FIG. 7. SEPARATORS INSTALLED BY MR. KENNEY IN FRICK BUILDING.
The separators installed by Mr. Kenney in the Frick Building, and which are practically the same as were used by him as long as he manufactured vacuum cleaning apparatus, are illustrated in [Fig. 7].
After his application had been in the patent office for about six years he was granted a fundamental patent on a vacuum cleaning system.
Renovator with Inrush Slot.
—The Sanitary Devices Manufacturing Company then produced a carpet renovator using vacuum only as a cleaning agent. This cleaner has a wider cleaning slot than the cleaners usually furnished by Mr. Kenney, about ⁵⁄₁₆ in. wide, with a supplemental slot or vacuum breaker opening out of the top of the renovator and separated from the cleaning slot by a narrow partition extending nearly to the carpet, as illustrated in [Fig. 8]. The relative merits of these types of renovators will be discussed in a later chapter.
FIG. 8. VACUUM RENOVATOR WITH INRUSH SLOT, INTRODUCED BY THE SANITARY DEVICES MANUFACTURING CO.
Shortly after the introduction of vacuum cleaning by Mr. Kenney and the Sanitary Devices Manufacturing Company, the American Air Cleaning Company published an interesting little booklet entitled, “Compressed Air Versus Vacuum,” which set forth in great detail the so-called advantages of compressed air over vacuum as a medium of mechanical carpet cleaning, and, apparently, proved that vacuum cleaners were much less efficient than cleaners operated by compressed air. A year or two later the American Air Cleaning Company evidently had a change of heart and began to manufacture these same “inefficient” vacuum cleaners. Their previous treatise on vacuum cleaning, which apparently was not copyrighted, was republished by both the Sanitary Devices Manufacturing Company and by the Vacuum Cleaner Company, which had acquired Mr. Kenney’s patents, and freely distributed. Thus this little work of the Milwaukee company, instead of injuring their competitors, was turned into good advertising for them and required a lot of explanation from the Milwaukee company.
Steam Aspirators Used as Vacuum Producers.
—The American Air Cleaning Company used a steam aspirator as its vacuum producer and, unlike its predecessor, the air-operated ejector, it made good and has also been used to a limited extent by the Sanitary Devices Manufacturing Company. It is now marketed by the Richmond Radiator Company, and its merits will be discussed in a later chapter. The American Air Cleaner Company also used as a vacuum producer the single-impeller type of rotary pump, made by the Garden City Engineering Company, which was also later adopted, to a limited extent, by the Vacuum Cleaner Company. This will be discussed further on.