Beam Alliance Central Vacuum Review (Postmortem)

[@ikeb3146]

In my opinion, the only central vacuum companies worth buying from are Vacuflo and MD. They have the best warranties and the highest quality units. Vacuflo is great if you want bagless and MD is great if you want bagged. I knew Beam’s quality had diminished somewhat but didn’t realize it was this bad. Thanks for sharing!

[@imdafarmergamerboy1650]

Well every overpriced and under built machine should tell you your horoscope...

[@colterkardas4105]

I don’t understand how this motor got so filthy…I have a beam central vac and the motor has never looked anything close to this one… But, that being said, I’ll clean out my central vac unit every 30 uses or so and check and service the motor (check motor brushes and clean the commutator) at least twice a year. 2006 system and it still has its original motor and original motor brushes… I understand most people don’t do that but this thing looked like they were cleaning without the gasket filter in place… when central vac companies tell their customers “only have to clean it out once or twice a year,” that is the biggest lie ever… the filter or bag begins to lose efficiency just like a canister or upright vacuum do, just not as quickly…great video though!

[@panasonicvac4036]

As what Owen pointed out, this filter is different because it has a gasket and that's only on the Alliance models.

[@mikearrigo5674]

I now have 16 central vacuum units in my collection and I have at least one unit by just about every brand. The brands I don't have are Beam and Nutone mainly because of bad quality. I would never have a bagless unit, some of my units can be used bagged or bagless but I always use them with bags, I would never buy a unit that could not use bags. My favorite brands are Drainvac, Duovac, MD and Galaxie. Vacumaid and Vacuflo also make some good bagged units. Drainvac really makes some great units, I have more units made by them than any other brand, very good quality and power for the price.

[@mikearrigo5674]

I'm not sure if Beam units are any better now since the company that makes the Duovac units bought them. I think the Beam units are overpriced and not very good. Quality is not very good and they are bagless. A bagged unit is better by far. I'm a vacuum collector and have several central vacuum units in my collection. In my opinion, the best central vacuum units are made by Drainvac. I have several of them, they are awesome, very quiet and powerful.

[@WJCTechyman]

Also, if you buy the Drainvac Automatik, you have more than just a dry unit, you can also wash your floors, carpets and furniture while also flushing everything down the drain. It's like a very powerful central vac version of a Rainbow that also has little maintenance. I don't know how good Aqua-air wet dry systems are but, both systems were Canadian invented.

[@DanielHenderson-z9z]

Cost over quality 39 years selling M.D. / never seen that Beam in Central Mass.

[@WJCTechyman]

Pardon my language, but that's pretty piss poor. My Canadian made Beam Smart unit has a 5" 3 stage tangential Lamb motor that may have some bearing issues but is a pretty strong unit overall, and I bought it used at a thrift store for $35 Canadian. Cana-vac has a page about asking about motor size, build quality and everything, and this fits the specs of what they would call a deceptive unit. Most of Cana-vac's line, save for one product line has large multi-stage tangential discharge motors like MD's line, but resemble the typical Beam setup. Cana-vac also makes rebadge units for other companies as well. I look at this machine and it looks like the casing can take a larger motor, looking at that cream foam surround around the mickey mouse motor.

[@WJCTechyman]

I guess I should say that a good portion of Cana-Vac's lineup are also hybrid, meaning you can put bags in them. The beam I mentioned I want to convert to a bagged machine because cleaning it out is a real pain as I take one of my Rainbows to it to clean the filter and I still get dirty. Dust still gets all over my Rainbow too, which means I have to clean it too.

[@VacMaster2020]

To me that motor looks like a Miele motor

[@owenperkins]

It does, doesn't it? But in a Miele it would last a long time because the air is extremely well filtered.

[@mikearrigo5674]

I have actually seen one of these, every year there is a home and garden show here in St. Louis, I was there a couple of years ago and the Beam dealer had a booth. Since I love vacuums I spent some time there and I remember seeing those alliance units. I do remember the motor sound was unique for a central vacuum. It was really quiet and definitely had the shrill sound to it that you describe. That's just an all around bad design. The price for those units ranges from $1000 to $1200, for that price, it should have a nice large bypass motor not a flow through motor which is what I would guess those units use, based on the sound. Most flow through motors have a slightly more shrill sound than a bypass motor, but not like what this had. You can get power units that use bypass motors for those prices. I think what you are paying for with this series is the electronics, supposedly there are special hoses that allow you to control the motor speed and monitor the status of the unit on the hose. I'm not sure how it does this, I'm guessing it uses the low voltage wire to communicate with the hose, or maybe it's wireless. Regardless, there are definitely much better units available.

[@Jon-hx7pe]

that unit can't use a bag? seems stupid to have a bagless model without a very good filter or cyclonic separation with a cone.

[@Jon-hx7pe]

some of them have cyclonic filtration instead of bag and have a cone in addition to keep most of the dirt down. the filter only stops the small particles. they aren't common any more. hayden/air stream used to be like that - good design.

[@Jon-hx7pe]

@Sloppy Turtle the cyclonic vacuum style I'm thinking of has a filter on the intake of the motor to get the fine particles so they don't get into the impellers. 2-stages of filtration with the cyclonic portion being a substitute for the bag. flow-through in general is bad unless there's really good filtration and there rarely is on central vacs.

[@jhomrich89]

So sad to see what used to be a very respectable brand in the industry turn into complete trash. Guess that's what happens when a brand focused on building units down to a price takes over and starts building them. Used to carry them in my old place of employment but once eureka took over we quickly dumped them.

[@miguelteran-raful2718]

Can anyone share the name or actual name of md central vacuum? I can't find it online.

[@owenperkins]

@@miguelteran-raful2718 MD Vacuum's website is www.builtinvacuum.com. Their name (and the original Modern Day brand) is a play on the last name of the company's founder, "Emdy".

[@angeryitalianchef7251]

I thought you were joking when you said it can tell the time, I looked it up, this piece of shit machine can tell the time.

[@johnfr2389]

Can't you just replace the motor instead of the whole unit?

[@owenperkins]

You certainly could, but in this case the motor failure was due to poor filtration in the machine and the new motor would also fail quickly unless this was addressed. So the client opted to replace the unit.

[@nathanielaranda8407]

This is exactly why I don’t like bagless vacuums, I had a shark a while back and it was not good 😒 it was way too much work to maintain, could not get replacement parts of any kind and they are just outrageously expensive for the lifespan of them 🤨

[@WJCTechyman]

The only "bagless" machine I want and have (besides the inverted bag vintage (20-30 y/o) Beam I have is my Rainbow vacuums.

[@electroluxlad]

Never have liked beam Central Vacuums I prefer MD cause that’s what I grew up with

[@electroluxlad]

Plus who the hell needs to know the horoscope on the front of the machine LOL i’m always like MD because they’re so simple there’s no extra stuff it’s just simple

[@WJCTechyman]

@@electroluxlad I would say if you like the Beam formfactor, but want a quality motor, Cana-vac. I should also mention the high-end units are also bagged.

[@electrolux101]

How do I know what MD to install into my home. What should I be looking for? What MD would you put into your home if you needed a new one? Thanks

[@owenperkins]

The Flo-Master F650T is my go-to unit for any home up to about 6,000 square feet. Above that consider the dual motor SilentMaster model S900R/R2. These each require a special electrical circuit and are overkill in an average sized home. But if you really want "suck the paint off the walls" power, that would be it. Also consider the MD M715H, it has a huge 8.4" heavy duty motor and will give you about as much performance as you can get from a regular 120 volt 20 amp circuit. Excellent for retractable hose applications too.

[@angeryitalianchef7251]

Just any bagged MD, like ever, any bagged MD ever is a good machine.

[@braydencordrey8544]

Sad machine

[@jeroentabor4760]

How funny these motors are so developed they can run a central vacuum #golittlerockstar you dont need a big lump of metal bigger is more powerfull and al that nonsense

[@Phil-D83]

Replace the motor, and change the filter. Would have been fine

[@panasonicvac4036]

Then the same thing would happen again.