When using your wet/dry as an extractor...

[turborave]

do you make any changes to the vac?? do you have to takeout the filter and all that just for a little bit of water? mine came with some kind of foam sleeve for when you use it to suck up water. i think you are supposed to put it around the filter, or instead of the filter, i dont remember.



i sprayed down my wifes front mats with Spot Shot and then a scrubbing with a carpet brush, then a sprayed them with water from a spray bottle. i then used the 5hp craftsman wet/dry wall vac to suck out the water. it wasnt very much liquid, so i didnt bother to change anything on the vac.

[Accumulator]

Yeah, I remove the paper filter and either use a foam sleeve over the filter housing or nothing at all. If there`s enough water to soak the filter it kills the suction and makes for a nasty mess. Even after it dries, the filter never seems to work well again, it`s all blocked up with dirt until/unless you clean it.



Most of the time I just keep the garage wet/dry vac set up for wet-duty, but that`s just how it works out best in *my* garage.

[turborave]

what happens if you have the filter out and you use it for dry pick up?

[jerry@robs]

simple, you`ll damage the motor, which is the bulk of the cost of the machine.

[Accumulator]

Originally posted by turborave

what happens if you have the filter out and you use it for dry pick up?



Yeah, you`ll get dirt in places where you`re only supposed to have clean air. But FWIW, those motors can put up with a lot of abuse. The filter retaining nut on one of mine came off and I ended up putting a *lot* of dirt/dust through mine beofre I noticed it :o Didn`t seem to hurt it any; it`s still working fine. You can take things apart to some extent and clean it out pretty well.