How to Clean a Vacuum Hose
Every vacuum cleaner has a set of parts, accessories, and tools it uses to remove debris from your floors. Many of these parts are crucial for the suction, efficiency, and ease of use, so it’s vital to maintain them clean.
And while some parts are easier to clean than others, your vacuum hose might give you the most trouble. It’s the most useful tool to get to hard-to-reach areas and above-floor surfaces, but only if it’s clean.
A clogged vacuum hose is useless, so make sure to wash it regularly. Read below to discover how to clean a vacuum hose using tools and ingredients you have at home.
The Importancy of Cleaning Your Vacuum Hose
As mentioned, a vacuum hose is meant to help you reach areas of your home you otherwise can’t get to. In other words, it makes it easy to clean your furniture and under it, the stairs, shelves, and a wide range of tight spaces around the house.
The vacuum hose helps you reach above-floor surfaces without having to lift your heavy-duty vacuum cleaner. However, it can often get clogged with all kinds of things like fur, furniture stuffing, dust, dirt, paper, debris, and small items like paper clips.
When these things clog the hose, they make it impossible for the vacuum cleaner to perform efficiently. Your vacuum will likely continue to provide strong suction, but the clogging doesn’t let it suck in the debris it picks up if it picks up anything at all.
This is precisely why you want to clean the hose regularly. Failing to do that will result in dirt buildup and clogging that will eventually mess up your vacuum cleaner’s efficiency due to low air movement.
Over time, dirt and dust will continue to build up inside the vacuum hose, making it impossible for air to flow. Eventually, this can become too large to try to clean and might even cause your vacuum cleaner to overheat.
5 Useful Steps to Clean a Vacuum Hose
- Preparedness – The first thing you should do is prepare your hose and the tools you’ll need to clean it. As always, make sure to unplug the vacuum cleaner before doing any work. Remove the hose from the vacuum and take the work outside if you can. Get a bucket of warm water and dish soap, a cleaning cloth or a cleaning brush, and a mop or broom handle. Ensure that the bucket is big enough to fit the entire vacuum hose and that the brush and broom handle are long enough, as well.
- Dry-clean First – Once you remove the hose from the vacuum, you should take some time to inspect it visually. Getting rid of as much debris as possible before you use water will help make the entire process a bit less messy. The best way to do this is to shake the vacuum hose and allow stuff to fall out. You might not get much out of it this way, but it’s worth trying if it’s not a big clog. Remove visible hair strands and stuff that’s at the end of the hose. This shouldn’t be too difficult but will make a difference.
- Soak and Wash – Grab a bucket large enough to fit the entire length of the hose. Fill it with hot water and add some dish soap to help break down dirt and grime. Soak it for at least an hour to allow the dish soap to do its magic. Once the time is up, you can straighten the hose to check if any debris will fall out. You can also let it fill with water and then grab each end and lift it so that the water inside moves from one end to another. This can help it push the clog out.
- Push the Clog Out – Unless you managed to remove the clog by now, you should try to push it out. This is easy to do, but you have to be careful not to damage the hose. For this step, you can use a broom or mop handle, or even a bottle washer/brush if it’s long enough. Keep in mind that you don’t need a cleaning cloth if you’re using a bottle washer. Push a broom handle through one end of the hose pushing the clogs out. Note that it’s really easy to damage the hose if you’re not careful enough. Place a wet rag over the end of the handle and push it inside the vacuum cleaner hose. The rag is meant to wash the hose, so repeat the process until it comes out clean.
- Rinse the hose – You can skip this step if you only used water to clean. If you used soap or laundry detergent, you should rinse it, or it might turn sticky later on. Dirt, dust, and hair will stick to the inside of the vacuum hose, clogging it once again and sooner than you think. Use a bucket of clean water to rinse or place a garden hose at the end of the vacuum hose. Finally, allow enough time for the hose to dry before using it.
How Often Should You Clean Your Vacuum Hose?
Cleaning a vacuum hose is something you want to do at least once a month. However, it’s always important to think about your household and how frequently you vacuum the floors.
In other words, ask yourself how often you’re using the vacuum cleaner and what it is that you usually find on your floors. You probably vacuum more frequently if you have a big household with many people and pets.
If so, you should also clean the hose more often. Pay attention to how dirty the vacuum cleaner hose is and use that to decide whether it needs more frequent cleaning.
Final Thoughts
Vacuum hoses are probably the most neglected parts of every vacuum cleaner. The reason behind this neglect is that many people don’t know how to clean a vacuum hose.
Hopefully, this guide helped you understand how easy it is to wash the hose using just hot water and some stuff you have around the house.
Cleaning it isn’t particularly fun, especially if you have to do it frequently. But, it doesn’t have to be difficult as long as you do it as a part of your regular vacuum care and maintenance routine.
Keeping the hose clean helps to maintain suction power and constant air movement. It’s especially important for a vacuum cleaner like a canister that’s pretty much useless without a functioning hose.
