Essential Parts

There are many places that you can use to find parts for a vacuum cleaner that is broken, providing you have someone around that is handy enough with tools to take a swing at fixing it. The part that breaks the most on most less expensive vacuum cleaners is the drive belt. It’s the rubberized belt that is around 6 inches long, that when stretched out turns the brushes on the bottom of the vacuum.

When you take the vacuum over objects that don’t belong in the vacuum cleaner, such as pieces of rope or a cat’s tail and the unit comes to a screeching halt, the burning smell that will soon fill up the air is your drive belt slowly melting away.

Luckily, the drive belt is available at several locations, so many in fact that your local drug store may even carry them! They are cheap to buy and a snap to replace with a screwdriver and a bit of common sense. For other types of problems that you may encounter, there are a lot of resources at your disposal just in case you decide to tackle the problem on your own.

You should never forget that when you buy parts for your vacuum cleaner, most of the parts you’ll need are going to be specifically made for your particular brand name and model. With the exception of basic items such as drive belts and most bags, most parts aren’t interchangeable between brands and between different models of the same brand.

The first thing to try when you need a part for your vacuum cleaner is the local Yellow Pages book. Inside of the Yellow Pages, you’ll find many listings for appliance parts and suppliers. You’ll have to call each one of the individually to find out if they carry parts for your model and brand. In the rare event that they don’t carry what you need, they can normally order it for you quickly and easily. If that fails, you can always call the company direct that manufactured your model of vacuum cleaner and order the part that way.

Most of the time, you won’t have any problem getting your hands on a part for your vacuum cleaner, unless it is a more intricate part that isn’t readily available. Parts such as the intake or exhaust port are very tricky to replace, and you will probably want to have a professional fix these types of problems.

Drive belts, vacuum bags, and little problems such as these are a snap to replace. With the older style of vacuum cleaners, you don’t have to be an expert to fix a majority of the problems. The newer models however, require quite a bit of skill and technique.

One of the most common problems that will happen is clogging. If your vacuum stops picking up dirt and dust, chances are it has become clogged, which is normally not a parts problem. All you need to do to fix it is take the front assembly off, then manually clean out the agitators and the housing where the dirt makes its way upwards through the vacuum cleaner. This is very easy to do, and won’t take you but a couple of minutes.

Anytime you encounter a parts problem with your vacuum cleaner, you should always take things one step at a time and don’t rush. You can almost always get a hold of a part. If the part is more expensive than you anticipated, you can always scrap the vacuum cleaner and buy yourself a better one - which will save you a lot of time and headache in the long run.

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• Vacuum Cleaners