If you work in a salon (or out of your home) — whether it’s for human clients or the four-legged variety — you need a good vacuum cleaner. It’s as necessary a tool of the trade as a sharp pair of clippers. Not only do you want to be comfortable in your space, but you also want your clients to know that you’re clean, especially these days. The pros from Vacuum 360, northern Utah’s top vacuum cleaner repair shop, have some tips for hair stylists and pet groomers.

Vacuuming Up Hair

If anyone in your family has long hair or if you have pets, you understand the battle. Hair gets everywhere. Simply throwing clothes and blankets in the washer doesn’t fix the problem, and you can’t throw your rugs and furniture in the washer anyway. What to do?

In the old days, vacuums were no match for hair — especially pet hair. You could go over and over patches of hair with a variety of vacuum cleaner tools only to watch it stubbornly cling to the surface. Today, vacuums such as Dyson, Oreck, Miele and Shark do a much better job at vacuuming up hair.

Vacuuming Up Cut Hair

So often you see hair stylists “cleaning” their chair and station by turning the blow dryer on it and blowing the hair all over the room. The hair, dust and any other particles then settle on furniture, tools, bottles, towels and other people. Presumably, they do it because they are in a rush to clean the chair for the next customer, but they are making a mess that will take many times as long to clean.

If your customer is just getting a trim, hair can be vacuumed quickly and easily. You can even use a cordless vacuum. They take up less space and today, the suction is comparable to an electric vacuum.

When your customer gets a lot of hair cut off, it’s a good idea to quickly sweep the bulk of it into a dustpan and throw it away before vacuuming. There’s no sense filling your vacuum with hair you could just toss away.

It’s those small, almost invisible, pieces of hair that the vacuum is best for. It’s impossible to sweep every trace of hair into a dustpan. Simply get out your bush attachment and go over the chair and other nearby furniture and objects before switching back to the floor cleaner attachment. It takes less than two minutes and does a much better job than a quick dusting with a towel.

The last thing you want is for customers to discover someone else’s hair all over their clothes. You want your customers to trust that you are clean and you are doing everything you can to protect them.

Vacuuming for Pet Groomers

Vacuuming pet hair is a little different. That’s because pet hair differs so much among breeds. With some breeds, hair will fly all over the room when you blow dry. Others will shed simply from the stress of being groomed. At a pet grooming salon, hair can hang in the air like pollen.

When you’re vacuuming up pet hair, you should follow a similar process as with human hair, removing large clumps with a broom or dustpan and brush and following up with your vacuum.

It is generally accepted at any business that serves pets that there will be some unavoidable intermingling of pet hair; however, diligent vacuuming can keep this to a minimum.

Vacuums That Maintain Suction

At hair salons and pet grooming facilities, you are not only vacuuming every day, you are vacuuming all day as well. That means your vacuum gets a lot of use. Only for the last 30 years or so have vacuums been constructed with the technology to maintain their sucking power over time. Prior to that, vacuums were made in such a way as to allow fine particles of dust to escape from the bag or dirt cup and lodge in the motor, damaging it and slowly and eventually destroying it.

Today, our most popular vacuum cleaners maintain their suction power for many years, so anyone who must vacuum a lot as part of their job doesn’t have to worry about their vacuum’s longevity.

Hair Can Clog a Vacuum

However, regardless of the brand of vacuum you have, hair has the potential to create clogs and other issues. Whether long hair falls out more often or is simply more noticeable because of its length is unclear, but one thing is for sure — it must be vacuumed up.

The issue with long hair is that it tends to wrap around the vacuum’s brush. It’s unlikely it would stop the beater bar from spinning, but eventually it begins to look like your hairbrush — completely covered in hair. This impedes the vacuum’s ability to do its job, preventing the bristles on the brush from brushing debris into the suction area.

If you vacuum up long hair, check your vacuum brushes regularly. The hair can usually be removed with scissors and needle-nosed pliers, but if you’re having trouble and your beater bar is not spinning correctly, bring your machine into our vacuum repair shop. We will thoroughly clean your brushes and get your vacuum working properly again.

Large volumes of hair such as from multi-pet households or pet grooming facilities can also clog vacuum hoses. Especially fine pet hair can even clog a vacuum’s motor, depending on what type of vacuum you own. If you’re concerned about clogs or damage to your vacuum, bring it in to Vacuums 360.

Best Vacuum Cleaner Repair Shop

With locations in Salt Lake City, South Jordan, Layton and Orem, Vacuums 360 is northern Utah’s top vacuum repair shop, serving all areas along the Wasatch Front. Count on us for all your vacuum cleaner repairs and sales.