I recommend passing on built-in vacuum cleaner systems. Look at the theory for a minute. Do you hang your hat on suction or airflow? Sure, when you seal the intake of a canister system (all built-ins are canisters) you feel pressure against your hand, or your bowling ball, and you say oooh! But what is the transportation for the dirt? Air! Sorry, but it's all about air flow, not suction. Our very language for the device is wrong. We call it a "vacuum cleaner" while the rest of the western world uses a translation of the word asperator. Breather. CFM is what it's all about if you want to clean rugs. Cubic feet of air per minute. We were hijacked by General Foods marketing genious when they bought Electrolux (USA only) in the 1950s.

I recommend a good breather. Contrary to David Oreck's claim that hotels use his product, it would be the exception, not the rule. Next time you stay in a hotel, have a quick look at the maids cart. Most often you will find a Eureka product called Sanitaire. That's what I recommend to my customers.

Next time you need a vac, buy an upright, but be aware that every manufacturer is selling canisters on wheels now. You have to know the difference. An upright has it's bag or filter after the motor, down line. I know that the market is heading away from this kind of device, but keep in mind that they are driven by what's selling, not by what's best.

Like Beta vs. VHS?

the reason(s) why you may want to consider installing vacs:

Right now, there are tons of a/v jobs so it's a trade off whether to spend time doing a vac on your current job or just heading down the road and doing the next a/v install. I like to think that it will be nice to be able to count on the added revenue from the additional category on each job when things slow down.

You keep another contractor off the site that may have access to other products that you bid or similar items through a distributor catalog. It always sucks when some client or builder (even worse) thinks you are ripping them off when a moron vac/intercom guy tries to say that he can provide what you quoted for 1/3rd less whem he mis-quotes the extra parts that make it all work.

It's another category on your invoices, the dollars that they spend on this shouldn't detract from the structured cabling, distributed audio and theater systems.

Its dead easy, once you understand the concepts of keepinng the tees faced the right way to help the dirt get to the canister.

If you are pulling any significant amount of wire, you already have the Milwaukee SelFeed bits and a big right angle drill to drill all the necessary holes.

If you don't have a licenced sparky on your staff, find one that will sub for you (also a good idea for custom plasma retros) or have the GC call his guy back out on your dime, and the customer pays you or as a change order through the builder and the customer pays the builder) and piggyback the additional outlets and canister power.

It's probably the only subsystem that we install besides security that consistently has real value at resale, and they're better than any upright anyway.

I agree with everything you say 2nd Rick, except that they're better than uprights but that's an arguement for some vacuum cleaner forum somewhere.

In a perfect world, for the reasons you stated above, we would handle anything electric in the project. Sparky work, security, lighting, etc., etc., etc.

And still, it's not total protection against profiteering idiots from queering a deal. I saw a sprinkler system / theater specialist the other day. I had to re-read the side of his truck to be sure I read it correctly.

Yeah, that kind of stuff is hilarious...
I see that all the time at trainings, brand new guys who letter up their vans with anything it says in their distributors catalogs and tell anyone who will listen "I can do that for you".
Most of these guys are terrible at almost everything and muck up the works with good builders and architects who then have little trust for the whole category, including those of us who know what we are doing.

I dont claim to be a clean air guru, but I like the CV because it gets the dirt/dust/dander OUT of the living space... I don't know whether a Kirby, Oreck, Miele, Eureka pro, etc. has better suction or is a better vacuum, and since I don't make money if the customer chooses that route, I don't care to research it.
BTW, I like the HP/Dirt Devil central vacs because my clients will not have to hunt down the bags...

That's gotta be the best quote that I've heard in a long, long time.