FIG. 5. MR. KENNEY’S FIRST RENOVATOR, VACUUM ALONE BEING USED AS CLEANING AGENT.
In this system we see the first sanitary device to be introduced into the field of mechanical cleaning, as the dust and germ-laden air were removed entirely from the apartment and purified before being discharged into the outside atmosphere. The foulness of the water in the separators clearly showed the amount of impurities removed from the air.
These machines were mounted on wagons, similar to their forerunners, and were also installed in many buildings as stationary plants, among which were the old Palace Hotel and the branch Mint, in San Francisco, and the old Fifth Avenue Hotel, in New York City.
Systems Using Vacuum Only.
—In 1902 David T. Kenney, of New York, installed the first mechanical cleaning system in which vacuum alone was used as the cleaning agent. Mr. Kenney used a renovator with a slot about 12 in. long and ³⁄₁₆ in. wide, attached to a metal tube which served as a handle, and to a ³⁄₄-in. diameter hose and larger pipe line leading to separators and vacuum pump. Mr. Kenney’s first renovator is illustrated in [Fig. 5].
FIG. 6. AIR COMPRESSORS ARRANGED FOR OPERATION AS VACUUM PUMPS.
Mr. Kenney used as vacuum pumps commercial air compressors, the first of which was installed in the Frick Building in 1902 and is illustrated in [Fig. 6]. Later he adapted the Clayton air compressor, with mechanically-operated induction and poppet eduction valves on larger sizes, and single mechanically-operated induction and eduction valves on the smaller sizes.
The separators used by Mr. Kenney differed from those used by the Sanitary Devices Manufacturing Company in that they contained several interior partitions, screens, and baffles, and the air was drawn directly through the body of water in the wet separator. The relative merits of these types of separators will be discussed in a later chapter.
