Most of you may not understand if I told that a vacuum cleaner works on the principle of creating low pressure, lower than the atmospheric of 1.033Kgf/cm2, at the point of suction and the draft created in this way is sufficient to lift or elevate most domestic and industrial wastes and dirt. To confuse you more, I can tell you that, vacuum cleaners dont produce real vacuum at all. To make things simple, like what the vacuum cleaner does for house or carpet cleaning, we will see, in very simple terms, how a vacuum cleaner works.

A Vacuum Cleaner Works With Simple Arrangements
A vacuum cleaner has nothing more than a simple fan, like the ones we see everywhere, but working in exactly the reverse way. Now, what does it mean, working reverse? Well, this fan is a bit special as it is constructed to suck air instead of blowing it away and is housed in an airtight chamber, still with two passages but only to admit and release air to atmosphere.

To make things further comprehensible, assume the fan is placed inside an odd shaped, big enough tube with one end connected to an easy-to-handle flexible hose with which the cleaner sucks the air and the opposite end, fitted with a mesh for safety, which is after the fan lets the air escape. Simple, isnt it?

Then how and where does it catch the dirt and dust? There are filters made of special cloth or special filter papers (these papers can withstand the impact of high speed air and dirt). You just have to place the filters just before the fan in its protective housing and thats it.

When you switch on the vacuum cleaner, it creates what engineers call as draft, which is plainly the suction power. The wire brush fixed at the end of your flexible hose, through which the dust enters the machine, scrubs & unsettles the clinging dusts from, say, your carpet and they are immediately picked up by the high speed air when to rush into the hose from allover. Air further passes into the dirt chamber where it gets filtered at the filter bag, which you can throw later, and passes out through its exit end. While exiting, it blows all over the fan motor thus keeping it cool as long as you work the vacuum cleaner.

Commercially Available Vacuum Cleaners
Vacuum cleaners come in various capacities, shapes, colors, accessories and for different purposes. Industrial vacuum cleaners can lift iron filings, small screws and nuts &bolts. While buying them, always go by reputation of the maker, warrantee, power consumption and service & spares availability factors.