How does Vac 2 Wash work?
Three parts: ports in the wall where laundry goes in, a concealed pipe network running through the walls, and a catch chamber in the laundry room where everything arrives.
The laundry is carried by vacuum through the pipes to the catch chamber, so nobody has to carry it through the house. It is built for everyday laundry: clothes, towels and bed sheets.
How is it different from a laundry chute?
A laundry chute works by gravity. It needs a straight vertical shaft, with every intake door stacked above a laundry room at the bottom. That works well in hotels and towers designed around one, and it is what Centra's chute systems do.
Vac 2 Wash uses vacuum and a pipe network instead of a shaft. The ports do not have to line up vertically, and it works in single-storey homes as well as multi-level ones, where a chute would not be possible at all.
In short: a chute suits a building planned around a shaft. Vac 2 Wash suits a home where the laundry room is simply somewhere else.
Can it be installed in an existing home?
Centra installs its air systems in both new and existing buildings. As with central vacuum, the pipes need a continuous route from each port to the laundry room, so the work is simplest before walls are closed and more involved in a finished home, where a site visit shows which routes are possible.
When should it be planned?
At design stage, with the other services. Decide where the ports go, usually close to bedrooms, bathrooms and dressing rooms, and where the catch chamber sits in the laundry room. Then the pipes go in at first fix while the walls are still open.
If the villa is getting central vacuum too, both pipe networks go in at the same stage, and Centra plans and installs them together.