the author: Stephen writes to increase awareness of air quality issues, its causes and effects.