Vacuum Cleaner

NZLarps Auckland is considering purchasing a vacuum cleaner to take to its events. This will speed up the clean-up time, by ensuring a good quality machine is available. Even though many venues provide a vacuum, often is does not suck well, and if another one was available, then the big areas can be done by two people simultaneously.

Considering the times when mud has been tracked onto carpeted areas, a vacuum with shampoo attachment/option would be seriously considered.

Does anyone in the larp community have contacts that can get us a good price, staff discounts, wholesale etc on a vacuum cleaner.

And does anyone have any recommendations about particular models/brands to get/avoid?

I’ll talk to my parents, Hannah. They own a school cleaning business, so they use/buy/repair industrial vacs all the time

I’ve heard that bagged vacuums work better than bagless, but the flipside is you have to buy bags for it.

Ok, some info, to be used or discarded as you like…

Commercial backpack vacuum cleaners start at $499+GST for a 1200W. There is a $560+GST which is 1000W but lighter in weight. My mum recommends the lighter one. :smiley: But of course we wouldn’t be carrying it round all day long.
They use cloth bags which have to be emptied out regularly and washed occasionally. They cost a bundle, so don’t accidentally throw it away like a paper one!

There is a wet and dry vac for $600+GST (meaning we could vac up liquid spills and wet mud off carpets NOT that we could shampoo the carpet, she seemed pretty sure there’s no such animal, a carpet shampooer is not the same critter as a vacuum cleaner.). These don’t use bags at all, they have a cylinder which you empty. She said there might be one at Mitre 10 called a Karcha wet/dry vac.

If we want to go with standard pullalong brand vac, she recommends Nilfisk. Solid, dependable and will just about suck the carpet off the floor. pull-alongs are a bunch cheaper, starting at about $300-$400+GST and mostly using paper bags, which can be up to $40 for 6. I’d check the cost of bags when buying a vac.

Godfreys next sale could be worth checking out.

Thanks for that Kara. Sounds expensive. :frowning:

Back to my original question - anyone have any contacts in the industry, as it were?
Or second hand options?

Yeah, unfortunately turns out cleaning companies are not wholesalers for vacs. I guess that makes sense. Mum did mention something about upgrading one of theirs. I could ask her about borrowing one of the second hand ones for Teonn so we can try it and see and then maybe we can buy it off them second hand.

The other option is just buy a cheapie but expect to be buying another one every year or two. I mean, I think they go all the way down to $70-$80 at the Warehouse. A new cheapie will absolutely better than that thing we were trying to use at Huia. A hairdryer would do a better job of vacuuming than that thing. :frowning:

I think a couple of hundred dollars for a good solid vaccuum is a worthwhile investment. Me, Porl and Clare were at Motu Moana until 5:30 after the last Teonn, trying to jury rig a working vaccuum out of three broken ones so we could vaccuum the scout hall. I’m not exaggerating any aspect of this story for effect, it is literally what happened. :open_mouth:

As Luke and I are looking to replace our third Warehouse vacuum, I’m thinking $300-$400 is not only a good price for NZLARPs, but or ME! :slight_smile:

That’s cheap as chips. Get something commercial and industrial. They’re made for ‘worst case scenarios’ and ‘vacuuming up weird stuff’ … which sounds perfect for cleaning up after us! :slight_smile: